BARF People/Organization Profile
John Whitehead and the Rutherford Institute
The Rutherford Institute is a Virginia-based legal organization
founded in 1982 by John Whitehead and the Chalcedon Foundation, with
financial assistance from the Coors Foundation.
Chalcedon founder and Christian reconstructionist R.J. Rushdoony was
on the Rutherford Institute's first board of directors.
Council for National Policy (CNP) members figure prominently
throughout the Institute's history, including Whitehead, Rushdoony,
and founding board member Howard Ahmanson. Founding board member
Franky
Schaeffer also produced a number of films with Whitehead,
including Religious
Apartheid and The Second American Revolution.
The Institute is named for the 17th century Scottish
minister Samuel Rutherford, the author of 'Lex Rex'.
Rutherford defied the King of England, citing God's laws
as higher than the King's authority. When the two are found in
conflict, moral individuals, according to Rutherford, are to follow
God's legal code.
The cases and tactics of the Rutherford Institute, when taken in
combination with the modern Biblical American media showcasing of its
cases, may be seen as a perfect instrument by which to implement
Gary North's "brushfires" strategy.
Whitehead insists that he "condemns violence," yet he
offered to represent Paul Hill, the
compulsory pregnancy advocate who murdered an abortion doctor and
bodyguard with shotgun blasts to their heads in Pensacola, Florida.
Paradoxically, Whitehead has written that he considers "his
number one priority the defense of the sanctity of all human life."
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The abortion holocaust is, without a doubt, the most crucial issue of
our day. Now is the time for everyone concerned about protecting the
rights of the unborn to act. (From the back of the
Rutherford Institute Report, volume 4, Arresting
Abortion (emphasis in the original)
The Rutherford Institute maintains a number of offices in the U.S. and
other countries.
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For further reading
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Feature Article: The extremist in Rutherford's
closet (February 9, 1998)
The founder and head of the Rutherford Institute, while financing
Paula Jones'
attack on the President, insists that he's "not out to get Bill Clinton."
The same can't be said for his close friend, associate, and onetime
Rutherford board member Frank Schaeffer, who has called Clinton and
the Democratic Party the "spearhead of the new neo-Nazi eugenic
movement." Schaeffer made these comments at an event organized by a
group whose leader advocates the formation of militias and violence
against abortion providers.
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Feature Article: From the Clinics to the
Special Prosecutor: The Legitimization of the
Inquisition (January 20, 1999)
The tactics that have been used by
Special Prosecutor Ken
Starr, which have resulted in the impeachment of President
Clinton, seem very
familiar to some of us who work around issues of reproductive
freedom. Why? Those same tactics are the very same ones that
have been honed for years through attacks on reproductive health
clinics and abortion providers.
- Profile: R.J. Rushdoony / Chalcedon Institute
- Profile: Frank Schaeffer
- Profile: Gary North /
Institute for Christian Economics
- Washingtonpost.com
Special Report: Clinton Accused: Key Player: John W. Whitehead
- Institute for First Amendment Studies, Profile:
The Rutherford Institute
- Frederick Clarkson, Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between
Theocracy and Democracy. Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, 1997
- John Whitehead ed., Arresting Abortion. Crossway Books,
Westchester, IL, 1985
- Jennifer Bradley,
"Fighting the Establishment (Clause)," The American Prospect no. 28
(September-October 1996): 57-60
- Institute for First Amendment Studies,
Council for National Policy
Unofficial Information Page
Last updated November 14, 1999
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