Howard Phillips

Howard Phillips (1941–2013) was the figure who most clearly articulated what the Religious Right's more respectable leaders kept implicit. Where Falwell, Robertson, and Reed talked about 'values voters' and 'family policy,' Phillips openly said the goal was theocratic governance under biblical law — and he built a political party on that premise. Phillips began as a conventional New Right operative. Nixon appointed him in 1973 to dismantle the Office of Economic Opportunity (a federal court voided the appointment as illegal). He founded the Conservative Caucus in 1974, a grassroots lobbying organization. In 1979, he was one of four New Right figures — alongside Paul Weyrich, direct mail pioneer Richard Viguerie, and NCPAC's Terry Dolan — who approached Jerry Falwell and directly recruited him to lead the Moral Majority. Phillips was present at the creation. Following his conversion to evangelical Christianity and his embrace of R.J. Rushdoony's Christian Reconstructionism, Phillips became the Reconstructionist movement's most visible political figure. On Labor Day weekend 1992, he founded the U.S. Taxpayers Party (renamed the Constitution Party in 1999). Rushdoony co-wrote the party's 1992 platform — one of the most explicitly theocratic governing documents in American political history, calling for civil law to conform to biblical law. Phillips ran for president three times on this platform (1992, 1996, 2000). Phillips's significance is that he made the implicit explicit. The mainstream Religious Right's political goals — restricting abortion, opposing LGBTQ rights, promoting Christian prayer in public institutions, opposing secularism in law — were, in Reconstructionist terms, partial implementations of the same theocratic vision Phillips openly endorsed. Phillips functioned as the honest statement of what others pursued through more strategic indirection. He died in Vienna, Virginia on April 20, 2013.

Documented themes

• Dominionism
• Christian Nationalism
• Political Strategy

Connections to Howard Phillips

• R.J. Rushdoony influenced (1992) — Rushdoony co-wrote the 1992 platform of Phillips's U.S. Taxpayers Party — one of the most explicitly theocratic governing documents in American political history. Phillips publicly acknowledged Rushdoony as his intellectual mentor, crediting Rushdoony's work for the home school movement, the Christian school movement, the pro-life movement, and the broader Christian political re-engagement. Phillips was the most visible politician to openly translate Rushdoony's theocratic theology into a party platform.
• Paul Weyrich influenced (1979) — Weyrich and Phillips were part of the same four-man New Right coalition — alongside Richard Viguerie and Terry Dolan — that approached Jerry Falwell in 1979 and directly recruited him to lead the Moral Majority. Phillips was present at the creation of the Religious Right's first major political organization. Weyrich supplied the institutional infrastructure model (drawing on his Free Congress Foundation experience); Phillips supplied grassroots Conservative Caucus networks. Their collaboration established the template for Religious Right coalition organizing.

Sources

• Roads to Dominion — Sara Diamond (1995), pp. 165–185
• The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism — Katherine Stewart (2020), pp. 44–70
• Building God's Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction — Julie Ingersoll (2015), pp. 180–210