This Present Kingdom: Christian Reconstruction’s Complicated Relationship with the United States Constitution

Abstract

Christian Reconstruction has received little attention from contemporary political science scholarship. A movement founded in theological principles, its politics begin with the sovereignty of the Bible as God’s Word; therefore, the law of the Bible is the proper law by which to govern society. This produces significant antipathy toward “democracy;” therefore, a natural question to ask is whether or not this movement is compatible in its mindset with the U.S. Constitution. On the level of institutional structures, the Reconstructionist perspective appears to affirm that the institutional structure laid out in the Constitution is appropriate, though few have engaged that question head-on. On the level of political paradigm—Biblical law as the organizing principle of law versus democracy as the organizing principle of law—Reconstructionism appears utterly incompatible with the Constitution.