How Firm a Foundation? An Exegetical and Historical Critique of the "Ethical Perspective of [Christian] Reconstructionism" Presented in Theonomy in Christian Ethics

This book helps Christian voters and politicians think through two perennial questions. Are we required to apply the judicial laws of the Old Testament to our present-day political contexts? And if we are required to obey these laws, how shall we do so? Against the historic Protestant consensus that posits Christians as bound to advocate and apply only the moral principles underlying these laws, Christian Reconstructionists have recently argued that obedience to and promotion of all divinely unamended Mosaic civil laws remains the Christian's new covenant duty. After testing the most thorough statement of the Reconstructionist view-as presented by the late Greg Bahnsen in his Theonomy in Christian Ethics-against Scripture and the Westminster Confession, How Firm a Foundation? demonstrates that the Reconstructionist ethical perspective is unbiblical, unconfessional, and ultimately unhelpful, while the historic Protestant position expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith remains the biblical and useful perspective Christians need to guide contemporary uses of the Mosaic judicial laws.