December, 1995 

Dear ICE Subscriber:

December is the month when non-profit organizations send out their fund-raising appeals: time to get a year-end tax deduction. So, here is my appeal: please send ICE some of your tax-deductible money. Do it today. Here endeth the lesson.

Now, let's get to something more important than money. Let's get to a problem that has confronted the Christian Reconstructionist movement from before there was a Christian Reconstruction movement. I call the problem the kook in the back pew.

I have previously mentioned the Fabians of the late 19th century. They were not just socialists; they were lots of other things. Some were free-love advocates; others were vegetarians; others were occultists (e.g., Annie Besant). They joined together in order promote evolutionary socialism. Had the Fabian movement not been dedicated to just one overarching cause, their individual quirks and commitments would have made cooperation highly unlikely.

When a new movement begins, especially if it promotes ideas that seem to offer innovative solutions to social problems that are getting worse, it always attracts a percentage of extreme fringe people. Every fringe movement has its own fringe people. These are people who do not trust establishment solutions. They are convinced that existing institutions are incapable of reforming what seems to be a collapsing situation.

On the fringes of any fringe movement, there are people — often quite talented — who hold some very strange opinions. This is especially true in the movement's early years, when it is so far out on the edge of the bell-shaped curve that it can't raise money from people who are located inside middle of the curve: the standard deviation.

If normal people are inside one standard deviation, then Christian reconstructionists are inside the second deviation, i.e., pretty deviant. But there are a few who are outside even the second — way, way out on the edge of the curve. In short, the Christian Reconstruction movement has attracted its fair share of kooks. Some arrived early and departed early. Some have remained. Others are still coming in.

I have reduced ICE's supply of such people by concentrating on the topic of building up the institutional Church. Participation as a full Church member does wonders (though not signs) for bringing the discussion inside the standard deviation. Church attendance forces people to face near-normality on a weekly basis.

For over four years, I devoted Christian Reconstruction to a series on how to build up the institutional Church. That series came to an end late this year. One effect of this series was to clean the ICE mailing list of kooks. Not entirely, of course. Some still remain. But they tend to depart for the farther shores of discourse when they are confronted with the doctrine of the Church. (See John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book IV.)

Self-Definition Through Isolation

When someone begins dabbling with ideas on the outer fringes of acceptable theological discourse, he has begun his journey toward the back row of pews. He has begun mentally to identify himself as "not one of those around me." But when "those around me" are in the majority, he is tempted to sit closer to the back pew.

The problem with defining oneself as "not one of those" is that it becomes difficult to identify oneself as "one of these." The more radical the criteria of identification, the fewer there are of "these." They are probably not sitting in the pews where most people sit.

A mark of a personal spiritual crisis is the perception that one is completely surrounded by "those." A person who is all alone in the midst of a crowd has a big problem. He gets no support from those around him. If they knew what he thinks, he would get opposition. Yet he is not ready to make the break. He still thinks he can be a part of the organization without sharing its basic outlook. This isolation is more painful psychologically than most normal people can bear. Abnormal people can bear it longer.

The discipline of being a Church member is what forces the hand of third-deviation fringe people. They cannot stand the pressure. They cannot stand the normality. They blow up. Left alone on the back pew long enough, they eventually blow. They cannot maintain the mental balance required to walk the mental tightrope of "not one of them." Eventually, they ask themselves: "What am I doing here?" This crisis hits.

Negative self-identification without positive self-identification brings mental instability. A person who spends his life saying "that's not my view" and "they don't represent me" will find himself isolated, frustrated, and disoriented.

There are frustrated Protestants who see Christian Reconstruction as the answer they have been looking for. But the isolation gets to them. They find themselves in the back pew. They are discontented about not seeing their views spread toward the front pew. So, they experience a moment of truth: "I am not in the true Church. What next?"

First, they can leave the Protestant Church and join Roman Catholicism or, even more consistently, Eastern Orthodoxy. They can decide that Protestantism is not the true Church. If Christian Reconstruction is not the answer to creating a true Church, then why stay Protestant?

Second, they can search for a tiny, isolated Protestant church somewhere that is the "true Church." They move to the town where it is located. They join. Problem: the whole church is not much larger than one pew.

Third, they can leave the Church altogether. They can apostatize.

I have seen repeated cases of all three solutions. People keep moving toward the back pew. Once there, they are almost ready to move on.

This problem is not unique to theonomy. I know a man who was intense in his dispensationalism. He read books endlessly. His mother had been married five times. His first wife left him. His second wife left. His third wife left after two decades. He became a woman-hater, and began writing about the inferior sex. He was an educator, but no Christian school was good enough, and the public schools were worse. No church was good enough. The last time I heard from him, he had become a spokesman for one of the numerous groups claiming title to the Ku Klux Klan. He had become a kook: capital K.

Some people think they can sit indefinitely on the back pew. They can't. I have had dispensational church members write to me, telling me they are still dispensational, but they believe in theonomy. They are working on changing their pastor to theonomy. It tell them that theologies are package deals. Theonomy just does not fit dispensationalism's system. They tell me I'm wrong. A year or two later, I get another letter: they were just kicked out. They are now no longer dispensational. It takes the right boot of fellowship to get them to drop their dispensationalism. They are no longer in the back pew in the old church.

I hear from a Lutherans who are postmillennial. They expect to persuade other Lutherans of postmillennialism in spite of the Augsburg Confession. This is futile. Lutherans don't have to change. Why should they? If some Lutheran pastor wanted to change, he would go liberal or hook up with the church growth movement. Why adopt a fringe position? Lutheranism is official amillennial. It isn't going to change.

Sliding Down the Bell-Shaped Curve

There are some people who just can't stop the slide down the sharp slope of the bell curve. They discover preterism: fulfilled prophecy in A.D. 70. The next thing you know, they have discovered that the Second Coming of Christ must have taken place in A.D. 70, so there will be no general resurrection. Or they discover that hell must be preterist, too: hell ended in A.D. 70. There will be no future torments imposed by God on fallen angels and fallen men in eternity. Then they expect me or other leaders in Christian Reconstruction to abandon 1,900 years of Christian orthodoxy to join them on the slippery slope.

They are ready to leave the institutional Church. They have abandoned its creeds. They have abandoned centuries of teaching. They promote a position that only the cults have ever taught, and they expect others who have not seen this "obvious" application of theonomy or preterism or postmillennialism to abandon the history of orthodoxy. They want company in the back pew. They want company on the far side of the bell curve. And they honestly expect others to join them.

But they will find that no one ever does join them. Then comes their moment of truth: the long-suppressed realization that the back pew is lonely, and it will remain lonely. What to do? Sit tight? Move to a front pew? Move to a cult? Move to apostasy? Or move to Rome or Constantinople?

Having seen many cases for many years of people sitting in the back pew, the one answer I never hear about is someone's willingness to remain there. Maybe that is because those who write to me are getting ready to move and want to justify themselves to someone. Those who enjoy the back pew do not write me letters. They do not sit down and write:

Dear Dr. North,

I am totally isolated. I attend a church where everyone thinks my views are either heretical, silly, or nutty. These people will not change in my lifetime. The pastor would lose his job if he preached what I believe. My children will probably marry someone in this congregation. My grandchildren will probably think like these people do . . . or worse. There is no church that preaches what I believe. So, I have decided to sit right where I am. If there is a total breakdown in society, maybe someone will listen to me. Until then, I will continue to read all of your publications, since I really don't mind spending the rest of my life being frustrated.

I never have received one of these letters. I don't think I ever will. People don't write letters like this.

This is why donating your time to local church projects is good. This way, you can participate in the division of labor. You will see lives changed. While you are waiting for the Holy Spirit to change the minds of billions of pagans to Christianity, and a billion Christians to theonomy, do something useful with your life. Quit looking for the true Church in a time of cultural breakdown. It isn't there.

Read to please yourself. Read to get things clear in your own mind. Stop imagining that you are responsible for getting things clear in other people's minds unless they ask you to clear up a few matters. If you can get things clear in your mind, you have achieved a great deal. Most people never do — not in a lifetime. That's why ICE is here: to help you get things clear in your own mind. If we can do this for you, we've been successful. But if you remain on the back pew, you haven't got ICE's message clear in your own mind yet.

 

Sincerely,