AHC Reconstructionst-Dominated "South African Lobby"

[MerryPrankster]

Here's something I posted on another thread:

About the Reconstructionists and South Africa, I did correspond with a Reconstructionist who was complaining about the lack of Christian sci-fi writers. He blamed the premillienial dispensationalists (the Rapture/Antichrist/End of Days crowd) for making Christians believe there would be no long-term future.

I remember reading some stuff he sent me and it featured a spacefaring Afrikaner culture. The actual plot involved some lowlife who seduced a girl and refused to marry her afterward, so her brothers kicked the crap out of him and made him transfer her a bunch of his stuff (if she were rich, potential suitors might not care about her not being a virgin). This seems to indicate some sympathy between the American Reconstructionists and the Boers.

(I used this concept in my Afrikanerverse and depicted an anti-Afrikaner American president forcing some of the more radical Calvinists to register as foreign agents.)

However, the actual numbers of Reconstructionists are tiny even if they do write a lot and have a good Web presence. I think it would be more realistic to have a "South African lobby" dominated by rich and vocal Reconstructionists (with some really brave/zealous/insane ones volunteering to go fight in South Africa a la the "Crippled Eagles" for fought for Rhodesia) much like how the Israeli lobby has a strong premillenial dispensationalist presence.

So your challenge is to have it so there's a "South African lobby" in the United States strongly influenced by the so-called Christian Reconstructionists. Bonus points if...

1. They're as strong as the Israeli lobby, which has similar amounts of influence from the Rapture crowd.

2. The more zealous members have actually gone abroad to fight in the South African armed forces.

I have my own ideas for what might spawn this scenario (not just the Afrikanerverse), but I'd like to hear you all's before I post them.

 

[LegionoftheUnitedStates]

Highly unlikely, The Boers are largely Calvinists. Most Evangelicals in the United States are not and reject Calvinism as being unbiblical.

Southern segregationists might be sympathetic to Apartheid South Africa on racial grounds, but not on theological grounds. And racial grounds are not as stong an imperative as theological grounds.

The "China Lobby" arose because of missionaries in China and some economic interests. The "Israel Lobby" exists because the re-creation of Israel is viewed as literally an act of God.

There is nothing that powerful to drive the creation of a "South Africa Lobby".

 

[MerryPrankster]

The Reconstructionists are Calvinists too, and Calvinism is growing in the Southern Baptist Convention.

(Look at the rise of Al Mohler, who is using the seminary to churn out Calvinist preachers.)

Calvinism is also influential in other segments of evangelical-dom (like the Sovereign Grace movement) and its tendrils extend further still. The "courtship movement," which is tied in with complementarianism (which is in turn tied in with Calvinism) got widespread among non-Calvinist Christians.

(One of my friends from the college ministry appeared to be into that, although much of his zeal came from sympathizing with girls hurt in "the dating game" rather higher-level theology.)

In any event, it wouldn't be evangelicals as a whole, just the Reconstructionists and maybe the more extreme non-Reconstructionist Calvinists.

 

[mrmandias]

Reconstructionism is a fringe movement and isn't the same as Calvinism . To get your POD to work you have to do two huge huge changes, both of which I'm pretty sceptical about. (1) Make reconstructionism actually matter and (2) have them extra-super concerned with South Africa for some reason. Both don't look much likely.

 

[Orville_third]

There was actually a South Africa lobby of a sort. The International Freedom Foundation and similar groups were attempting to push for the US to aid South Africa and various other groups in southern Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Freedom_Foundation

It should also be noted that Rousas John Rushdoony, the seminal influence behind modern Reconstructionism was a major supporter of South Africa since at least 1967. Here is a quote from a 1970 address in SA.

...Rushdoony, like many of our own South African philosophers is a conservative Calvinist. I am sure most of us here today are delighted to know our country has a firm friend in Rousas John Rushdoony. In 1967 he wrote to me: "I believe South Africa, though unfortunately now showing signs of drifting, is still more Christian than any other country of today and has an important contribution to make. South African Reformed believers are more aware of the basic issues of our time. Too many American Reformed thinkers are prone to sentimental humanism as they view social issues."

(Address given at 12th National Conference of South African Philosophers, 1970. Printed in "A Christian Introduction to the History of Philosophy" by Francis Nigel Lee. Published by the Craig Press, Nutley, NJ. (Publishing date is 1969- but it was likely delayed to 1970.)

 

[black angel]

hmmm I remember that Thatcher was pretty supportive of SA in the 1980s, and thought of the ANC as "Terrorists" a point of view shared by Dick Cheney, I think if neo-cons got into power or really pushed it it wouldn't have been hard to sell it to Born-Agains, frame the ANC as Godless Commies with a good dash of racism about black men coming for white ladies and you got yourself a good corner stone on GOP world view

 

[MerryPrankster]

hmmm I remember that Thatcher was pretty supportive of SA in the 1980s, and thought of the ANC as "Terrorists" a point of view shared by Dick Cheney, I think if neo-cons got into power or really pushed it it wouldn't have been hard to sell it to Born-Agains, frame the ANC as Godless Commies with a good dash of racism about black men coming for white ladies and you got yourself a good corner stone on GOP world view

That's still not specifically Reconstructionist or even Christian, just a mishmash of anti-Communism and racism.

 

[Kalvan]

That's still not specifically Reconstructionist or even Christian, just a mishmash of anti-Communism and racism.

I think Black Angel is simply trying to be cynical here.

 

[black angel]

That's still not specifically Reconstructionist or even Christian, just a mishmash of anti-Communism and racism.

so? I don't think there's a way to get support for the white minority government on it's own "merits" I think you can however spin the apartheid Vs. ANC into the good vs. evil world view of the Reconstructionists, but I doubt it'll be coming straight from them, I think it might be feed to them, much as the anti-Saddam Hussein point of view came into being in the 1990s and early 2000s (if you remember Hussein was the stand in anti-Christ in Born-again circles for much of that time)

 

[MerryPrankster]

so? I don't think there's a way to get support for the white minority government on it's own "merits" I think you can however spin the apartheid Vs. ANC into the good vs. evil world view of the Reconstructionists, but I doubt it'll be coming straight from them, I think it might be feed to them, much as the anti-Saddam Hussein point of view came into being in the 1990s and early 2000s (if you remember Hussein was the stand in anti-Christ in Born-again circles for much of that time)

The Reconstructionists could claim South Africa as a successful model of their philosophy and play the patriotism card, making the Afrikaners into something resembling the pioneers.

Some of these guys will defend the Confederacy, which was worse than South Africa.

(Holding 1/3 of the population in outright chattel slavery is worse than 5/6 in varying degrees of second class status. If anything, the obsession with preventing interracial sex no doubt kept the rape to a minimum.)

 

[black angel]

The Reconstructionists could claim South Africa as a successful model of their philosophy and play the patriotism card, making the Afrikaners into something resembling the pioneers.

Some of these guys will defend the Confederacy, which was worse than South Africa.

for sure people would throw that out there, but it's always easier to be against something (the ANC in this case) than for something (Minority government) I'm sure in OTL there were those, both neo-cons and Christians who touted lines like that, but I think to make it more than something said in the darker parts of neo-con land and a popular movement/lobbing group, you have to tar up the ANC, I can see it happening, Reagan had a soft spot for SA in the first term, also Thatcher and others, a good job selling ANC as godless black commies and the Afrikaners as brave western Christians with a history much like the American pioneers holding out against the Cubans and Moscow, I think you can get "The Moral Majority" and other groups to get support for SA to be a key litmus test right up there with support for Israel and the gag rule

 

[MerryPrankster]

The Moral Majority is too big-tent. The Israel lobby (the Christian part of it at least) has got the End Times crowd, but many Christians (including the majority of the Reformed) reject that particular eschatological belief system.

Having the SA lobby dominated by the Reconstructionists and/or the more extreme Calvinists is similarly narrow theologically.

 

[overoceans]

For a POD, you might have to go all the way back to the Boer War, and have the US back the Boers, for some reason or other. Britain wins anyway, and is more hellbent on revenge than they were in OTL, so a lot of Boer refugees flee to their ally the US, settling in places like Michigan, where they assimilate with ease into the existing conservative Dutch culture. Some others settle in New York, where they become big players in the gold and diamond trade, thus imparting themselves with financial clout. As well, New York is a big state in the electoral college, so politicians want their vote.

Thing is, though, a pro-apartheid lobby would be exclusively a Republican affair, since no post-60s Democrat at the federal level is going to risk losing black votes by supporting apartheid. And even some Republicans, the ones who always win in nail-biters and need every single vote they get, would stay away.

As for leadership, I see Jay Van Andel and Rich De Vos, of Amway and Blackwater fame, as big financial backers.

The Reconstrictionist element would have some difficulty finding rationale in the Books Of Daniel and Revelation for their eschatology, akin to what Christian Zionists have managed to tease out for Israel. Maybe some dutchified variation on British Israel could be concocted to serve the purpose, but even that would be a stretch, since South Africa is nowhere near the Middle East.

You'd also need the right international circumstances to make the US especially interested in southern Africa. Perhaps if the black-ruled states had aligned more directly with the Soviets, like Ethiopia did. As it was, though, the ideological and strategic orientation of those states was a bit of a mishmash, with few if any of them being outright Soviet allies.