"Nevertheless, this one fact should be apparent: turning the other cheek is a bribe. It is a valid form of action for only so long as the Christian is impotent politically or militarily." -- Gary North
Gary Kilgore North (born 1942) is an economic historian and publisher who prolifically writes on topics including economics, history, and Christian theology.
"Do you really believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, plans to be a loser in history?""Jesus Christ is our supreme commander, but He operates only through His word, which is unquestionably a training manual. However, He has many interpreters, and few people see the Bible as a true training manual.""Jesus was not denying the legitimacy of biblical law. On the contrary, He was affirming biblical law. We love God first; God commands us to keep His word; therefore, we must enforce the law on ourselves.""Satan cannot win. Why not? Because he has denied God's sovereignty and disobeyed God's law. But Moses was told explicitly, God's blessings come only from obedience. Satan will not win because he has abandoned God's tool of dominion, biblical law.""Socialism is simply Communism for people without the testosterone to man the barricades.""This is God's world, not Satan's. Christians are the lawful heirs, not non-Christians.""What the ten commandments set forth is a strategy. This strategy is a strategy for dominion."
Between 1961 and 1963, while an undergraduate student, North became acquainted with the works of Austrian School economists Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, and Murray Rothbard. Starting in 1967, North became a frequent contributor to the libertarian journal The Freeman where he had first read their work. He later joined the senior staff of the publisher, the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), 1971—73. North received a PhD in history from the University of California, Riverside in 1972. His dissertation was The Concept of Property in Puritan New England, 1630—1720.
He served as research assistant for libertarian Republican Congressman Ron Paul in Paul's first term (1976). He shared a small office with the Calvinistic political philosopher, John W. Robbins, who later became a noted anti-Van Til author and publisher. Also on the staff was economist and historian Bruce Bartlett, although in his pre-supply-side economics days. Many of North's articles have appeared on LewRockwell.com.
North argues for the abolition of the fractional-reserve banking system and a return to the gold standard. He also opposes the US Department of Education and Council on Higher Education Accreditation, claiming it is a "cartel" and the group has, in part, caused higher education to "become uniformly secular, liberal, and mediocre: raising the cost of entry."
He is the founder of the publishing firm Institute for Christian Economics (ICE). The company reportedly got its start with a bequest from an anonymous benefactor. North never received a salary or book royalties for the 25 years of its existence. At North's request, the board disbanded the ICE in 2001. The assets were transferred to Dominion Educational Ministries, Inc., a non-profit organization that operates Christian day care centers. North is a member of the Presbyterian Church in America.
R.J. Rushdoony, one of the founders of Christian Reconstructionism, was North's father-in-law, and North is a Christian Reconstructionist. The Institute for Christian Economics published many Christian Reconstructionist books online. Christian Reconstructionists are also presuppositionalists in their approach to Christian apologetics as taught by the Calvinist philosopher Cornelius Van Til, and oppose natural law theory as a basis for civil law order.
North has authored or co-authored more than fifty books, most of which are available for free download. For many years, North has been the author/editor of the newsletter The Remnant Review. More recently, he has also edited Gary North's Reality Check, a widely-circulated free e-newsletter.
75 Bible Questions, 1986 ASIN B0006YN4P8
A Study Guide To Gary North's Liberating Planet Earth, (Co-authored by Geoffrey W. Donnan, Jr. Charles W. Armstrong) 1991 ISBN 0930464427
An Introduction To Christian Economics, 1973 ASIN B000T4BMKE
Backward Christian Soldiers, 1984 ISBN 093046401X
Baptized Patriarchalism: The Cult of the Family, 1995 ISBN 0930464710
Boundaries and Dominion: An Economic Commentary of Leviticus, 1994 ISBN 0930464729
Christian Reconstruction (Co-authored by Gary DeMar), 1991 ISBN 9780930464523
Coase Theorem: A Study In Economic Epistemology, 1992 ISBN 0930464613
Conspiracy: A Biblical View, 1996 ISBN 0930462114
Conspiracy in Philadelphia: The Origins of the U.S. Constitution, 2004 e-book
Cooperation and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Romans, 2000
Crossed Fingers: How the Liberals Captured the Presbyterian Church, 1996 ISBN 0930464745
The Dominion Covenant: Genesis, 1987 ISBN 0930464036
Dominion & Common Grace: The Biblical Basis of Progress, 1987 ISBN 0930464095
Fighting Chance: Ten Feet to Survival (co-authored by Dr. Arthur B. Robinson), 1986 ISBN 0930462106
Government By Emergency, 1986 (revised in 1992) ISBN 093046205X
Healer Of The Nations: Biblical Principles for International Relations, 1987 ISBN 0930462211
Heredaran La Tierra (in Spanish): Esquemas Biblicos para la Economia Politica (Biblical Principles for Economics), 1987 ISBN 0930464265
The Hoax of Higher Criticism, 1989 ISBN 0930464303
Honest Money: Biblical Principles of Money and Banking', 1986 ISBN 0930462157
The Implosion Strategy: How to stay out of the black hole during the next recession and its aftermath, 1990 ISBN 1559261307
Inherit The Earth: Biblical Principles for Economics, 1987 ISBN 0930462564
Inheritance and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Deuteronomy, 1999 ISBN 0930464788
Is The World Running Down?: Crisis in the Christian Worldview, 1988 ISBN 0930464133
Judeo Christian Tradition: A Guide for the Perplexed, 1990 ISBN 0930464281
La Liberation Del Planeta Tierra (in Spanish) Una Introduction a los prototipos Biblicos, 1987
Leviticus: An Economic Commentary, 1994 ISBN 0930464729
Liberating Planet Earth: An Introduction to Biblical Blueprints, 1987, revised in 1991 ISBN 0930462513
Liberating Planet Earth (in Korean) An Introduction to Biblical Blueprints, 1987
Lone Gunners for Jesus: Letters to Paul J. Hill, 1994 ISBN 0930464737
Marx's Religion of Revolution: Regeneration Through Chaos, 1989 ISBN 093046415X
Marx's Religion of Revolution (in Russian) Regeneration Through Chaos, 1994
Millennialism And Social Theory, 1990 ISBN 0930464494
Moses and Pharaoh: Dominion Religion vs. Power Religion, 1985 ISBN 0930464052
Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism, 1989 ISBN 093046432X
Priorities and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Matthew, 2000
Puritan Economic Experiments: Puritans and Government Controls, 1988 ISBN 0930464141
Rapture Fever: Why Dispensationalism is Paralyzed Dispensationalism, 1993 ISBN 0930464672
Salvation Through Inflation: The Economics of Social Credit, 1993 ISBN 0930464664
Sanctions and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Numbers, 2000 ISBN 0930464761
Sinai Strategy: Economics And The Ten Commandments (Part Two of North's commentary on Exodus), 1986 ASIN B001S1Y6J6
Tactics of Christian Resistance, 1983 ISBN 0939404079
Theology of Christian Resistance: A Symposium, 1983 ISBN 0939404052
Theonomy: An Informed Response, 1991 ISBN 0930464591
Tithing and the Church, 1994 ISBN 0930464699
Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus, 1990 ISBN 0930464109
Treasure and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Luke, 2000
Trespassing For Dear Life: What About Operation Rescue?, 1989 ASIN B00071L36M
Unconditional Surrender: God's Program for Victory, 1994 ISBN 0930464125
Unholy Spirits: Occultism and New Age Humanism, 1994 ISBN 093046253X
Victim's Rights: The Biblical View of Civil Justice, 1990 ISBN 0930464176
Was Calvin a Theonomist?, 1990 ISBN 0930464362
Westminster's Confession: The Abandonment of Van Til's Legacy, 1991 ISBN 0930464540
When Justice Is Aborted: Biblical Standards For Non-Violent Resistance, 1989 ISBN 1559261242
North gained some notoriety for his prediction of a possible Y2K catastrophe in print and online, before 2000. Like economists Don McAlvany, Joel Skousen, Ed Yourdon Ed Yardeni, and many others, North suggested that a Y2K date-rollover failure of the global Information Technology (IT) infrastructure might precipitate severe disruption and perhaps even an economic collapse. North urged his readers to take "prudent" survivalist preparedness measures. In the event there were no significant problems (dispute continues on whether because of remediation efforts or because the danger had been overstated), but North later described Y2K as "a close call." His web site Gary North's Y2K Links and Forums has been preserved at a mirror site. North's Y2K forums were all moderated by volunteer subject matter experts. For example, the Securing Your Home Forum was moderated by survival retreat expert Joel Skousen, and the Inventory and Barter Items Forum was moderated by the survivalist novelist James Wesley Rawles, who later went on to be a survivalist blogger and preparedness guru. North's main Y2K web site was taken offline early in 2000.
There is no doubt that Christianity teaches pluralism, but a very special kind of pluralism: plural institutions under God's single comprehensive law system. It does not teach a pluralism of law structures, or a pluralism of moralities, for this sort of hypothetical legal pluralism (as distinguished from institutional pluralism) is always either polytheistic or humanistic...In this structure of plural governments, the institutional churches serve as advisors to the other institutions (the Levitical function), but the churches can only pressure individual leaders through the threat of excommunication. As a restraining factor on unwarranted Church authority, an excommunication by one local church or denomination is always subject to review by another, if and when the excommunicated person seeks membership elsewhere. Thus, each of the three covenantal institutions is to be run under God, as interpreted by its lawfully elected or ordained leaders, with the advice of the churches, not their compulsion.
— Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism, pp. 576— 577.
In winning a nation to the gospel, the sword as well as the pen must be used.
—Christian Reconstructionism, p. 198.
The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to His Church’s public marks of the covenant — baptism and holy communion — must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel. The way to achieve this political goal is through successful mass evangelism followed by constitutional revision.
— Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism, p. 87.
As a tactic for a short-run defense of the independent Christian school movement, the appeal to religious liberty is legitimate. Everyone who is attempting to impose a world-and-life view on a majority (or on a ruling minority) always uses some version of the liberty doctrine to buy himself and his movement some time, some organizational freedom, and some power. Still, nobody really believes in the whole idea. Politics always involves establishing one view of the 'holy commonwealth,' and excluding all other rival views. The Communist Party uses the right of free association to get an opportunity to create a society in which all such rights are illegal. The major churches of any society are all maneuvering for power, so that their idea of lawful legislation will become predominant. They are all perfectly willing to use the ideal of religious liberty as a device to gain power, until the day comes that abortion is legalized (denying the right of life to infants) or prohibited (denying the 'right of control over her own body,' after conception, to each woman). Everyone talks about religious liberty, but no one believes it.So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political, and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.
— "The Intellectual Schizophrenia of the New Christian Right", The Failure of the American Baptist Culture, pp. 24— 25.
The stranger in ancient Israel did not serve as a judge, although he received all the benefits of living in the land. The political question is this: By what biblical standard is the pagan to be granted the right to bring political sanctions against God's people? We recognize that unbelievers are not to vote in Church elections. Why should they be allowed to vote in civil elections in a covenanted Christian nation? Which judicial standards will they impose? By what other standard than the Bible?
