Christian Reconstruction vs “Social Justice Warriors”

The doctrine of rights is still very powerful, and its main area of power is among newcomers to social power, minority groups in particular. Its content grows vaguer as its political power increases.^[1]

Could there be a more prescient passage by Rushdoony regarding the very times in which we live? Is he not precisely describing the contemporary movement of Social Justice Warriors (SJW) who’ve picked up the cause of every minority group and seek to hold college campuses hostage?

And do we not all sit and wonder about what precisely these misguided protestors stand for? It seems that Rushdoony is accurate to say that “its content grows vaguer as its political power increases.” In other words, they’re like children wielding a gun. There’s no depth to their reasoning. There is only a lust for power and significance. And the more that power grows, the less reason they’ll need to justify it. The “newcomers to social power” are usually the most dangerous.

Why do we have to contend with revolutionaries? It’s because of misplaced sovereignty. Historically, sovereignty belonged to royalty, emperors, or an elite political and social class—because sovereignty meant to be above all others—but after Marx and the rise of rank democracy, sovereignty was up for grabs:

Because sovereignty has been democratized, it has left kings, the artists, and others, for the mob, for mass men. The manipulation of the people by the media and by the political elite has become a necessity for rule and for “social order.” The goal of diverse groups has become to capture the attention and the allegiance of the masses, to command the revolution which continues to spiral downward.^[2]

Today’s Establishment is hardly an opponent to the SJWs. Rather, the young revolutionaries are provided with a very large microphone which makes the media and the political elite accomplices to the downward spiral of the new mob mentality. Why? It’s because the last vestiges of Christian civilization must be destroyed—although now it’s labeled pejoratively as “white privilege”—so a new “city of man” can be built. The difference is that this humanistic metropolis will be postmodern, neo-Marxist, and grossly perverted.

The Biblical premises are all hostile to the revolutionary ideology, because Christianity affirms God as the Creator and Redeemer, not chaos and revolution. Power is sought from above, not from below. In fact, for Christianity, power from below is ultimately demonic.^[3]

As Christians, we must call the new revolutionaries what they are: demonic. Their starting point is “chaos and revolution,” because their endpoint is power and the will to be as god.  For us, the starting point is the fear of the Lord and the desire to do His will, and for that reason, we must mount a “counter-revolution” of sorts—one modeled after God’s prophetic standard.

For example, when God called the prophet Jeremiah to ministry, He ordained the young man to a revolutionary purpose: “to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant” (Jer. 1:10). There would be nothing diplomatic included in Jeremiah’s mission—he would be a holy revolutionary waging war with the sword of his mouth.

Upon what injustice was Jeremiah working against? It was the injustice against the Lord and His Kingdom. Jeremiah’s ministry targeted the violation of heaven by all them that forsook the Lord, did wickedness, and burned incense to other gods. Jeremiah’s generation transgressed the covenant of their God and they were marked for revolution.

Are we to contend with SJW protestors in the streets? Are we to become political revolutionaries ourselves? No. We are to continue the work of reconstruction, but prophetically, we are to speak the word of reconstruction which includes a clear message of the sovereignty of God against all forms of sovereignty sought by men. Then, we must continue to educate our fellow believers in the dominion mandate of our God. Without a practical message of what the sovereignty of God looks like in history, there is no standard for Christians to follow and no voice to rebuke the enemy:

To be silent in such a time is to deny the Lord, abandon the faith, and concede to the enemy.^[4]

For Chalcedon, the work remains clear and unchanging. Although the times in which we live are changing, there is nothing we’re facing that wasn’t spelled out presciently in the teaching and writing of R. J. Rushdoony. He wrote much about the revolutionary drive of fallen men, and his remedy was always “regeneration not revolution.” By that he meant no violent revolution (he referred to the Christian education movement as a “quiet revolution”). As Christians, we do engage in war and revolution, but they are much different than those waged by men:

We are at war, but the weapons of our war are not material but Biblical and Spiritual ones, and our calling is to believe and obey the Lord, to bring people to Christ, to extend His dominion, and to establish the crown rights of our King in every every area of life and thought.^[5]

There is the work of reconstruction that we all must do, and then there is the word of reconstruction that must be proclaimed which is a work for Chalcedon to do. You are very much a part of this calling as you equip yourself, share this message with others, and faithfully support this ministry.

^[1] R. J. Rushdoony, Sovereignty (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 2007), p. 128.

^[2] ibid.

^[3] Sovereignty, p. 455.

^[4] R. J. Rushdoony, Roots of Reconstruction (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1991), p. 519.

^[5] ibid., p. 451.