RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

In the summer of 1977, after Greg Bahnsen had been teaching at Reformed Seminary for a year-and-a-half, a resolution was presented on the floor of the General Assembly requesting that a study committee be appointed to examine the issue of theonomy. The General Assembly chose to refer the matter to a standing committee. The next year the committee reported back. It recommended that toleration for a multiplicity of views concerning “the application of the judicial law for today” be encouraged within the denomination.

At that same juncture (1978), because of the controversy surrounding theonomy which was brewing on campus among the faculty and students, the seminary board, for expediency’s sake, offered Bahnsen a year’s paid leave, at which time his contract expired. The board did not cite his views as a grounds for its decision.

That fall, G. Aiken Taylor, then editor of The Presbyterian Journal, unleashed a series of articles attacking postmillennialism and theonomy. Bahsen wrote a lengthy defense, a portion of which was printed in the Journal. The series and its rebuttal provoked a lot of mail, primarily from theonomists critical of what they perceived to be Taylor’s misrepresentation of their position.

As theonomic graduates of Reformed Seminary sought ordination in the PCA, several of them encountered opposition at the presbytery level because of their views. For some, their ordination was held up for a lengthy amount of time. Quite a number of judicial cases brought before the ecclesiastical courts of the PCA have been initiated by theonomists who have appealed the actions of their presbyteries.

Vallecito

In the mean time, the work of Rushdoony’s Chalcedon Foundation was expanding. Rushdoony relocated from southern California to northern California, near the rural town of Vallecito. The Foundation added new staff members and contributors to its publications. Among the young scholars who became closely associated with Reconstructionist literature at this time were David Chilton and James Jordan. Both of them became theonomists primarily through reading Rushdoony’s works and they both attended Reformed Seminary while Bahnsen was teaching there.

Just when, from all outward appearances, Chalcedon was progressing smoothly and its influence was growing, a division occurred within its ranks. In September, 1981, an announcement in the Chalcedon Report stated that North and Jordan had been dropped from the staff (Chilton had already had a parting of the ways with Rushdoony). No explanation was provided at the time, but subsequent indicators point to both personal and philosophical reasons.

Tyler

Prior to the schism, North, who had become Rushdoony’s son-in-law, had moved to Tyler, Texas. Tyler thus became the home of his Institute for Christian Economics (ICE). He employed Jordan, and eventually Chilton, as staff members. In addition, the PCA church in Tyler was pastored by a theonomist, Ray Sutton. Sutton was a graduate of Dallas Seminary who had converted from dispensationalism to theonomy, a radical change which characterizes a sizable number of theonomists.

The Texas Presbytery of the PCA “began to keep out theonomists,” Sutton claimed, and it also “threatened to suspend the session” of the Tyler church because it had “organized its own Divinity school as a teaching ministry of the local church.” Rather than get into a “protracted battle which would cause too much damage,” the church left the PCA.¹

The secessionist church’s Geneva Divinity School joined the ICE in publishing many different newsletters covering a wide variety of topics. The church also formed an Association of Reformation Churches with a few like-minded churches and pastors on its rolls.

The Tyler church sought to “appreciably alter the thrust of the Christian Reconstruction movement.”² While Rushdoony emphasized Christian education as the primary means of bringing about Reconstruction, the scholars at Geneva stressed “the importance of the local sacramental body of the Church.” Therefore, they were “very much involved in ecclesiastical renewal, canon law, the liturgical movement, the paedocommunion issue, the reestablishment of tithing, and the like.”³

In December, 1987, the Tyler church changed its name to Good Shepherd Episcopal Church and joined the American Episcopal Church, a group which has broken off from the mainline Episcopalian denomination.

Atlanta A few years after the Tyler secession, another theonomic church in the PCA became the focus of controversy. The Chalcedon church of Atlanta, Georgia, had prospered under its pastor, Joseph Morecraft. Its physical plant grew and it published its own monthly magazine, The Counsel of Chalcedon. In the fall of 1982, though, a group withdrew, “charging that the church was going beyond the Westminster Confession in requiring its officers to hold both to theonomy and to postmillennialism.”⁴

The withdrawing group’s complaint was not upheld by the North Georgia Presbytery, but Morecraft’s church viewed the decision as a hollow victory, sensing that theonomy would never be popular in the PCA. It looked into affiliation with the OPC, but decided against it because the OPC had not itself resolved whether it would tolerate an emphasis on theonomy in the church.

It also considered alignment with the Tyler association, but Morecraft studied the issue of paedocommunion and concluded that it was unbiblical. Therefore, the Chalcedon church decided to secede from the PCA and form the “embryonic” Covenant Presbytery. Along with a number of daughter churches and other churches which have sought affiliation, the Covenant Presbytery has developed into a full-fledged denomination, the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the U.S. It even has a close affiliation with a new seminary, Whitefield, in Lakeland, Florida.

PCA Today

There are several dozen theonomic pastors in the PCA today and many others who are sympathetic to the movement. A number of them serve as contributing editors to Morecraft’s publication, The Counsel of Chalcedon. Certain presbyteries, like Westminster in the Appalachian region, have greater concentrations of theonomists, while others, like the Gulf Coast Presbytery, have vigorously sought to exclude them. When able, many theonomists have sought positions on the judicial committees of the denomination.

OPC Developments

When Bahnsen left Jackson, he became an OPC home missions pastor in Placentia, California. There he continues to preach and to write extensively, occasionally venturing out to lecture.

The OPC also has a dozen or so additional theonomic pastors. Tbeonomy has been discussed briefly at General Assembly, but it has not been formally studied at the denominational level. In 1983, the Northern California Presbytery sponsored a conference on theonomy, but little was solved by it.

Journey Magazine, edited by OPC pastor Richard Knodel ofLynchburg, Virginia, devoted an entire issue to theonomy (November-December, 1986) and has been very sympathetic to the movement. David Chilton, who has had a falling out with North, is presently serving as the stated supply of an OPC chapel in California. He has not yet been accepted by his presbytery because of reservations about his view of the sacraments. The OPC foreign mission board is also supplying personnel for a Reconstructionist work in Surinam.

Reformed Church in the U.S.

This small denomination from the German Reformed tradition first began to hear about theonomy ten years ago through Norman Jones, then editor of its monthly magazine, The Reformed Herald, who placed excerpts from works by Rushdoony, North, and Bahnsen. Bahnsen was asked to address the denomination’s ministers’ conference in 1978 at Dordt College.

The next year a couple of Bahnsen’s former students sought entry into the denomination. Eventually, several thconomists did enter and a few years down the road, controversy ensued. The denomination appointed a committee to investigate theonomy in 1983. That committee presented its report in 1985, but the action taken did not satisfy the opponents of theonomy. In 1987, they made an effort to have theonomy declared out of accord with the Heidelberg Catechism. They were only marginally successful and the issue will probably be taken up again.

Reformed Churches of New Zealand

Theonomy was introduced into the Reformed Churches of New Zealand, a denomination primarily of Dutch immigrant stock, by Richard Flinn, another student of Bahnsen’s at Reformed Seminary. Flinn returned to his homeland and served as a home missionary. In a short time, be began to contribute articles to the denomination’s monthly magazine Faith in Focus. In about a year, he became its editor and the magazine started to reflect his theonomic convictions. Soon, an American classmate and fellow theonomist came to serve as a home missionary as well. Later, another American theonomist took over a pastorate in New Zealand.

This denomination has also appointed a committee to study theonomy. Most recently, Flinn has resigned from the denomination.

CRC

Even though Rushdoony contributed articles to The Torch and Trumpet over a considerable span of years, that relationship died out as he developed his own forum for spreading his views. His books continued to be reviewed, but they were not as enthusiastically endorsed as they once had been. A few West Coast CRC laymen continued to provide some financial support for his endeavors. E. L. Hebden Taylor, sociology professor for many years at Dordt College, while not entirely endorsing their views, did make a generous use of Rushdoony’s and North’s analyses. Recent years have witnessed some theonomic influence on the CRC and Gary Moes, editor of Chalcedon Report, is a Calvin College alumnus and a member of the CRC.

Charismatics et al.

While the focus of this article has been on theonomy’s effect on some of the small Reformed denominations with which the CRC is in ecclesiastical fellowship, it would be the wrong impression to think that Reconstructionism’s profoundest influence has been on them. Rather, independent Baptists, Catholics, and especially Charismatics are attracted to what Rushdoony calls, “God’s plan for victory.” Chalcedon Report goes out to over thirty countries around the world and organizations which foster Christian Reconstruction are in place in Australia, England, and the Caribbean. (To be continued)

Footnotes:

¹ Quoted in Clarence Stam, “The First Annual Geneva Conference and the Association of Reformation Churches,” Reformed Perspective (March, 1983), 12.

2 Tape ad for the First Annual Geneva Reconstruction Conference, February, 1983.

³James Jordan, “Christian Reconstruction: A Definition,” Journey Magazine (November-December, 1986), 9.

⁴Joel Belz, “Strict Theonomists Set up ‘Embryonic’ Presbytery,” The Presbyterian Journal (March 2, 1983), 4.

David K. Watson has a BA. from Wheaton College, a MACS from Calvin College and a MAR from Westminster Theological Seminary. His address is 3 East Manoa Rd., Havertown, PA 18083.