True preaching cannot leave men unconcerned: it will either arouse them to repentance and to godly action, or it will arouse them to ungodly hostility as they see themselves in the light of God’s Word.–R.J. Rushdoony
Rushdoony, Quote
The necessity of our day is not political action but a return to a Biblical faith.–R.J. Rushdoony
Interview with Chris Ortiz on the Life and Legacy of R.J. Rushdoony
Here are some of the links mentioned in our interview with Chris Ortiz.
Law and Liberty Podcast with Chris Ortiz
The Chalcedon Foundation
Rushdoony Podcast
Free Rushdoony Mp3’s
Rushdoony and the Inescapability of Religion
In 1978, Rousas Rushdoony wrote his influential book, The One and the Many.1 In it, he argued that every culture is inherently religious. The makeup of a society will reflect the religious inclinations of the people. The faith of the modern age, argued Rushdoony, is humanism:
A religious belief in the sufficiency of man as his own lord, his own source of law, his own savior. Instead of God and His law-word as the measure of all things, humanism has made man the measure of reality.
No man can escape the centrality of faith in their lives. Religious neutrality is impossible. The more one avoids the question, the stronger his religiosity becomes. As with humanism, Christianity cannot avoid the consequences of its faith in contemporary society. In the words of Rushdoony, “every culture is a religious externalized, a faith incarnated into life and action.” Christianity is by its very nature an active faith, an activist religion.
Activism can be described also by its common assertion of pacifism. If a Christian decides to live only to self and not engage society around him, he is acting against the cultural mandate. It is always an activist faith. Even pacifism is active in denying activism. Pacifists have a cause, and it is just as active as those who are idealists.
The result of many years of what I call “negative activism”2 is a completely defensive tactic against humanistic faith. What the church is doing today is retreating from her call to engage, thinking that God has not called us to be active; they are by nature being active opponents of Christianity.
- R.J. Rushdoony, The One and the Many (Fairfax, VA:Thoburn Press, 1978), 371-375 [↩ back]
- Negative activism is synonymous with pacifism. By retreating, some Christians are actually being active supporters of those who oppose the Christian faith [↩ back]
A Tribute to Rousas J. Rushdoony
I have many heroes in the faith. Most are in repose. God has decreed that their days on earth ended. They now join the saints in heaven crying out: “When will you bring justice, O Lord” (Rev. 6). They await the consummation of all things. Until then, we who remain benefit from their words of wisdom and encouragement. They too loved this present world and so committed themselves to giving all of themselves to God’s people.
Among the great cloud of witness, Rousas J. Rushdoony stands as a significant figure in my life and thinking. My eclectic nature has allowed me to benefit from the gracious ( Fr. Alexander Schmemann) to the pugilist (Dr. Greg Bahnsen); from the irenic (Professor John Frame) to the insane (Martin Luther). All in all, and many more have shaped me to be the man I am today. To them, I am most grateful. But allow me to speak just briefly about Rushdoony. My commitment to the Scriptures took a new turn when I came across the writings of Rousas Rushdoony. I had never read anything like it before. Suddenly life and theology made sense within a web of articulate reasoning. The once opaque law of God became a life-giving fountain. My thinking was revolutionized by a man I never knew.
He is the only man that I have ever heard to have read one book a day for over 30 years. Even if it is 90% true, I venture to say, no one has ever been like him. He loved books and he consumed them vociferously. He once wrote: I love books. They are not only my tools but a source of delight to me. I have maybe forty thousand or more and always want more! (My problem is space for them: I need an addition to house them!) Dorothy’s problem with me is getting me to spend money for clothes because I want to buy books instead. I have been stalling her for some time, because, I tell her, at 76, how do I know that I can use new clothes very long? Well, I have been feeling so healthy of late that my excuse is now wearing thin!
He loved life and life gave him more than he ever expected. He was born in Armenia and came to the US where he laid the foundations for a movement that by God’s grace will never end. All of life is affected and ought to be reflected by the Word of God. This is what Rousas Rushdoony believed and innumerable amounts are beginning to grasp this verity.
Seeds or Weeds?
Why continue to listen to Rushdoony?
How do you get vegetables out of your garden? By planting vegetables, of course. This is a fact almost too obvious to mention, except for the fact that most people seem to have forgotten that you reap what you sow and you harvest what you plant, “for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7). Continue…
Quote, R.J. Rushdoony.
Five Point Calvinism represents an important development of the implications of God’s sovereignty and is in this respect in the mainstream of theological development. However, contemporary Five Point Calvinism has reduced the faith too often to these abstractions and lost all the power and vitality of Calvinism on the social scene; it does not speak to the problems of the day. (Rushdoony, Systematic Theology Vol. II, p.669)
The “antichrist”
Mark Levin’s book, Men in Black, is a remarkable assessment of judicial tyranny in this nation in the last 100 years. Recent Supreme Court laws such as government control over private property is a Biblical travesty. Rushdoony has pointed out that:
For the state to claim total jurisdicition, as the modern state does, is to claim to be as god, to be the total governor of man and the world. Instead of limited law and limited jurisdiction, antichristian state claims jurisdiction from cradle to grave, from womb to tomb, over welfare, education, worship, the family, business, farming, capital and labor, and all things else.
This a pertinent reminder that when the state begins to legislate a morality that is devoid of Biblical foundation, then it assumes the voice of God. When a Biblical ethical system is replaced by a godless structure we see a clear representation of an anti-christ.The dismantling of a society is found in the abyss of a decadent and tyrannical judicial system. There is no greater threat to Christianity than the threat of “Neros'” leading a nation.
Infallibility as Essential to Any System
In his first volume of Systematic Theology, Rousas J. Rushdoony describes the “inescapable concept” of infallibility. In any system of thought whether it be Marxism, Deism, or Romanism, the concept of infallibility cannot be avoided. For instance, in Rome’s case, their denial of the infallibility of Scriptures does not mean they no longer have an infallible rule. In their case, it has simply been transferred to the Church. So the church is infallible. Rushdoony writes: ” Clearly, then, if infallibility of Scriptures is denied, it is denied only in order to ascribe infallibility to nature, to man, or to some aspect or institution of man (p.5).”
In any case, this paradigm is made to reveal one’s loyalty. The abandonment of one source of truth will not lead into the embracing of nothingness (though if “nothing” were something it would be an infallible source itself). Rather, allegiance changes to another source. Perhaps loneliness, drunkenness, or adultery will fill that gap. Every one has an infallible source. The only problem is most sources are infallibly temporal. It is infallible for as long as it pleases you, but when pleasure is no longer attained it becomes unattractive and then it is time to seek a new infallible source.
In the Old Testament, believers betrayed the infallible hand (the hand of God) that fed them through the desert for their version of a better provider. In the New Testament, they sought to replace the true infallible law (Matthew 5) for their interpretation of the law, which Jesus rebuked sternly. Rushdoony again notes that, “infallibility is thus an inescapable concept. What we face today is not an abandonment of the doctrine of infallibility, but its transfer from God to man, from God’s word to man’s word (p.7).”
In the end, infallibility carries much more implication then in the current debates over Scriptural authority. It carries the idea of allegiance. Any aspect of life in which you depend on more than God becomes your infallible source. God has said that His glory He will share with no other. He is the only eternal infallible word.