What Is Ruckmanism?  By John P. McGraw, M.A.

Ruckmanism:  An obscure heresy mainly contained to southeastern United States and several midwestern states.  This heresy gets its name from Dr. Peter Sturges Ruckman (Ph.D., religious history) who has founded his theology on extreme antinomianism (the possibility of inner salvation without outward, visible holiness), a dedication to Bibliolotry, and many radical interpretations of the Bible.  Devotees of this heresy will stand for the most extreme interpretations of controversial subjects if they come from their leader, but under no circumstances will they stand for a critique of the underlying foundations of the heresy itself.  Among other heresies Ruckman teaches divorce and remarriage of Christians as Christian institutions.  Ruckman contends that all those partaking in physical union (“flesh joined to flesh” as he calls it) have been married, though maybe their marriage is not recognized in the eyes of man.  This of course is polygamy in a twisted form.  The clear teaching of the New Testament is that marriage is (1) a ceremony, John 2:1-10, (2) a spiritual union, Ephesians 5, and (3) a physical union, Hebrews 13:4.  Also the New Testament speaks of the marriage of Jesus to the church, certainly something other than “flesh joined to flesh”.  This aspect of ruckmanism is similar to early Mormonism which contended that indeed marriage is polygamous, and was even partaken in by Jesus Christ.

Though maintaining an orthodox pretense in the Baptist tradition, ruckmanism is clearly outside the tradition of both historic and Biblical Christianity.  Another aspect of ruckmanism is the concept that restricts the deity of Christ to Jesus being the manifestation of God in the flesh and not actually God, in that Christ the man was capable of sin and could have fallen.  Should Christ have sinned the universe it is surmised, might have exploded.  It is felt that were Jesus above the capacity to sin, His testing on the earth would have been a hoax.  This of course is a denial of the Godness of Christ just as so called Apostolic (Jesus Only) doctrine is a denial of His humanity.  The fact is that there was no possibility of Jesus falling for He was truly God.  His testing is a willing one to reconcile man to Himself, not of any necessity whatsoever to the blessed Trinity.  Other aspects of ruckmanism are: the English King James Version of the Bible is superior to the original Greek manuscripts, the antichrist may land in a spaceship in the Vatican, there are no women in heaven (all resurrected saints will receive bodies identical to the resurrected body of Jesus), and a vicious badgering and name calling of those who do not submit to Ruckman’s authority.  Another interesting innovation is that Judas Iscariot was not human, even though the New Testament shows Judas betraying human emotions, repentance and suicide.  Ruckman takes Christ’s statement, “one of you is a devil” to mean that Judas was not human.  Of course Jesus no more meant that Judas was not human than He meant that the Pharisees were not human when He called them serpents and children of vipers.  Interestingly enough Ruckman’s teachings on the non-humaness of Judas is a denial of the traditional and Biblical teaching of the antichrist, whom Ruckman thinks Judas was and is and will be.  For the Pauline teaching on the antichrist is that indeed the antichrist is human, specifically the “man of sin.” (2 Thessalonians 2:2)  In that the distinct element of this teaching revolves around a man, ruckmanism can be accurately described as a cult.