As a result, the break-down in secular legal structures throughout the world—a legal crisis which is becoming increasingly obvious to voters, politicians, and humanistic scholars—has not brought with it a cry for the restoration of biblical law, the only alternative which has any possibility of survival in the long run.

The continuing and intensifying economic crises of the twentieth century are the direct product of the interference into the economy by the civil government. The messianic state cannot permit any aspect of human life, animal life, and inorganic nature to assert any claims of lawful independence from political manipulation. The end result of the deification of the state is the breakdown of humanistic society.

Secular historians are interested in the wider impact of Puritanism in Anglo-American history.They are interested in Puritan theology only insofar as this theology explains the origins of Puritanism’s wider impact.

The belief that modern Israel fulfills biblical prophecy is a theological aberration. Traditional postmillennialists, amillen-nialists, and premillennialists have never believed that national or geographical Israel is relevant this side of the rapture.

This volume is devoted to a study of the Puritans, the contributors survey the impact of Puritan sermons, thought, and law on society in general. There is little doubt today that the Puritan movement in England and the New World helped to reshape the basic institutions of the Anglo-Saxon world. In previous issues, we have surveyed the Puritan views concerning civil law, economics, science, and other kingdom institutions. Now we focus on those aspects of Puritan life that concerned the family, the institutional church, music, death, and Cromwell's Protectorate. Whatever politics you adopt, he says, should be liberal; whatever economics you adopt, of course, should be interventionist. Not impressed by biblical law. Dr. Lloyd-Jones falls back upon the conventional "unconventionality" of late-twentieth-century British politics—all in the name of liberal innovation. He ignores the fact that the dominion covenant was reestablished, after the Fall, with Noah. The Fall has now become an excuse for not doing anything to cure its effects. However, he said in his 1975 essay, "Looking at history it seems to me that one of the greatest dangers confronting the Christian is to become a political conservative, and an opponent of legitimate reform, and the legitimate rights of people" (p. 103). But if explicitly Christian reform is doomed, what kind of "legitimate reform" does he have in mind? Why, "Calvinist reform," meaning economic interventionism, since Arminianism supposedly leads to laissez-faire: "Arminianism over-stresses liberty. It produced the laissez-faire view of economics, and it always introduces inequalities—some people becoming enormously wealthy, and others languishing in poverty and destitution" (p. 106). Free enterprise creates inequality! If these conclusions seem preposterous to you, you will want to order the latest Journal of Christian Reconstruction, which contains my article showing how free enterprise economics came to the Puritan colonies iii the final years of the 17th century. You will want to read Gordon Geddes' essay on the Puritan view of death, Greg Bahnsen's defense of biblical law against Merideth Kline's attack, Rita Mancha's study of women in Calvinist thought, Richard Flinn's essay on the Puritan concept of the family, James Jordan's essay on Puritanism and music, and David Chilton's defense of Oliver Cromwell. "Puritanism and Society" will provide you with information which will enable you to decide whether Dr. Lloyd-Jones' assessment is correct, whether his view on 17th-century Puritanism's outlook is truly heretical. These three issues of The Journal have created considerable controversy. The idea that Puritanism was essentially a "package deal"—a comprehensive world-and-life outlook that affected all spheres of social life—has alienated numerous self-proclaimed neo-Puritans. This series has also driven another group to abandon the Puritan tradition, and to adopt a kind of neo-anabaptism to replace the older "theonomic" Puritan tradition. The "reprinting neo-Puritans" have faced a dual challenge: either adopt the theonomic tradition which was fundamental to the Puritan movement, or else abandon Puritanism's tradition in favor of new-anabaptism. Predictably, they wish to do neither. Yet to remain "betwixt and between" is to remain caught in a crossfire. The interesting product of this immobility has been a narrowing of focus: endless articles on the ("beneficial") emotionalism of Puritanism, and a stream of biographical articles, primarily dealing with the less well-known later preachers who have defended predestination, but who had little or no lasting influence on Western culture, and who were not explicitly Puritan in their outlook.

What’s wrong with Reformed evangelism? Something certainly appears to be wrong. When we look at the growth of Arminian Baptist churches and compare this growth with the various Reformed Baptist and Presbyterian denominations, the numbers are very discouraging. When J. Gresham Machen left the old Presbyterian Church of the USA, he believed that his newly formed Presbyterian Church of America would grow rapidly as a result of its commitment to biblical inerrancy and the fundamentals of the faith. Instead, it suffered a split the next year (June 1937), and the two new denominations, the Bible Presbyterians and Orthodox Presbyterians, have not grown much in membership since 1937. Much the same has been true of the various Dutch-based Reformed denominations. They grow only if the birth rate increases, and the death rate decreases within the respective groups. As I noted (at age 21), the Dutch churches seem to have substituted procreation for a Board of Home Missions. (I wasn’t tactful in my youth, the way I am today.) So what’s the problem? As you might expect, there is more than one problem. There is a whole pile of problems, such as: 1) not systematic evangelism programs; 2) imitation Arminian evangelism programs; 3) ineffective evangelism programs; 4) a message geared to confrontation, not conquest; 5) the humanism of our era; 6) lack of capital; 7) lack of confidence; 8) lack of past successes to serve as precedents; 9) seminaries that don’t emphasize evangelism; 10) too much concern for the rigors of theological speculation, and not enough for the demands of applied theology; 11) an inability to recognize and emphasize the strong points of the Reformed heritage (relevance, concrete answers for social problems, scholarship, organization; 12) fatalism regarding stagnation and defeat; 13) ignorance of the warfare between Christianity and humanism; 14) compromised apologetic methodology (rationalism); 15) a constricted view of the Kingdom of God; 16) incompetence in the area of communication; 17) a failure to tithe. One of the criticisms that has been aimed at the Christian reconstructionist movement is that it has not been concerned with evangelism. An odd charge, coming from pastors who have never demonstrated that they have had any grasp of evangelism techniques, given their tiny churches and invisibility in their communities. The Christian reconstruction movement is less than a decade old. It has little capital. Yet despite its youth and its lack of capital, it has been influential enough to become a force in American thought and culture. When Newsweek identified the source of the “religious right’s” ideas, it listed Chalcedon, and only Chalcedon (Feb. 2, 1981, p. 60). But this is not “evangelism” in the eyes of the critics. This doesn’t count. So what does count? Not sheer numbers, certainly; the critics cannot point to their own success using this criterion. What is the nature of legitimate evangelism? The latest issue of The Journal of Christian Reconstruction addresses itself to this important question. But more than this: it offers specific, affordable suggestions to struggling congregations about how they can grow, become more influential, and count for something within their communities. We need both a theory of evangelism and a practical program for evangelism. The “Symposium on Evangelism” offers both. There has been an enormous waste in virtually all popular programs of evangelism. They have not been cost-effective. They have not targeted their audiences properly. They have not been geared to repeated contacts. They have not been structured in terms of long-range objectives—objectives stretching out two or more generations. The evangelism programs popular (if that word can even be used) in Reformed circles have generally been warmed-over versions of Arminian evangelism. These techniques have not worked for Reformed churches, yet the pastors have not been willing to scrap them and rethink the whole question. Is there a distinctively Reformed evangelism? Are its techniques fundamentally different from those employed by Arminian churches? Is there a distinctively Christian reconstructionist evangelism—a type of evangelism unavailable to the majority of Arminian denominations and congregations? The answer to all three questions is the same: Yes. The Journal provides the evidence. Far from being unconcerned with evangelism, the Chalcedon movement is vitally concerned with evangelism. It is a small movement at present, and it needs capital. How can it expect to become a world-wide force for social change if it neglects evangelism? How can its perspective spread to the decision-makers of this age, except by evangelism? Everyone needs evangelism; the Arminians, the introspective Reformed groups, the traditional conservatives, the Roman Catholics, the universities, the heathen seats of power, the media, the Iron Curtain nations, and all points in between. But the average pastor faces more immediate problems. He has to build up his struggling congregation. He needs to take the first steps. That’s why we have devoted an issue of the Journal to evangelism. What distinguishes the Chalcedon movement’s view of evangelism from the rival varieties that are common today, is the scope of evangelism. We are convinced that no evangelism program can hope to succeed unless it is driven by a vision of universal conquest. The three strongest political forces in the world today are Marxism, militant Islam, and modern science. All three are predestinarian. All three are officially optimistic. All three believe that they possess the key which will unlock the door of history. All three believe that they have access to the true law structure which will give them power over the world. All three see themselves as agents of historical and social change. All three see the whole world as their proper and required domain. Until Christians can match them, doctrine for doctrine, vision for vision, we will sit on the sidelines of history, cheering for no one in particular. Waiting for the “game” to end so that we can go home. That’s what most Christians are doing now. This produces an ineffective evangelism. It produces a socially irrelevant witness. It produces the kind of witness the Roman emperors would have preferred to see the early church proclaim. The “emperors” of our day can live with this sort of witness, too. It is time to change both our strategy and our tactics.—Gary North

The author discusses three major hermeneutical views concerning the fulfillment of the promises God made in the Davidic Covenant—that is, a house (dynasty), a kingdom (realm), and a throne (right to rule). He shows how the adherents of each view differ regarding the timing and nature of the fulfillment of each aspect. He also investigates the hermeneutical methodology of each view to determine how they arrived at their conclusions, and then he analyzes their conclusions from an exegetical perspective. Furthermore, he explains in detail and defends the view he considers to be biblical. Most of all, in an age where compromise on biblical interpretation has become the norm, he encourages his readers to interpret the Scriptures according to the normal laws of language in order to arrive at their intended meaning. I am honored to endorse this book for Patrick Nasongo. His extensive research reveals why three prominent evangelical approaches differ in their interpretations of the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant. His analysis is fair and the reader will learn much about each methodology. Larry A. Tyler, Ph.D. Dean, Bowman School of Bible & Theology Temple Baptist Seminary