Predictably, then, Boot calls his program, “New Puritanism,” and situates R. He attributes his theonomic commitment to the “aim of Puritan thought.” He dubs theonomists the “most consistent modern heirs,” of the Puritans. “The choice is theonomy (God’s law) or autonomy (man’s self-law), and autonomy leads inexorably to either anarchy or totalitarianism,” writes Boot. Joe Boot’s book, The Mission of God, serves as a recent example of a theonomist attempting to accost Puritanism. (The practical lesson embedded in that conclusion is that theonomists that seek to claim the mantle of the Puritans are not reliable historians.) To restate the question, did the Puritans harken to that view both in theory and practice? In brief, theonomy is a decidedly modern aberration. By extension, that legal code-no more and no less-provides the only legitimate blueprint for the legal landscape of a just society.
Theonomy is a Biblicist and, therefore, positivist enterprise that insists that the Old Testament Mosaic civil or judicial law is perennially valid and universally binding. For the purposes of this essay, theonomy can be boiled down to one fundamental conviction. The question, then, is whether the Puritans, as they actually were, were theonomists. Thereby is provided a distinctly American hook, so to speak, by which theonomy can pretend to be native, rather than foreign, to the Protestant tradition in its American expression. It offers them both an historical pedigree and geographical proximity. Theonomists repeatedly attempt to appropriate Puritanism, the New England variety in particular. As with all our work, the London Lyceum publishes a range of viewpoints to encourage thinking. Editor’s Note: This is part 6 in our Lyceum Disputation series considering the nature and validity of theonomy.
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