Christian Recon Responds:

Jay Rogers, the producer of the Reconstructionist video featured in my last post, has responded.

He appears to argue that the Recons are a bit kinder and gentler than we give them credit for.

It's interesting. None of the "Christian Reconstructionists" interviewed in the God's Law and Society video told us that they held the view that God requires the execution of these capital offenders mentioned here [homosexuals, adulterers, recalcitrant children, and those who openly worship "false gods"]. Steve Schlissel explains that even in Old Testament times, with the exception of murder, these were probably the worst case offenders that received the death penalty. We see in several passages in 1 and 2 Kings that homosexual temple prostitutes were banished rather than executed. King David was pardoned by God himself. Jesus forgave the woman caught in adultery. And so on.

What we do believe is that God's Law is just. If God commands execution for a capital crime, then it is a just punishment. We can't be squeamish about these Old Testament capital laws. This is what our God commanded.

Now whether our society today ought to enforce these laws "lock, stock and tablets" is another argument. There has been a change under the New Covenant regarding certain Old Covenant Laws. Every theonomist we interviewed agreed with this idea. I have always found it strange that people who are opposed to Christian Reconstruction always jump to the claim that we want to stone incorrigible children. No Reconstructionist has argued that we ought to do that.

Honestly I haven't researched their writings in meticulous detail, but from what I understand, they do support execution for these things because the Bible in the OT does. See this article by Walter Olson on the matter.

And from what I've watched in the clips, while they don't out and out say, yes, we will stone these folks to death, it nonetheless seems implicit in their remarks. For instance, watch this clip by Andrew Sandlin where he notes that folks who believe in false gods would have the "liberty" to worship in their homes but not in public. I'd like to get him on record stating, here's how we would punish them and no we wouldn't stone them to death as the Bible commands.