Newt and the Loony Religious Fringe That Now Runs the Republican Party
December 28, 2011 10:15 pm

Frank Schaeffer

.....Gary North, who apparently channels both Ayn Rand and Attila the Hun when reading his Bible, has seriously argued that in the Sermon on the Mount the commandments about love are "recommendations for the ethical conduct of a captive people."

North says that when Jesus commands us to agree with adversaries quickly, to go the second mile, to turn the other cheek, He is really doing nothing more than telling us how to survive captivity at the hands of unbelieving rulers while we -- Jews under the pagan Romans then, American Christians under the wicked U.S. Federal Government now -- are not in power. Once we take over the government and the "unbelieving ruler" is overthrown, then Jesus' ethics no longer applies. Once we take over, according to North, the Christian should no longer go the second mile to love others as he loves himself, let alone turn the other cheek to those who hurt him.

Once Christians are in charge, according to North we, "should either bust him in the chops or haul him before the magistrate, and possibly both." North says, and I quote (no kidding), "It is only in a period of civil impotence that Christians are under the rule to 'resist not evil '." In other words, I suppose the "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" part of the Lord's Prayer no longer applies, once we've got "the power, the glory and the kingdom"--at least until Jesus comes back.

How far would the Reconstructionists go? For North, the death penalty (preferably by stoning people to death) should be part of our law. "The question eventually must be raised," he writes in a book on economics and the Ten Commandments. "Is it a criminal offence to take the name of the Lord in vain? When people curse their parents, it unquestionably is a capital crime (Exodus. 21:17). The son or daughter is under the lawful jurisdiction of the family. The integrity of the family must be maintained by the threat of death. Clearly, cursing God (blasphemy) is a comparable crime, and is therefore a capital crime (Leviticus. 24:16)." .....

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