Leaders Assail ‘Moral Bankruptcy of Humanism and the State’ : Chalcedonians Seek to Tailor U.S. Religion to Precepts of Far Right

The predominant philosophy of the Religious Right is that secular humanism and government bureaucracy firmly control the nation. But a network of conservative intellectuals at an influential Christian think tank here believes just the opposite.

Leaders of the so-called Christian Reconstruction Movement assert that humanism is on its last legs. And they say the popular notion that the state can solve basic human problems is an idea whose time has gone.

“We are in the last days of humanistic statism,” declared Rousas John Rushdoony, the chief architect of the Reconstructionists and president of the Chalcedon Foundation. “Now people regard politicians, the state, lawyers--everyone associated with the state apparatus--with the same cynicism that people in 1500 regarded the Catholic Church” (before the Protestant Reformation).

The Reconstructionist Movement, claiming tens of thousands of active adherents--many of them leaders in high positions--traces its roots to the Reformation and stresses its staunch Calvinistic heritage. Chalcedon Foundation leaders define humanism as “the presupposition that reason is autonomous in any area, rather than God.”

Sees It as Filling Gap

Reconstructionist philosophy will soon fill the gap left by the “moral bankruptcy of humanism and the state,” Rushdoony and his colleagues confidently predict.

Their unabashed aim is to transform the mainstream of American culture from within. This can be done, they say, by applying a rigorous system of biblical philosophy to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (II Corinthians 10:5).

The Reconstructionist manifesto to reclaim “secular, humanistic” society for the “Kingdom of God” on Earth will be the “dominant intellectual perspective of Christians for the next 250 years,” insists John W. Saunders III, one of Chalcedon’s 11 regular staff members. “It will dominate because it’s unstoppable.”

Saunders, 47, is better known as John Quade, his professional stage name. He plays villains and “heavies” in such Hollywood films as “Any Which Way but Loose” and television series such as “Hill Street Blues.” But the beefy, squint-eyed character actor-director, who is a veteran of 130 films and TV shows, prefers to wear his hat of scholar, lecturer and author for Chalcedon.

In Mother Lode Country

Some are surprised that Saunders, the personification of evil on screen, is a major strategist for a Christian think tank closely identified with the New Right. But it seems just as unlikely to others that the foundation’s headquarters is nestled on 30 acres of rolling, oak-studded foothills in the Mother Lode country. Vallecito is a hamlet near Murphys, a sleepy Gold Rush town 140 miles east of San Francisco.

The foundation does not seek publicity and has been largely ignored by the secular media.

Rushdoony, 69, a silver-haired theologian who holds a master’s degree from UC Berkeley, a bachelor of divinity degree from the Pacific School of Religion and a doctorate in philosophy, moved here from Canoga Park after establishing the foundation in 1965.

“We were looking for a congenial place where, in times of inflation, we could make our money go farther--and without urban pressure,” Rushdoony explained to visitors at his hilltop ranch house, where chickens and guinea hens freely roam the large garden.

Saunders and his wife live in Murphys, where their five children attend a Christian school run by the foundation. Another key staff member, Otto J. Scott, 67, a former Ashland Oil Co. vice president and an author-historian for the foundation, lives nearby.

Has Wide Membership

The movement also has its educators, economists, artists and musicians.

Newport Beach multimillionaire Howard Ahmanson is a Chalcedon trustee. Ahmanson, state Sen. H. L. Richardson (R-Arcadia), evangelical film maker-author Franky Schaeffer, University of Notre Dame Law School Prof. Edward J. Murphy, and Washington columnist John Lofton have written for the foundation.

The Chalcedon newsletter subscription list numbers 11,000, but Rushdoony says it, plus a biannual journal and a plethora of books (Rushdoony himself has written 31) published by the foundation, reach hundreds of thousands of people. The annual budget, raised mostly from individuals, is about $450,000.

The foundation derives its name from the early church Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, which affirmed the complete and integrated manhood and divinity of Jesus. That creed, the foundation notes in its prospectus, “challenges directly every false claim to divinity by any human institution: state, church, cult, school or human assembly. Christ alone is both God and man, the unique link between heaven and earth.”

‘Crown Rights of Christ’

“Like the Puritans, we seek to assert the ‘crown rights of Christ the King’ over all of life,” Rushdoony said. The Reconstructionist Movement leans heavily on the teachings of the venerable theologian Cornelius Van Til, 91, a founder of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. The school was formed by conservatives in the 1936 split of the Presbyterian Church led by Princeton Seminary Prof. J. Gresham Machen.

While some Chalcedon concerns coincide with the political agenda of New Right groups such as Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and Tim LaHaye’s American Coalition for Traditional Values, Rushdoony feels the Reconstructionist task is more to provide the biblical foundation for those on the front line of Christian activism.

“There is a world of Christianity developing outside the traditional church,” Rushdoony said. “They are on the margins, functioning on their own . . . All these new groups . . . the Religious Right . . . are very receptive to our thinking.”

At present, one of Chalcedon’s primary concerns is establishing family life “by biblical precepts”: promoting Christian schools and testifying in favor of “home schools” in court cases, and fostering an economics system in which “family ownership” and “family trusts” take precedence over “state ownership.”

‘Powers Given to Family’

“According to biblical law, all basic powers except the death penalty are given to the family,” Rushdoony said, explaining the foundation’s position. “These include control of children, property, inheritance, education and welfare . . . A resurgent Christianity is taking them back from the state . . ..”

Added Scott, the think tank’s preeminent historian: “There is a general feeling that we are coming to the close of an age. It’s a period like the time of the Renaissance when everything turned to ashes in (people’s) mouths . . . The Reformation--Reconstruction--can be repeated.”

Would the Chalcedon Foundation be pleased to see America become a Christian theocracy?

If that means a “group of people running the country in God’s name, no,” replied Rushdoony. “But God, governing the lives of people . . . that’s exactly what we are working for.”

Brookings Stance Told

Rushdoony, Scott and Saunders, concluding a long interview, approvingly noted that another think tank, the liberal, Washington-based Brookings Institution, recently said the stability and future strength of America depends on religion. A 389-page report written by government specialist A. James Reichley said that without religion “democracy lacks essential moral support.”

The Brookings report also examined U.S. history and concluded that the First Amendment prohibition of government-established religion is being misinterpreted today in a way that prevents “acknowledging dependence of civil society . . . on transcendent direction.”

The First Amendment, the report said, “is no more neutral on the general value of religion than it is on the general value of free exchange of ideas or an independent press.”