The Rutherford Institute
& R.J. Rushdoony

INTRODUCTION

As a result of the Democratic Party's disastrous rout in the 1994 election, Clinton began to successfully re-position the party back to the center and away from the ultra-liberal, special interest group politics of the 1980s which had made the Democrats unable to win the White House. In doing so, he was shamelessly poaching Republican issues. If he succeeded - and the results of the 1996 presidential election seemed to indicate that he was - Republicans could lose both the House and the Senate in 2000 and be shut out of the presidency for another eight years by Vice President Al Gore, the man Clinton was grooming to take over his new centrist Democratic Party. To Republicans who thought long-term, this meant the Supreme Court would be gone along with the entire federal judiciary; and it also meant a resurgence of the hated leftish-tinged federal bureaucracy and its related regulatory agencies. To anti-abortionists, anti-feminists, anti-homosexuals, free marketeers, etc., this meant the devastation of all the dreams of the right - especially, the Religious Right, the dreams of people like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Tim LaHaye, etc. By the time the Al Gore presidency finished - in the year 2009 - all of them would very probably be dead and buried, or at least close to it. It was precisely these people who refused to let Starr give up on his investigation of the president in the summer of 1997 - and thus was born the determination to "get Clinton" at all costs.

As we indicated in our previous newsletters, all this tended to reveal what the Religious Right and the Secular Right were really up to: preventing at whatever price Clinton's re-positioning of the Democratic Party in the center. Religious Right activists were not interested in the specifics of the charges against Clinton; they weren't even interested in necessarily finding out the truth of the charges against the president. They wouldn't have even been pleased (or relieved) to find out that the president was genuinely innocent of the charges. Their purpose was to remove him from office or to so cripple him (and the Democratic Party) politically that they could successfully install themselves in power in the year 2000 - and by their control of the presidency and both houses of Congress re-institute America as a "Christian nation."

The methodology hit upon by the "Get Clinton" crowd was for Starr to - in effect - hijack the Paula Jones case and to trap the president in a lie (perjury) - an impeachable offense. In order to accomplish this, they maneuvered Paula Jones into removing Gil Davis and Joseph Cammarata, her original lawyers, from the case and installing a new legal team under the auspices of the Rutherford Institute.

As we have suggested previously, the Rutherford Institute is an ultra-conservative legal foundation associated with various Religious Right causes, particularly prayer in the schools. It is based in Charlottesville, Virginia and like so many other conservative legal foundations is a recipient of funds from Richard Mellon Scaife. John Whitehead, the institute's founder and head, is a disciple of Rousas John (R.J.) Rushdoony, head of the Chalcedon Foundation, based in Vallecito, California. Rushdoony reportedly helped Whitehead found the Rutherford Institute, and has been a director of the Institute and a participant in its speakers bureau.

RUSHDOONY AND THE INTELLECTUAL MINDSET BEHIND
THE RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE AND THE "GET CLINTON" CROWD

It's important that we pause here - perhaps even for a considerable length of time - to examine the mindset behind the Rutherford Institute and the core group of Religious Right activists in the "Get Clinton" crowd who are connected to it, because without an understanding of this mindset, it's impossible to grasp what they are really up to, or to measure the strength of their tenacity and the lengths to which they are prepared to go in order to achieve their ends. These people truly believe that God is on their side, and - as a result - they are prepared to do things that most other Christians would blanch at. They see themselves not as participants in some political game, but as warriors engaged in a life and death struggle against those who oppose them. It's a battle between the "sons of light" and the "sons of darkness" (Whitehead's words in his book, The Separation Illusion) - and because this is so, and because they believe that, in the end, their enemies are energized by the forces of hell, they are prepared to deal with their political enemies with that fact in mind. After all, if it eventually comes to killing (and most hard-core Reconstructionists believe that it will; for example, Rushdoony has said, "In winning a nation to the Gospel, the sword as well as the pen must be used") what they are killing are demons, not human beings, which is exactly what participants in the death squads of South and Central America believe as well [please see "Death Squads: Bringing in the Kingdom of God Death Squad Style"].

Rushdoony is the originator of and prime mover behind the many faceted movement which has come to be called "Christian Reconstruction." Christian Reconstruction is dedicated to replacing secular law with "Biblical law," and secular states with "theocratic republics." Reconstructionism in its broadest sense describes the rebuilding by Christians of every aspect of Western Civilization according to biblical strictures, beginning first with the United States. It is founded on the belief that God's laws, as described in the Bible, pertain to all people throughout history and comprise the only legitimate basis for culture. It places a demand on Christians everywhere to involve themselves in this process. Christians who don't actively participate in the rebuilding of America as a "Christian state" are deemed apostates, and are to be dealt with accordingly - i.e., as the enemies of God.

RECONSTRUCTIONISTS SEE
THEMSELVES AS "LITERALISTS"

Reconstructionists see themselves as "literalists" (though, they are anything but that), and, as a result, they see the Old Testament promises of earthly blessing and Godly dominion to the people of God as a real matter. The "flesh and blood," here and now" tinge to Reconstructionism all but blinds Reconstructionists to the heavenly (spiritual) counterparts of those same blessings which accrue to the church [Please see Chapter III in the Antipas Papers, "The Distinction Between Israel and the Church" ]. In the Reconstructionist scheme of things, flesh matters a lot; spiritual things matter very little. It's what one can see and touch that counts, not those things which are spiritually discerned. They seem unable to fathom what Paul meant when he said:

"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
"Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (I Cor. 2:12-14)

RECONSTRUCTIONISM IS AN
"OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION"

By its very nature, Reconstructionism is a "religion" which exists in a "black and white" world of the "here and now." It is, as it were, a kind of Old Testament religion of flesh and blood with, flesh and blood armies battling other flesh and blood armies. There is no room in the Reconstructionist's scheme of things for Paul's injunction that "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." (Eph. 6:12)

The notion that the Bible teaches that when we are born again we became citizens of another kingdom - a heavenly kingdom - a kingdom that has NOTHING to do with this present world, is anathema to them; a teaching which declares that through baptism we, ipso facto, renounced our old connections (i.e., citizenship) to this world - which, of necessity includes the United States (much as a new immigrant to America, when he takes his oath of allegiance, renounces all former connections and allegiances to the country out from which he came) - is a teaching that repulses them.

Reconstructionists apparently have an extremely difficult time coming to terms with verses like John 18:36 ("My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight ... but ... my kingdom (is) not from hence"). They seem unable to understand exactly who really is in charge here. Verses like 1 John 5:19 ("... the whole world lies in {the power of} the evil one.") draw nothing more than a vacant stare from them. True, they will acknowledge that Satan has an "influence" in the world and among the nations thereof, but that is all that they will ever ascribe to him - influence, not control. But that, of course, is not what the Bible says; the Word of God clearly states that Satan CONTROLS the world. Satan controls the entire world.

The Bible teaches that the world is under Satan's dominion and he is its ruler (Luke 4:5-6). Satan is the great KOSMOKRATOR (Gk. - "world-ruler") of this earth, and he has directed all his strength and ingenuity into causing it to flourish. To what end? - to capture man's allegiance and draw him to himself. He has one object: to establish his own dominion in human hearts worldwide. But all this, of course, draws nothing more than a bewildered and rather perplexed gaze from Reconstructionists.

The fact is, there is no place in the Reconstructionist "world view" for verses like those cited above, or for verses like 1 John 2:15 ("Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world (i.e., our split level homes, our green lawns, our cars, our careers, our bank accounts, etc.). If any man love the world, the love of the Father is NOT in him."), or John 15:19 ("If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."), or Heb. 11:16 ("... we desire a better country, that is, an heavenly (one): wherefore God is not ashamed to be called ... (our) God: for he hath prepared for ... (us) a city (i.e., a heavenly city) ..."), or I Peter 2:9 ("... (we) are (now) a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ... (we) should show forth the praises of him who hath called ... (us) OUT OF darkness [i.e., out of this world (cf. John 3:19; John 8:12; John 12:46; and Eph. 6:12)] INTO his marvellous light ...").

THE RACIST TINGE WHICH SURROUNDS
CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTIONISM

Reconstructionists believe that God's blessings are dispensed in this world according to how closely people adhere to biblical law. If a nation governs its conduct according to biblical law it will be blessed; if a nation does not, it will be cursed. It is a simple equation with no "ifs," "ands," or "buts" attached to it - and, moreover, it is an equation which flows in both directions: specifically, the rich nations of this world are rich precisely because they adhere to biblical strictures, and the poor nations are poor precisely because they do not. To the degree that nations keep God's law, to that degree they are blessed, and to the degree that nations fail to keep God's law they are cursed - and this blessing can be measured in tangible, "real-life" forms: wealth and the lack of it (i.e., poverty).

This, of course, leads to some potentially very dangerous (and inevitably racist) conclusions - and it doesn't take someone with a Ph.D. to discern them. They seem quite effortlessly to present themselves. A few simple questions seem inevitably to lead to their "discovery." For example, which nations are the richest nations in the world? - obviously (with the possible exception of Japan), the nations of Western Europe and North America. Which nations are the poorest in the world? - plainly, the nations of Africa and the so-called "Developing World." The rich nations are mainly nations populated by the white race, the poor nations of Africa and the "Developing World" are largely nations populated by blacks and other "colored" peoples; ipso facto, the whites have been blessed; the blacks and others have been cursed.

And all this is not simply a matter of idle speculation and simple conjecture on our part. This is exactly the conclusion that many Reconstructionists themselves have reached. Take, for example, Gary North who, after Rushdoony, is the most prominent Reconstructionist in the nation: North has said, "... the nations of Africa are poor because they deserve to be poor; they have been cursed." And the same conclusions apply not only on a world scale, but internally on a national scale and on a societal level as well. Which people are rich in the United States? - the whites! Which people are poor? - the blacks and other minorities! Ipso facto, the whites have been blessed, the blacks and other minorities have been cursed. It's not an accident! It's not just a coincidence - a happenstance not worthy of any particular attention.

GENETIC CODES

Inevitably, such conclusions propel those who entertain them into even darker and more sinister conclusions: that there has to be something more at work here which makes whites predisposed to biblical law (and God) and which inhibits blacks and other "colored races" from such obedience - maybe some kind of genetic code which whites possess and others do not. And indeed, there is much in the writings of Rushdoony and other Reconstructionists which indicate that this is the direction of their thinking. For example, take what Rushdoony has to say about blacks:

"They are an example ... of 'inferior (genetic) stock'."

"The white man has behind him centuries of Christian culture and the discipline and the selective breeding this faith requires ... The Negro is a product of a radically different past, and his (racial or genetic) heredity has been governed by radically different considerations."

"The background of Negro culture is African and magic, and the purposes of the magic are control and power over God, man, nature, and society. Voodoo, or magic, was the religion and life of American Negroes. Voodoo songs underlie jazz, and old voodoo, with its power goal, has been merely replaced with revolutionary voodoo, a modernized power drive."

Or what he has to say about "genetic deterioration:"

"Clearly history has witnessed genetic deterioration. Selective breeding in Christian countries has led to the progressive elimination of many defective persons, however."

And, finally, consider what he has to say about improving the "human breeding stock:"

"The awareness of the necessity for improving the human (genetic) stock has led some to advocate massive out-breeding as a means of genetic progress ... but ... out-breeding (i.e., mixed marriages) with inferior stock (i.e., blacks, Latinos, etc.) can only add more problems to the already existing ones." (Please see The Religious Right, a publication of the ADL, pg. 124.)

CHRISTIAN AYATOLLAHS AND
THE "GET CLINTON CROWD"

This puts Rushdoony squarely in the camp of "Bell Curve" [Please see our article, "Racism And Right-Wing Christianity."]. Now, all this should be enough to send shivers up and down one's spine, at least the spines of all decent, Bible-believing Christians, especially those who have involved themselves in "taking the country back for Christ and the church" and who applaud the work of Kenneth Starr and his cohorts in bringing Clinton to task. Again, this isn't to say that Clinton isn't guilty of many of the things which he has been accused of, it's only to say that there is another agenda at work here - an agenda which has attached to itself a mindset (Reconstructionism) which is not only evil in its unmitigated severity and austerity, but one which is pregnant with disaster for real Christians everywhere.

Those who mix themselves up in it will someday rue the day they ever got involved with it and the people who surround this mindset. They are a merciless and grim cabal of persons who are past all feelings of compassion and tenderness - and boast in that fact. And they would as soon turn on their friends and loved ones as they would an enemy - and more so, because in denouncing their friends and loved ones they all the more establish their own credentials as "men of God" who are unswayed by "natural" or familial considerations - a species of Christian Ayatollahs. It is a vicious "dog eat dog" world of self-righteousness which inevitably leads to a dual life-style where one is forced to live two lives: one for public "display," and a hidden, secret one populated by demons and evil spirits; these are the pharisees of whom Jesus said:

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
"Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. (Matt. 23:27-28)

RECONSTRUCTIONISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM

Finally, there is a last step beyond "genetic codes:" anti-Semitism; and it follows what we have just discussed as surely as three follows two. If it once is conceded that whites possess something in their makeup which predisposes them to a "right-relationship" with God [and the "rightness of that relationship is manifested in the wealth (i.e., blessings) they possess], then what else could it be but that they are God's "Chosen People," not the Jews - after all, if the Jewish people are the real descendants of Abraham - to whom the promises were given - how could they (i.e., those people whom we today call Jews) have been promised so much and for 2,000 years received so little? To the Reconstructionist mindset, there's something wrong here. If God's promises can't fail, then why have the Jews received so little? And it's not just that they have received so little, they actually seem to be accursed - or, again, how else can one account for the horrible persecutions which they alone, more than all the other people of the world, have labored under. The answer that seems so obviously to present itself is, What we call Jews today are not the real (literal) descendants of Abraham! Naturally a question arises from such a thought: if the Jews are not the "real Israel of God," who are they? This, of course, leads inevitably into racial historiography.

It's important to grasp the significance of this, because - to put it in the vernacular - understanding the "deeper things" of Reconstructionism (i.e., comprehending what motivates hard-core Reconstructionists) requires an understanding of racial theories of history in which such obscure ancient peoples as the "Khazars," the Edomites, the Moabites, the Hittites, the "Ten Lost Tribes," the "sons of Esau," the Horites, the Kenazites, the Amalekites, etc. play an extraordinarily important part - a kind of historiography which is today much more widely accepted than most evangelicals seem able (or willing) to comprehend.

While it's true that Reconstructionism can stand alone as a system of theology without resort to a racial historiography - and, clearly, in its more "moderate" forms it does - it is a much more tightly focused system of theology (one which can justify a resort to military activity as a divine imperative or mandate) when it is buttressed by such a system.

For example, it is not unusual to find "moderate" Reconstructionists who merely assert that Christians - all Christians everywhere - are under a divine injunction to preach the Gospel, convert the world, and bring it under biblical law. There is no resort here to a racial historiography per se: the blessings of God are said to be freely dispensed to all those who come under biblical law; gentile or Jew, black or white, red or yellow - it doesn't matter. [Of course, if those blessings are measured by wealth, one is still left with the question of why whites hold most of the wealth in this world - a question which moderate Reconstructionists seem unable to answer adequately.] Neither, in the case of most moderates, is any method contemplated to win the world to Christ other than that of successfully wielding the Gospel. Persuasion is the totality of their method.

But, in the Reconstructionist scheme of things, when one contemplates stepping over this boundary - of transcending beyond persuasion (which an Old Testament mindset encourages) - than racism becomes a very powerful tool; and the farther one is prepared to go beyond persuasion as a means of advancing the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the more necessary a tool racial historiography becomes. And when one is prepared to go as far as a man like Rushdoony (who, as we have already indicated, has said, "In winning a nation to the Gospel, the sword as well as the pen must be used") than racism becomes an almost indispensable tool.

And what exactly is the object of this racial historiography? - clearly, as Leonard B. Glick, professor of cultural anthropology and European history at Hampshire College, says, it has been "... to support political arguments antagonistic to Jewish survival. More particularly, the intention (of this historiography) is to dissociate Jews from the biblical Hebrews and from the name 'Israel' ..." and in their place substitute the white race as the genuine heirs to all the promises of the Old Testament using it (i.e., racial historiography) and other various forms of "race science" such as are purveyed in books like "Bell Curve".

THE KHAZARS: A CASE IN POINT

While there exists many racial historiographies which seek to disinherit the Jews from God's promises in the Old Testament, one currently stands out as especially popular: that the ancestry of most contemporary Jews is largely traceable to an obscure Turkic people called "Khazars" - and it's worth exploring this matter because it goes a long way in revealing the dynamic that's presently "afoot" in the Christian right-wing matrix.

Many evangelicals who are reading this material have probably heard something about the "Khazars;" for example, our ministry has recently received a large amount of email messages on the subject, that is to say, that the Jews of today are not "real Jews," but are in fact the bastardized offspring of a people known as the "Khazars." Many who have heard this story have heard it from friends who have heard it from other friends and have no real idea of where it came from. Many have heard it repeated so often by so many people that they now tend to believe it. Such is the nature of the pathology which is presently stirring among us - and it provides us a concrete example of this evil process, a process which will pollute all of us if we don't get away from it - and fast! It's not without reason that we warned at the beginning of this series of articles:

"Today a vast and extraordinarily complex religo-political system has emerged in the United States - a keiretsu-like network of conservative religious and political organizations with interlocking boards of directors, similar sources of funding and 'cross-over' memberships - which aims at taking over the country. The actual number of organizations which are a part of this system is mind-boggling; so intertwined have these organizations become that it is difficult any longer to separate out the secular component from the religious component. Sadly, it is into this 'right-wing web' that countless numbers of Christians are being drawn - a web which historically has been permeated with racist, anti-Semitic and fascist ideas. Most Christians, of course, will deny that they are being affected at all by such thinking; but in the end, the only people they may be kidding are themselves.

"Our network of associations with one another - whether civic, religious, social, or personal - forms an integrated system of arteries down through which notions of all sort journey - sometimes to our benefit, and sometimes to our detriment. By such means, ideas become infectious; uplifting us on the one hand, and corrupting us on the other. It is in this way that we can properly speak of the contagion of evil; if left unchecked within a community, evil, like a vicious cancer, has a treacherous way of using the network of our social, political and religious relationships to spread it's venom throughout the entire body; of using the bands which connect us together as channels of corruption. By such means evil can demolish not only the individual Christian, but the entire Christian community. The Bible says,

'A little leaven leavens the whole lump.'" (Gal. 5:9)

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE KHAZARS

The Khazars were descended from nomads who settled in a region just north of the Caucasus, and in the seventh century established an independent kingdom that for a time dominated the region. In the eighth century, the Khazar ruler, Bulan, converted to Judaism.

Spanish Jews contemporary with the Khazar Kingdom were so astonished at the existence of a Jewish state on the eastern rim of Europe that they at first refused to credit reports brought to them from the east by khorasan merchants. Moreover, when merchants from Khazaria itself came to Toledo, Spanish Jews frequently dismissed them as tellers of cock-and-bull stories in spite of their own fervent wish to believe: the days when the Jews in Spain were under the protection of the Caliphs were fast coming to an end, and fear and anxiety dogged them at every turn.

In the middle of the tenth century, a high Jewish official of the Caliph of Cordova, the learned Jewish financier and diplomat Hasdai ibn Shaprut, relying on the reports of Byzantine merchants, sent a letter to the king of Khazaria containing thirty questions and an urgent entreaty for reply. The letter read in part: "When we (i.e., the Jews of Spain) heard of my lord (i.e., Joseph of Khazaria, the Khazar king), of the might of his kingdom, and of the multitude of his soldiers, they were in transports. Now we could hold our heads high. Our hearts rose within us and our hands recovered their strength. My lord's kingdom (i.e., the Khazar Kaganate) justified us to speak boldly again. Oh, if only this news were to gather still more force, and exalt us further."

Unfortunately, by the time the letter reached Khazaria, the Khazars had suffered the first of many defeats by the Rus (i.e., the Russians) which over the coming decades reduced the Kaganate greatly in power. They survived in a weakened state for another two to three hundred years until they were finally overcome and dispersed by the Mongols.

All these facts are indisputable: a Khazar Kingdom did indeed exist; Bulan, the Khazar king, did embrace Judaism in 730 A.D. Khazaria continued as a powerful buffer state sandwiched between Islam to the south, Christian Orthodoxy to the west and the north, and the Mongols to the east until it declined and finally collapsed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. But a number of things mitigate against the thought - which is a well-accepted notion in those circles which are conversant with Reconstructionism - that the Jews who finally migrated into Europe, and from thence to America, were mainly "bastardized" Khazars without any significant amount of Jewish blood in their veins as postulated by such right-wing writers as John Beaty (The Iron Curtain Over America), Arthur Koestler (The Thirteenth Tribe), Otis B. Reed, Jr. (Pastor of Joppa Gospel Tabernacle in Baltimore), Curtis Clair Ewing (director of Christ's Gospel Fellowship in Spokane, Washington), Sheldon Emry (pastor of the Lord's Covenant Church in Phoenix), K.R. McKilliam (Revealing Antichrist), as well as such anti-Zionists (some of whom are actually Jews) like Alfred M. Lilienthal (What Price Israel?, The Zionist Connection and Facts are Facts: The Truth About Khazars), to say nothing of British Israelists like the Rev. John Wilson (Our Israelitish Origin), Edward Hine, etc.

First, it appears that, for the most part, only Bulan and his descendants - along with a smattering of his nobility - converted to Judaism - and he did so as a result of political considerations more than anything else: to avoid becoming a dependency of Muslim Baghdad or Christian Byzantium. The great mass of ethnic Khazars refused to do so and continued in their ancient polytheistic faiths until they were finally converted to Islam by the Baghdad Caliphate which was pressing up on Khazaria from the south, or Christianity (Orthodoxy) by the Russians who were pressing down on Khazaria from the north.

CIRCUMCISION: A BULWARK
AGAINST INTERMINGLING

And the reason that the great mass of ordinary Khazars refused to embrace Judaism? - the extremely painful (and psychologically debilitating) rite of circumcision! It's one thing for a child of eight days to be circumcised (which, of course is what happens in families who are already Jewish), but it's quite another thing for a grown man to undergo such a rite (which is what occurs in cases of conversion) - especially without the use of pain killers, which were, of course, not available in the seventh and eighth centuries. While other races and peoples of the ancient world have largely died out as a result of intermarriage between and among them (which was common in the ancient world), circumcision kept the Jewish people pretty much a people unto themselves.

Indeed, so powerful a deterrent was circumcision in preventing the Jews from intermingling with the other peoples of the ancient world that before Christianity could become a world religion, it had to be separated from this extremely painful rite - and it was precisely Paul's effort to do so that caused him so much trouble in the early church - a struggle in which Paul ultimately prevailed, but one that cost Christianity its connection with the main body of the Jewish people. Nonetheless, it is exactly because Paul succeeded in this struggle, that Christianity became a world religion which could be freely embraced by all the peoples of the earth.

This isn't to say, of course, that intermingling didn't take place - but usually it was a one way street: women (not men) being brought in as wives (women, of course, didn't have to submit to the rite of circumcision). When this occurred, however, it normally produced such an outcry from the men out from whose ethnic community the women were being taken that it was quickly stopped. The fact is, Jewish men only took Gentile women as wives as a result of a victorious war - and that rarely occurred after the second century B.C.

THE JEWS OF KHAZARIA: WHO WERE THEY? WHERE
DID THEY COME FROM? AND WHERE DID THEY GO?

Now all this isn't to say that there wasn't a sizable minority of Jews in Kazaria in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries A.D., but they seem to have been mainly Hebrew Jews. But if the Khazar Jews were mainly Hebrews, a question arises: Where did they come from? - these Jews who lived on the banks of the Volga, the Don, the Kuban, and the Terek. They most likely originated from the large Jewish settlements in northern Asia Minor which had existed there since the days of the "Assyrian Captivity" (eighth century B.C.) which had dispersed the northern ten tribes of Israel (the so-called "Ten Lost Tribes") to that region. They followed all professions and the immense majority were in relatively humble walks of life - this was especially true since a large proportion of them had begun their lives in the Diaspora as slaves. By the first century B.C. the Jews were so widely dispersed in this area that Strabo remarked:

"The Jews have already settled in every city, and it is not easy to find any spot ... (in the area) which this tribe has not occupied and where it has not asserted itself." [Strabo as quoted in Josephus, Ant., XIX, 7, 2.]

And Sybil wrote:

"The whole earth, and the sea also, is full of them." [Orac., Sybil, iii, 271.]

By the time of the emperor Trajan (A.D. 117), large Jewish settlements had reached into Armenia (which was then controlled by Rome) and extended beyond there into the Caucasus and those areas north of the Black Sea in a region which later constituted the southern boundary of Kazaria. All these Jews were plainly of Hebrew extraction and had - for the most part - originated out of the "Assyrian Captivity" - they were - to put it simply - the offspring of the northern ten tribes, the so-called "Ten Lost Tribes" (which, of course, were never really lost at all).

After the fall of Kazaria in the twelfth century A.D., most of the Jews who had settled in the Khazar Kingdom migrated up into Russia and finally came to settle permanently in what later became known to history as the "Pale of Settlement" - an area which ran from the Black Sea in the south to the Baltic in the north, and from Poland in the west to an area just west of Moscow in the east. These settlements continued in an unbroken succession up to the time of the German aggression in 1941, when they were finally destroyed by Hitler's Holocaust.

While it's true that many Jews participated in the Russian (Communist) Revolution of 1917 - with some of them even rising to positions of great power - their involvement in the Revolution was no greater than most of the other oppressed minority populations of Czarist Russia. By the time of the "Great Purges" and the "Moscow Show Trials" of the "Trotskyites" and "Zinovievites" (both Trotsky and Zinoviev were Jews) in the 1930s, the Jews had, for the most part, been purged from the party. Indeed, after these years Russian history books began to refer to the Jews of Russia as "rootless cosmopolitans" and "passportless wanderers" - terms which came to be used against the Jews by both party bosses and rank-and-file Soviet citizens.

Finally, in the mid-1980s the Soviet Union began - slowly at first, but with an ever increasing tempo - allowing Jews to migrate to Israel. And that's where they are today - the sons and daughters of the so-called "Ten Lost Tribes."

So much for the mystery of the Khazars! And so much for the mystery of the so-called "Ten Lost Tribes." To believe the racial histories that permeate the fringes of Reconstructionism is sheer madness, but it is the kind of madness that characterizes Reconstructionists - and it's catching!

GOD PRESERVE THOSE WHO FALL INTO
THE HANDS OF THE RECONSTRUCTIONISTS

Of course, not everyone who subscribes to Reconstructionism subscribes to the "race science" and racial historiography which surround it. Nor are all Reconstructionists quite as severe and austere as they have been painted here. Nonetheless, severity, racism, and a certain bitter ruthlessness does characterize those who have imbibed deeply of this mindset - as anyone who has ever met men like Rushdoony can attest. And it's not at all unfair to say, these are the kinds of people who make up the core elements of the Religious Right's "Get Clinton" crowd. God preserve those who fall into their hands. Even Clinton and his wife, Hillary - as shifty and duplicitous as they might be - don't deserve that fate.

But more to the point, God preserve us as evangelicals from the pollution that results from a connection to Reconstructionism and to groups like the "Get Clinton" crowd. The sad truth of the matter is, however, the church is already far down this path - a path which in the end will lead to the transformation of all of us, both individually and corporately. "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." If this is happening in your church, get out! Get out right away! - and at all costs. It's folly for you to believe that you won't, in the end, be affected by this pathology of rot.

We urge you to read the material on the church, "The Church-Life: A New Way To Go On."

God bless you all!

S.R. Shearer,
Antipas Ministries