In a previous article I pointed out that Reconstructionists appropriated the terms theonomic, theonomist and theonomy to use as alternative names for their Kingdom Now or Dominion Theology.
A system calling for reinstating the laws of the Mosaic covenant in the OT and their same punishments was never the definition of theonomy prior to people like Rushdoony. Rushdoony came up with the ideas behind Christian Reconstructionism and looking for some sort of backing for his aberrant theology pulled out of context Cornelius Van Til.
https://feedingonchrist.org/theonomy-two-kingdom-and-a-middle-road/ "In contrast to the “spirituality doctrine” and “Two Kingdoms theology,” there is the Christian Reconstructionist movement of the 1970’s. This twisting and contortion of what theonomy means was an attempt, albeit inaccurate, to apply Van Tillianism to the political sphere. Cornelius Van Til, the great Reformed apologist from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, boldly asserted that there was no such thing as “natural law,” rather there is only God’s law. He even went so far as to say “you are either autonomous or theonomist.” He did not mean what the movement says he meant. Van Til was simply asserting that God’s word is authoritative for every sphere of life. What the Reconstructionists miss in Van Til’s theology is the role of common grace in regard to the moral law and politics. Van Til constantly pointed out the fact that the law of God, the Ten Commandments, were written on the heart of all men by nature. While men hate the fact that they are the Imago Dei, they can never escape the implications of the fact that they descended from Adam and had a conscience that bore witness to the law of God (Romans 2:15). How could ungodly governements enacted righteous laws throughout the centuries? This is where Van Til’s empahsis on common grace comes in. Paul could say of Nero that he was God’s minister to punish evil and reward good–not because he was reading the Bible and implementing the Old Covenant civil law, but because he was made int he image of God and by common grace acknowledged to some extent right and wrong in God’s world."
Unfortunately, the late and great presuppositional apologist Greg Bahnsen continued to push the out of context definition of theonomists as pushing for reinstating of a regime following OT Mosaic civil laws and penalties. Which is how Christian Reconstructionism got its new name of the so-called, "Theonomy Movement."
There is another term stripped of its original meaning by this group of believers. That is the word dominion. In actuality we are not to take dominion we already have it as mankind. In Genesis we were given dominion over the land and the sea. We were then to attend The Garden of Eden. Then we fell and were thrown out of Eden. However, nowhere was the dominion over the land and sea revoked. Nor was the call to tend to the Earth removed from mankind as part of the curse of sin.
Dominion was meaning solely that and never meant Dominion over the Worlds Governments to enforce Mosaic Laws and penalties. We have a Dominion over nature and continue to have it. We do not need to take Dominion when we already have it in the Scriptures definition.
