Gary North

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For the bisexual rights activist, see Gary North (journalist)

Gary North is a writer and publisher from the Christian Reconstruction movement. (He is the son-in-law of R.J. Rushdoony, one of the movement's founders.) North received a PhD in History from the University of California at Riverside in 1972. He gained some wider notoriety for his inaccurate prediction of Y2K catastrophe before 2000.

Most Christian Reconstructionists hold to a type of Postmillennialism that holds that Jesus will return to earth only after Trinitarian Christianity has become the religion of the majority of the planet, with God's moral law as the civil standard for society. They believe that Old Testament moral and civil laws, such as those against adultery and sodomy and murder, should be presumed binding unless the New Testament says otherwise; this belief they call theonomy. Critics argue that what North is describing would be a theocracy, and that North and other Postmillennial proponents of Dominion Theology have influenced the growth of the Dominionist tendency among the much larger (and largely Premillennialist) Christian Right.Template:Fact

Theologically, Gary North is a Calvinist. He is President of the Institute for Christian Economics<ref>www.reformed-theology.org/ice</ref> which publishes many, but not all, 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 any natural law theory as a basis for civil law order.

North argues for the abolition of the fractional reserve banking system, and a return to the gold standard.

Gary North once predicted that Y2K would be a global catastrophe.<ref> www.wired.com</ref> He later publicly apologised for his mistaken view of Y2K in a January 2000 ICE newsletter. North previously co-authored Fighting Chance: Ten Feet to Survival, a book urging the construction of backyard underground fallout shelters in anticipation of a predicted nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

North has attracted much criticism for his beliefs, not least from Dispensationalists who obviously dispute his Millennial eschatology. Many Calvinists, especially those who hold to an Amillennial eschatology (which is most of them), also dispute North's position. His postmillennial views were once the majority position among American Calvinists prior to the 20th century.Template:Fact

Starting in 1967, North became a frequent contributor to the libertarian journal The Freeman. His writings also appear on LewRockwell.com.

North's economic views are mostly libertarian, but also so on some issues and foreign policy issues as he opposes the Iraq War. He believes that Social Security and other welfare programs are "theft by majority vote." In addition, he argued that those concerned with preserving the life of Terri Schiavo should have offered to pay for her subsistence.Template:Fact

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