RJ Rushdoony
Rousas John Rushdoony (1916-2001) was a minister best known through his extensive literary output. His writings cover a broad spectrum of subjects because his belief was that every area of life and thought should be understood in terms of a world view that assumes God’s Word is both true and authoritative. He is best known for leadership role in Christian education (day and homeschool), his revival of theonomy (Biblical law), and Christian Reconstruction (a term he coined to denote a neglected aspect of the Christian responsibility and response to sin in the culture.)
“History has never been dominated by majorities, but only by dedicated minorities who stand unconditionally on their faith.” ― R.J. Rushdoony
"All human authority was conceived to be limited.” The “ultimate sovereignty of God precluded the idea that any human authority could be unlimited.” Precisely. And because today the sovereignty of God is denied, the sovereignty of man and the state is affirmed. It is useless to rail against the present trend if we are a part of it, and unless we affirm the sovereignty of God in its every aspect, we are to all practical intent affirming man and his humanistic order. In other words, you have already taken sides, and you had better know it. You are either working for the “crown rights of King Jesus” or for the crown claims of humanistic man. You cannot logically affirm “the rule of law,” “moral principles,” and “old-fashioned virtues” without affirming the sovereignty of God. The Marxists are right in recognizing God as the basic and ultimate enemy. Unless you stand in terms of the sovereignty of God as your strength, your first and last line of defense, and the ground of all advance, move over and join the enemy: you are a humanist. — R. J. Rushdoony; Faith & Action: The Collected Articles of R. J. Rushdoony, Volume 1, pp. 190-194.
“It must be recognized that in any culture the source of law is the god of that society.”
― R.J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law, Volume 1 of 3
― R.J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law, Volume 1 of 3
On the surface, a myth is the illusion of an age or a culture whereby life and its origins are interpreted. As such, the myth has an axiomatic truth to the age and is its criterion for judging and assessing reality.
But much more is involved in the concept of myth. A myth is the attempt of a culture to overcome history, to negate the forces and ravages of time, and to make the universe amenable and subject to man. The myth reveals a hatred of history. History shows movement in terms of forces beyond man and in judgment over man; history rides heavily over man, is inescapably ethical, shows a continuing conflict between good and evil, and clearly reveals man as the actor, not the playwright and director. And this man hates. To fill a role he never wrote, to enter on stage at a time not of his choosing, this man resents. The purpose man then sets for himself in his myths is to end history, to make man the absolute governor by decreeing an end to the movement that is history. Where his myths acknowledge man's lot in history, man ascribes his sorry role, not to his depravity, but to jealousy of the gods. The goal of the myth, ever more clearly enunciated over time, has become the destruction of history and the enthronement of man as the new governor of the universe.
The means used by man to accomplish the goal of his myth is magic. The purpose of magic is the total control by man over man, nature, and the supernatural. Whatever the form magic takes, this is its goal. The relationship of magic is therefore basically to science rather than to Biblical religion. Under the influence of Christianity, science escaped the constraints of magic. The purpose of science gradually ceased to be an attempt to play god and became rather the exercise of dominion over the earth under God. The redeemed Christian is God's vicegerent over the earth, and science is one of man's tools in establishing and furthering that dominion. For science to overstep that role is to forsake science for magic. The purposes of modern science are increasingly those of magic, the exercise of total control. The essential goal of modern science is knowledge in order to have prediction, planning, and control. Thus magic has again triumphed, and modern science is popular precisely because man today, wedded again to the world of myth, demands magic to overcome history, to eliminate the ethical struggle and to place man beyond good and evil and beyond judgment. On the whole, modern science has taken readily to this new role, and it is enjoying its status as magician in the mind of modern man. Science has become magic and is governed by myth.
Basic to God's nature as sovereign is His omnipotence. It is not only an assertion of the Bible, but also a basic presupposition of every page, that all things are possible with God, and with Him nothing is impossible. It is not surprising that man, having succumbed to the lure of myth and believing himself to be his own god, should proceed on the premise that all things are possible with man, scientific man.
~ R. J. Rushdoony, The Mythology of Science, p.5f
But much more is involved in the concept of myth. A myth is the attempt of a culture to overcome history, to negate the forces and ravages of time, and to make the universe amenable and subject to man. The myth reveals a hatred of history. History shows movement in terms of forces beyond man and in judgment over man; history rides heavily over man, is inescapably ethical, shows a continuing conflict between good and evil, and clearly reveals man as the actor, not the playwright and director. And this man hates. To fill a role he never wrote, to enter on stage at a time not of his choosing, this man resents. The purpose man then sets for himself in his myths is to end history, to make man the absolute governor by decreeing an end to the movement that is history. Where his myths acknowledge man's lot in history, man ascribes his sorry role, not to his depravity, but to jealousy of the gods. The goal of the myth, ever more clearly enunciated over time, has become the destruction of history and the enthronement of man as the new governor of the universe.
The means used by man to accomplish the goal of his myth is magic. The purpose of magic is the total control by man over man, nature, and the supernatural. Whatever the form magic takes, this is its goal. The relationship of magic is therefore basically to science rather than to Biblical religion. Under the influence of Christianity, science escaped the constraints of magic. The purpose of science gradually ceased to be an attempt to play god and became rather the exercise of dominion over the earth under God. The redeemed Christian is God's vicegerent over the earth, and science is one of man's tools in establishing and furthering that dominion. For science to overstep that role is to forsake science for magic. The purposes of modern science are increasingly those of magic, the exercise of total control. The essential goal of modern science is knowledge in order to have prediction, planning, and control. Thus magic has again triumphed, and modern science is popular precisely because man today, wedded again to the world of myth, demands magic to overcome history, to eliminate the ethical struggle and to place man beyond good and evil and beyond judgment. On the whole, modern science has taken readily to this new role, and it is enjoying its status as magician in the mind of modern man. Science has become magic and is governed by myth.
Basic to God's nature as sovereign is His omnipotence. It is not only an assertion of the Bible, but also a basic presupposition of every page, that all things are possible with God, and with Him nothing is impossible. It is not surprising that man, having succumbed to the lure of myth and believing himself to be his own god, should proceed on the premise that all things are possible with man, scientific man.
~ R. J. Rushdoony, The Mythology of Science, p.5f
"Because God is God, the absolute lord and law-giver, fear of God is the essence of sanity and common sense. To depart from a fear of God is to lack any real sense of reality.
-RJ Rusdoony "Institutes of Biblical Law"
-RJ Rusdoony "Institutes of Biblical Law"
“To deny the death penalty is to insist on life for the evil; it means that evil men are given the right to kill, kidnap, rape, and violate law and order, and their life is guaranteed against death in the process. The murderer is given the right to kill without losing his life, and the victim and potential victims are denied their right to live … If I am loving and merciful to a murderer, I am unloving and merciless to his present and future victims. Moreover, I am then in open contempt of God and His laws.”
— R. J. Rushdoony
— R. J. Rushdoony
God having made us, defined us, and established us in our world and circumstances, reserves unto Himself the right to remake us. Any attempt by man to remake man in terms of a humanistic righteousness is usurpation."
-RJ Rushdoony
-RJ Rushdoony
“The end of an age is always a time of turmoil, war, economic catastrophe, cynicism, lawlessness and distress. But it is also an era of heightened challenge and creativity, of issues, and their world-wide scope, never has an era faced a more demanding and exciting crisis. This then, above all else, is the great and glorious era to live in, a time of of opportunity, one requiring fresh and vigorous thinking, indeed, a glorious time to be alive.”
― R.J. Rushdoony, Intellectual Schizophrenia: Culture, Crisis and Education
― R.J. Rushdoony, Intellectual Schizophrenia: Culture, Crisis and Education
“Godly men are not revolutionists: the Lord's way is regeneration, not revolution.”
― R.J. Rushdoony, The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum
― R.J. Rushdoony, The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum
“The family is the world's greatest welfare agency, and the most successful. What the federal government has done in welfare is small and trifling compared to what the families of America do daily, caring for their own, relieving family distresses, providing medical care and education for one another, and so on. No civil government could begin to finance what the families underwrite daily. The family's welfare program, for all its failures from time to time, is proportionately the world's most successful operation by an incomparable margin.”
― R.J. Rushdoony, Tithing and Dominion
― R.J. Rushdoony, Tithing and Dominion
“To be fearless in the Lord does not require us to be great and powerful men, but only to believe in the great and powerful God.” ― R.J. Rushdoony, A Word in Season, Volume 1
“As we grow in grace, we become a blessing to the world around us, and the world, in terms of its relations to us, is blessed or cursed. This means that the politics of the world capitols, however important, is not as determinative of the future as the faithfulness of the covenant people to their God and to His covenant law-word. When history wallows needlessly in the seas of politics, it is simply because the rudder of the ship, the Christian, is giving no direction and is neither a curse nor a blessing, only salt which has lost its savor and is good for nothing except to be thrown out on the road of history, “to be trodden under foot of men” (Matt. 5:13).” ― R.J. Rushdoony
“The precondition of giving thanks with sincerity is always humility.”
― R.J. Rushdoony
― R.J. Rushdoony
“In any age, our problems are a result of sin, and the solution is faith and obedience.”
― R.J. Rushdoony
― R.J. Rushdoony
“The result of becoming tolerant towards sin is that we become intolerant towards God and His Word.”
― R.J. Rushdoony
― R.J. Rushdoony
“The Lord supplies our needs, but not our selfishness”
― R.J. Rushdoony
― R.J. Rushdoony
“We cannot use our thoughts and feelings as a standard: only God’s Word is the test.”
― R.J. Rushdoony
― R.J. Rushdoony
April 28, 2023: 9 Marks: Book Review: Survival and Resistance in Evangelical America, by Crawford Gribben
Amidst growing societal pressure and a waning consensus on the best manner of Christian political engagement, American evangelicals face a torrent of suggestions for how to relate to the public square. Some opt for direct action on local, state, and national levels. Others avoid such activism. Some seek to build think tanks, schools, and other institutions in global centers of power. Others call for a strategic retreat in order to build a new society. Each movement has its arguments and growing body of literature. But it’s this last group that forms the subject of Crawford Gribben’s Survival and Resistance in Evangelical America: Christian Reconstruction in the Pacific Northwest. What’s appealed to survivalists in previous generations has now found a following among American evangelicals. In particular, hundreds of evangelicals have moved northwest in the hopes of building a better society. |
Gribben doesn’t aim to critique but describe. He writes, “’More school of thought than an organization,’ Christian Reconstruction was developed by R.J. Rushdoony and his son-in-law Gary North in the late 1960s, but it has evolved over time, and has variegated in that evolution” . Gribben demonstrates how new challenges over time led to such changes. |
April 8, 2023: Political Research Associates: Children Are Not Property
Like any piece of property, a child has value to conservative activists. They are key to a future the conservative wants to win. Parental rights are merely one path to the total capture of state power and the imposition of an authoritarian hierarchy on us all. So it’s no surprise that children have long been a fixation to the right wing. The late Christian reconstructionist R.J. Rushdoony was a prominent advocate of Christian homeschooling in the 1960s through the 1980s. To Rushdoony, all education was religious, as Dr. Clint Heacock observed in a 2021 piece for Public Eye magazine. So-called government schools are churches in their own right, Rushdoony believed, indoctrinating students in the religion of secular humanism. He thought parents ought to be solely responsible for the care and education of their children instead of relinquishing them to an anti-Christian state. That fear of state influence, and belief in total parental control, isn’t limited to Rushdoony. At Salon, the journalist Kathryn Joyce reported that Michael Farris — a Trump ally who is the former president of the Alliance Defending Freedom and the founder of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association — launched a parental rights nonprofit in the late aughts that sought to amend the Constitution to read, “The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their children is a fundamental right.” Farris also objected, strenuously, to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the U.S. still hasn’t ratified. In his mind, the treaty threatened the parent’s right to homeschool and to use corporal punishment. No intermediary may come between parents and their property.”
Like any piece of property, a child has value to conservative activists. They are key to a future the conservative wants to win. Parental rights are merely one path to the total capture of state power and the imposition of an authoritarian hierarchy on us all. So it’s no surprise that children have long been a fixation to the right wing. The late Christian reconstructionist R.J. Rushdoony was a prominent advocate of Christian homeschooling in the 1960s through the 1980s. To Rushdoony, all education was religious, as Dr. Clint Heacock observed in a 2021 piece for Public Eye magazine. So-called government schools are churches in their own right, Rushdoony believed, indoctrinating students in the religion of secular humanism. He thought parents ought to be solely responsible for the care and education of their children instead of relinquishing them to an anti-Christian state. That fear of state influence, and belief in total parental control, isn’t limited to Rushdoony. At Salon, the journalist Kathryn Joyce reported that Michael Farris — a Trump ally who is the former president of the Alliance Defending Freedom and the founder of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association — launched a parental rights nonprofit in the late aughts that sought to amend the Constitution to read, “The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their children is a fundamental right.” Farris also objected, strenuously, to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the U.S. still hasn’t ratified. In his mind, the treaty threatened the parent’s right to homeschool and to use corporal punishment. No intermediary may come between parents and their property.”
Jan 13, 2023: Religion Dispatches: ‘EXPORTING GARBAGE TO THE NATIONS’: CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN RIFTS SPREADING LIKE CRACKED GLASS
New cracks appeared before and since the election in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, which is located in the south central part of the state, on the Maryland border. The county is a microcosm of some significant trends towards deepening disunity in evangelicalism. There, Christian Reconstructionists who see themselves in the tradition of 20th century American theologian R.J. Rushdoony, have denounced the charismatic revivalists of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), who played leading roles in the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and other political leaders as “evildoers who claim to serve Jesus.”
New cracks appeared before and since the election in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, which is located in the south central part of the state, on the Maryland border. The county is a microcosm of some significant trends towards deepening disunity in evangelicalism. There, Christian Reconstructionists who see themselves in the tradition of 20th century American theologian R.J. Rushdoony, have denounced the charismatic revivalists of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), who played leading roles in the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and other political leaders as “evildoers who claim to serve Jesus.”
Christian reconstructionism is "about bringing government in all areas of life under biblical law, a continuation of the Mosaic law in the Old Testament, with some exceptions...........This dispensation would include, according to Gary North, public execution of women who have abortions and those who advise them to have an abortion.....Nobody cares about the theocratic, draconian future envisioned by reconstructionists because they don't believe it will happen.......Christian reconstructionism is the merger of a distinct brand of Calvinism with Austrian School economics. In other words, it's an interpretation of the Bible grounded in property rights. What Rushdoony provided is a package that included attacking what these fundamentalists hated and feared most in society, often expressed in terms of "This is communist. This is socialist......Rushdoony's ideas went out in bits and pieces. The Christian right leaders took what they wanted and discarded what they didn't.........Throughout these movements there is also an attempt to turn the tables on the claims of racism.......This is one of the roles that anti-abortion activism as abolition plays. Also, there's a promotion of narratives that provide a different history and legal justifications for interposition, nullification and even secession. One of the things that Christian reconstructionism has added to this dialogue is the concept of the lower magistrate."
Tabachnick explains it, the "lesser magistrate" is a heroic figure who "resists the tyranny of a higher authority" — defining "tyranny" in biblical terms, potentially including any number of popular or common-sense laws or policies. This notion first gained salience in the anti-abortion context in the 1980s and '90s.........Many violent anti-abortionists have justified their actions in reconstructionist teachings," she said. "One of these was Paul Hill, who studied under one of the major reconstructionist leaders and corresponded with others....After Hill went on to murder Dr. John Britton, a physician who performed abortions, in 1994. Hill was executed in 2003, but the reconstructionist movement sought to cast him out well before that.........Gary North responded, after the murders had taken place, in a book called 'Lone Gunners for Jesus............His message to Hill was, "You're going to burn in hell, you've been excommunicated. This was because Paul Hill stepped outside the bounds of the guidelines set by the movement......On the basis of their belief of what the law or the word of God is, they are allowed — on the advice, on the interposition, of a lesser magistrate — to commit acts of violence..........This movement believes that rights come from God and not from any government. Therefore, any 'rights' that conflict with their interpretation of God's law are not actually rights. They are 'humanist' or a product of man's laws and not God's laws. This theme of 'human rights' versus inalienable rights from God has been at the center of the Christian Reconstructionist movement since its beginnings. The goal of reconstructionism is to tear down the existing order and reconstruct a new society based on biblical law. Even if we assume that this vision of a theocratic America will never come to fruition, it's important to recognize the movement's impact on the ideas, strategies and tactics of the larger religious right and its role in sacralizing the actions of other anti-statist fellow travelers. As I wrote almost a decade ago, the theocratic libertarianism of Christian reconstructionism has been surprisingly seductive to Tea Partiers and young libertarians — many of whom may not realize what is supposed to happen after the government is stripped of its regulatory powers."
--Rachel Tabachnick on "Christian Reconstruction" and RJ Rushdoony; Salon; 10.31.21
Tabachnick explains it, the "lesser magistrate" is a heroic figure who "resists the tyranny of a higher authority" — defining "tyranny" in biblical terms, potentially including any number of popular or common-sense laws or policies. This notion first gained salience in the anti-abortion context in the 1980s and '90s.........Many violent anti-abortionists have justified their actions in reconstructionist teachings," she said. "One of these was Paul Hill, who studied under one of the major reconstructionist leaders and corresponded with others....After Hill went on to murder Dr. John Britton, a physician who performed abortions, in 1994. Hill was executed in 2003, but the reconstructionist movement sought to cast him out well before that.........Gary North responded, after the murders had taken place, in a book called 'Lone Gunners for Jesus............His message to Hill was, "You're going to burn in hell, you've been excommunicated. This was because Paul Hill stepped outside the bounds of the guidelines set by the movement......On the basis of their belief of what the law or the word of God is, they are allowed — on the advice, on the interposition, of a lesser magistrate — to commit acts of violence..........This movement believes that rights come from God and not from any government. Therefore, any 'rights' that conflict with their interpretation of God's law are not actually rights. They are 'humanist' or a product of man's laws and not God's laws. This theme of 'human rights' versus inalienable rights from God has been at the center of the Christian Reconstructionist movement since its beginnings. The goal of reconstructionism is to tear down the existing order and reconstruct a new society based on biblical law. Even if we assume that this vision of a theocratic America will never come to fruition, it's important to recognize the movement's impact on the ideas, strategies and tactics of the larger religious right and its role in sacralizing the actions of other anti-statist fellow travelers. As I wrote almost a decade ago, the theocratic libertarianism of Christian reconstructionism has been surprisingly seductive to Tea Partiers and young libertarians — many of whom may not realize what is supposed to happen after the government is stripped of its regulatory powers."
--Rachel Tabachnick on "Christian Reconstruction" and RJ Rushdoony; Salon; 10.31.21
“If the judge does not represent God’s Law order, he is ultimately a political hack and hatchet man whose job it is to keep the people in line, protect the establishment, and, in the process, to feather his own nest. Ungodly judges are to be feared and hated: they represent a particularly fearful and ugly form of evil, and their abuse of office is a deadly cancer to any society.”- INSTITUTES OF BIBLICAL LAW, p. 613.
“The more a power departs from God’s Law, the more impotent it becomes in coping with real offenses, and the more severe it becomes with trifling offenses or with meaningless infractions of empty statutes which seek to govern without moral authority and with reason.
- Rushdoony, INSTITUTES, p. 620
“The more a power departs from God’s Law, the more impotent it becomes in coping with real offenses, and the more severe it becomes with trifling offenses or with meaningless infractions of empty statutes which seek to govern without moral authority and with reason.
- Rushdoony, INSTITUTES, p. 620
Righteousness is the same word as justice; thus, it is the desire for righteousness or justice which our Lord speaks of here.
Justice must be the desire of God’s covenant people. To despise God’s law is to despise righteousness or justice. Scripture speaks of God’s judgment on a rebellious people, on all iniquity. Of all such, the Lord says:
12. Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.
13. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed. (Isa. 65:12–13)
A society that moves in terms of self-interest rather than justice is under God’s judgment; even more so, a society that moves in terms of deliberate injustices is certain of radical condemnation and collapse.
God summons men to His covenant justice or righteousness. Justice cannot be found, however much men may seek it, apart from the sovereign God and His law. The summons therefore declares:
Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. (Isa. 55:1)
The people of salvation are also the people of justice; to separate salvation and righteousness is untenable and evil.
To be the blessed of the Lord means that we hunger and thirst after justice. The image is of intense physical craving, of a passion for righteousness or justice which consumes our being. Apart from justice, God’s justice, for there is none other, we are starved and parched. Only His justice can fill and satisfy us. The promise is that we “shall be filled.” ~ R. J. Rushdoony, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 23f.
Justice must be the desire of God’s covenant people. To despise God’s law is to despise righteousness or justice. Scripture speaks of God’s judgment on a rebellious people, on all iniquity. Of all such, the Lord says:
12. Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.
13. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed. (Isa. 65:12–13)
A society that moves in terms of self-interest rather than justice is under God’s judgment; even more so, a society that moves in terms of deliberate injustices is certain of radical condemnation and collapse.
God summons men to His covenant justice or righteousness. Justice cannot be found, however much men may seek it, apart from the sovereign God and His law. The summons therefore declares:
Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. (Isa. 55:1)
The people of salvation are also the people of justice; to separate salvation and righteousness is untenable and evil.
To be the blessed of the Lord means that we hunger and thirst after justice. The image is of intense physical craving, of a passion for righteousness or justice which consumes our being. Apart from justice, God’s justice, for there is none other, we are starved and parched. Only His justice can fill and satisfy us. The promise is that we “shall be filled.” ~ R. J. Rushdoony, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 23f.