Now, that some theonomists like Andrew Sandlin, Doug Wilson, and Gary North (before he recently died) have been guilty of this universalizing and abstracting tendency. This has been due to their Libertarianism and not due to theonomy. The Libertarian, by insisting on the non-aggression principle, reduces all culture to a least common denominator universal sameness. The theonomists who have allowed their Libertarianism to overshadow their theonomy are indeed guilty of abstracting man so that he loses his particularity when belonging to different people groups and different races.
Of course, the Father of Reconstructionism, R. J. Rushdoony, could never be rationally accused of abstracting man from his particularizing contexts. If one reads, for example, Rush’s “The One and the Many,” one sees explained there unity (universal) and diversity (particulars) in both the Godhead and then as among various peoples. Rushdoony, never demanded that all cultures be universal. Rushdoony taught that the ten words are in fact applied identically in all cultures. Murder is murder. Lust is just. Idolatry is idolatry, coveting is coveting and so forth. Those don’t change. However, Rush understood that all of the casuistic laws may vary from culture to culture.
If one desires to find a philosohy/theology that univesalizes and abstracts man one need only look to the Aristotelian paradigm. In that paradigm the state is viewed as an ethical institution aimed at cultivating virtue by applying natural law that tends towards a universalism regulating all aspects of social life.
Theonomy/Reconstructionism to the contrary has a negative concept of law where the state has a strictly juridical function and where that which is not forbidden by biblical law is allowed, leaving much more freedom for different socio-cultural paradigms to develop organically.
Indeed, so varied in Christian cultural outcomes as theonomy / reconstructionism is some students of Rushdoony have termed his position “Perspectivalism” or “Multiperspectivalism.” It is the idea that Christianity (and God’s law) will necessarily be expressed differently through different ethnicities. This view is also evident in Kuyper, et. al.
The people who are accusing Theonomists of an homogenizing globalism are confusing Theonomy with Libertarianism. Which is easy to do if you only know Theonomy through the lens of its platformed claimants today such as Jeff Durbin, Joel Boot, Andrew Sandlin, and Doug Wilson. The problem is that those 2nd generation “Reconstructionists” are represent Theonomy as redacted by and seen through the prism of Cultural Marxism.
