I like most of them, North being an exception. I think there is a lot of hype and smoke about them. They are solid Reformed Christians and represent an important wing of Reformed thought.
There is a good article out there by John Frame titled "
Machen's Warrior Children." We Reformed Christians tend to take theology very seriously (this is good), but we also tend to go for the jugular when our disagree with our fellow Reformed brethren (this is very bad). Gary North and John Robbins are, in this regard, the two most notorious modern Reformed thinkers that I know about who a do this. but many of us are also guilty.
I have high regard for a number of Reconstructionist thinkers, especially the late Greg Bahnsen. I am close the the Reconstructionists on a number of points and think they brought some important points up (during the 70's and 80's) that Reformed Christians had tended to forget about.
I think we need to be able read our brethren with whom we may disagree and still treat them as brethren, even when we disagree on certain points.
You see time and again were Reformed brethren have divided and ripped each other apart over issues that a generation later it is decided that both sides tended to be uncharitable and exagerate the seriousness of the "then" all important issue.
Don't get me wrong. I do believe there are important issues worth fighting and dying for, but much of the internal warfare that takes place in conservative Reformed circles is not (though you can not tell by the heated rhetoric at the time).
Yes it is within orthodoxy. Reconstructionist think they are very biblical and non-reconstructionists think reconstructionists are in error. (I have read tons of Reconstructionists material and many of their critics. Most of the criticisms (IMHO) are either exagerated or down right false. There are good (fair critics) as well. Vern Poythress is a fair critic.
Those are my thoughts.
Coram Deo,
Kenith
