The Making Of A Political Iconoclast

i-con-o-clast n. 1 an iconoclast attacks cherished beliefs. 2 a person who destroys images used in religious worship.

The "image" or idol under attack on this website is the United States Constitution. It is an idol because it has replaced the law of God as "the highest law of the land" in the American legal system.

The evil fruit of this idolatry is everywhere apparent in American culture. There are many however, who blame the American cultural meltdown on our departure from the Constitution.

They are like those who blamed the fall of Rome on her forsaking the pagan gods. The Constitution enshrines the goddess of democracy -- "we the people" -- in the place of God.

Thus, it is the Constitution itself that is directly responsible for our current distress, for God will not be mocked. But how you ask did I arrive at that conclusion. Here is the story.

In my youth one could easily have mistaken me for the last surviving member of the “Know-Nothing” Party. This was a political party that had been defunct for many years. There was nothing in my youth to hint of the political iconoclast .

Growing up, politics was the last thing on my mind. I never inhaled. So, how in the world did a political “know-nothing” like me end up as a political pollster/fundraiser and iconoclast political prognosticator?

Political Zombie

Nothing in my youth or childhood would lead anyone to suspect that I might one day morph into an incorrigible political iconoclast. I grew up on an Iowa farm in the 50s and 60s and learned how to work hard, but when it came to political thinking my mind was a bowl of pliable mush.

My parents were both die-hard Democrats. I pretty much soaked up their populist outlook like a sponge.

I was aware of two farm organizations that performed a political function in those days: the Farm Bureau (bad guys) and the Farmer’s Union (good guys). I remember one FU propaganda piece that castigated the FB for testifying in Congress against farm programs. “Not through a gift, not through a dole, not through a subsidy,” is the only line I recall. A bunch of stingy tightwads, I concluded and I think I wrote a school paper about it.

Actually, there was a third group, the NFO – National Farmers Organization. They would come out to the farm every so often and my Dad would huddle up in the back seat of their car talking politics for an hour or more sometimes.

The big thing about the NFO was they wanted to apply union tactics to agriculture. If enough farmers would just get organized they could go on strike and take control of the market. By holding specific products off the market the law of supply and demand would take over and drive prices up to a reasonable level. It sounded like a good idea to me at the time, but I’m not sure why it didn’t work or whatever happened to the NFO.

As far as real-world politics goes, that was pretty much it for me in high school. Although I do remember an impromptu lecture one of our coaches gave a small group of my comrades after history class one day. This was around 1964, so he must have been part of the Goldwater movement.

Looking back, all I can remember was that it was something of a conservative tirade, although skillfully presented. “Think about it, people,” he concluded, “think about it.” But it pretty much went right over my head.

Not much happened to change that in college, even though I majored in journalism – agricultural journalism. My mom would mail me an absentee ballot and I would dutifully vote for the Democrats and mail it back to her.

Spiritual Awakening

Within a week or two of arriving at Iowa State I met a guy from the Navigator’s and he and his buddy led me to Christ. I was justified before God by the blood of Christ and my life began to change.

That led to what was probably the closest thing to a “public spirited” act I ever committed in my entire college career. I submitted a letter to the editor of the college newspaper describing my conversion experience.

I explained how I came to realize that my rebellion from God (sin) had earned me an eternal death sentence in Hell. In spite of that God loved me enough to take that death sentence for me on the cross of Calvary. By a cry of faith I had received God’s pardon and the free gift of eternal life.

The next day somebody wrote in that my testimony was nothing more than an outburst of fundamentalist drivel. The day after that somebody else submitted a letter in my defense. The next day somebody else countered that. And so it went day after day for the rest of the term – a spirited debate on religion in the “letters” column that never seemed to end.

By the end of the term I had prepared a half-page editorial on “The Campus Community’s View of God”. Because I was working for the paper that term as part of “news reporting” class, they printed it on the editorial page the very last day of the term. I got the first and last word and that was kind of cool. This did mark me as something of an iconoclast, but nothing political.

The Navigator’s taught me to write out Bible verses on little cards and commit them to memory. I would always review them walking around between classes. By the time I graduated from college I had a thousand or more of those little cards memorized, plus I memorized all but a few of the small books of the New Testament.

Definitely the most important thing I learned in all those college years. If I'd only known I could have saved my self a lot of tuition money.

But the Navigator’s were pretty pietistic and ingrown in their approach to life, at that time at least. The Bible applies to your personal life and the church and that was about it. Even the church was viewed as half-hearted and a distraction from real commitment to Christ.

If you gave too much concern to the world your spirituality was suspect. Even studying too much was frowned upon and girls were strictly taboo. That mentality kept me isolated from reality even though the Viet Nam war and its cultural fallout was swirling all around me. I was pretty much sleep-walking through all of it.

Unfortunately, after college I lost the Bible memory habit, but all that Scripture created an indelible impression in my mind. It became like a grid that every new idea had to be filtered through.

Political Awakening

I spent all of my adult life until now in and around Portland, Oregon. After getting my Master's in Education at Oregon State in 1972, I settled down with my new wife in the City of Roses. I picked up some construction experience early on and we joined up with a church in the heart of the city.

One Sunday evening in 1977 our pastor brought in a guest who spoke on the subject of politics. This was the first inkling I had that the Bible even had anything to say about the topic. But this woman pointed out several verses which indicated that it did. Verses like Psalm 33:12 -- “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”

She said the easiest way to get involved was to become a precinct committee-person. She signed us up right on the spot and sold us a couple of books by Russ Walton. Mr. Walton was one of the earliest Christian writers from that era on the subject of the Bible and politics.

This was 1977 and Christians were only beginning to wake up from their 50 year, media-imposed cultural slumber following the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. I wrote a little booklet on the subject that was distributed locally called “Where In The World Are God’s People?”.

Not long after I got a call from the pastor of a local reformed church. This pastor pointed me to books about something called “Christian Reconstruction” by R.J. Rushdoony and Gary North.

I picked up some of these books and found them fascinating. They were offering serious commentary on parts of the Bible that I had never before taken seriously.

Up to that point I had assumed that the Old Testament case law was for ancient Israel and that was it. But these writers were creating a full-blown social theory from the whole Bible. They were attacking natural law and all other substitutes to Biblical law like a medieval iconoclast.

After 4 or 5 years I became frustrated with my career in construction and went in for some career counseling. This process pinpointed strengths in analysis, writing, and something called “vision.” The latter was defined as seeing what needs to be done -- but not necessarily the ability to get it done (unfortunately).

All of this pointed to market research as a possible career path. So I settled into a career as a political pollster and fundraiser.

During the 1980s the Christian political movement was gathering strength in Oregon and 1990 we managed to gain control of the Oregon House of Representatives for the first time in 20 years. Four years later we won the Senate. I was an active participant, organizing phone banks, doing fundraising, and conducting political polls for candidates and initiatives.

This was heady work for a while. But this outward success was tempered by an inward sense of frustration. Although we were getting conservatives and Christians elected, their performance in office often fell short of Biblical standards. Something seemed to be missing. Something very foundational.

Political Rebirth

Around that time somebody gave me a book by Gary North entitled “Political Polytheism.” This was the first time I had ever read anything from a Christian that was critical of the U.S. Constitution.

North himself had been a fan of the Constitution for many years, but then it hit him. He apparently read something by the National Reform Association that turned him around.

The NRA was founded in the middle of the Civil War, blaming the War on America’s rejection of Christ in her Constitution. They called for an amendment to the Preamble that would formally commit the nation to Christ as King.

Gary North always writes big books. 500 pages is little more than a term paper for him. So in 1996 I determined to write a shorter, perhaps more popularized version. I called it “Discipling the Nations – The government Upon His Shoulders.”

The first 3 chapters are an analysis of the U.S. Constitution – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Later chapters are devoted to the Biblical model for civil government: the foundation, the form, and the function.

This website was created to promote the book. In many ways it has become the “book in cyberspace.” However, it goes beyond the book in many areas and is much more “in your face.”

I confess to a growing frustration with the “American Christian History Experts” who refuse to face the truth about the U.S. Constitution. They are leading American Christians in a direction that can only result in the judgment of God.

They are lifting high an idol that exalts itself above the law of God. “This Constitution … shall be the supreme law of the land…” it audaciously proclaims. With all their erudition, the American Christian History Experts” should have got the picture by this time. But they haven’t.

This website is one small voice of protest, crying in the wilderness.

The first definition of “iconoclast” in the Oxford American Dictionary is “a person who attacks cherished beliefs.” Thus, by definition an iconoclast cannot expect to win very many popularity contests. An iconoclast will never win any elections. The only comfort of an iconoclast is the conviction that he is fanning the flickering flame of some long-neglected truth.

Custom Search