nov-dec 2010 faith for all of life

8/8/2019 Nov-Dec 2010 Faith for All of Life

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Publisher & Chalcedon President

Rev. Mark R. Rushdoony

Chalcedon Vice-President

Martin Selbrede

Editor

Martin Selbrede

Managing Editor

Susan Burns

Contributing Editors

Lee Duigon

Kathy Leonard

Chalcedon Founder

Rev. R. J. Rushdoony

(1916-2001)

was the founder of Chalcedon

and a leading theologian, church/

state expert, and author of numer-

ous works on the application of

Biblical Law to society.

Receiving Faith for All of Life: Thismagazine will be sent to those whorequest it. At least once a year we askthat you return a response card if youwish to remain on the mailing list.Contributors are kept on our mailinglist. Suggested Donation: $35 peryear ($45 for all foreign U.S. fundsonly). Tax-deductible contributionsmay be made out to Chalcedon andmailed to P.O. Box 158, Vallecito, CA95251 USA.

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management contact Rebecca

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Faith for All of Life

November/December 2010

Faith for All of Life, published bi-monthly by Chalcedon, a tax-exempt Christian foundation, is sent to all who request

it. All editorial correspondence should be sent to the managing editor, P.O. Box 569, Cedar Bluff, VA 24609-0569.Laser-print hard copy and elect ronic disk submissions firmly encouraged. All submissions subject to editorial revi-

sion. Email: [email protected]. The editors are not responsible for the return of unsolicited manuscripts which

become the property of Chalcedon unless other arrangements are made. Opinions expressed in this magazinedo not necessarily reflect the views of Chalcedon. It provides a forum for views in accord with a relevant, active,

historic Christianity, though those views may on occasion differ somewhat from Chalcedons and from each other.

Chalcedon depends on the contributions of its readers, and all gifts to Chalcedon are tax-deductible. 2010Chalcedon. All rights reserved. Permission to reprint granted on written request only. Editorial Board: Rev. Mark

R. Rushdoony, President/Editor-in-Chief; Martin Selbrede, Editor; Susan Burns, Managing Editor and Executive

Assistant. Chalcedon, P.O. Box 158, Vallecito, CA 95251, Telephone Circulation (9:00a.m. - 5:00p.m., Pacific): (209) 736-4365 or Fax (209) 736-0536; email: [email protected]; www.chalcedon.edu; Circulation: Rebecca Rouse.

Editorials

2 From the FounderThe Virgin Birth and History

4 From the PresidentWhat Kind o Son Are You?

Features

6 The Lord Will Perfect That Which Concerneth Me:The Work of Rousas John Rushdoony

Michael J. McVicar, Ph.D.

15 You Have Heard It Said... But I Say...Andrea Schwartz

Columns

12 Freedom: The Lost Tool of Evangelism

Bojidar Marinov19 How Well Do American Christians Know Christianity?

Lee Duigon

21 Augustine of Hippo, Foundational Thinker, Part IIIAugustine, The City of God

Rebecca Morecrat

Products

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Jan. 31, 2011


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2 Faith for All of Life | November/December 2010 www.chalcedon.edu

Few things are morestaggering than theaudacity o unbelie.The atheist hates God;thereore, there is noGod; he nds miracles

an oense; thereore, by denitionmiracles are an impossibility. And, inparticular, as the atheist and agnosticapproach the Biblical narrative o the

virgin birth, they talk with pseudo-learnedness o myth and legendaryaccretions. But the narrative, rom startto nish, is not only careully historical,but it also arms a philosophy o his-tory which is the negation o myth.

The essence o the narrative is thatthe sovereign and ultimate being, God,became incarnate, was born o theVirgin Mary, in order to establish Godssalvation and kingship in history andover history.

The Annunciation (Luke 1:2638)declares that Jesus will be the Son oGod, and the son o David, born veryGod o very God, and very man overy man. He is identied both as theeternal King, and as the promised mes-sianic king. Thereore the purpose oHis coming is not mythical, but alsohistorical: it is to accomplish in historythe purposes o God. The myth seeksan escape rom history: it is oered as

a means o overcoming and endinghistory. The Annunciation, however,declares the coming o Jesus as the Onethrough whom history is to develop toits logical and necessary conclusion, theKingdom o God. Hence the intenselyhistorical perspective o both Matthewsand Lukes accounts o the virgin birth.

The Virgin Birth and History(Reprinted rom The Biblical Philosophy o History[Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 2000 reprint], 81-85.)

R. J. Rushdoony

F r o m t h e F o u n d e r

The problem or the critics is notin the narrative so much as in the Godo the narrative, the sovereign God withwhom nothing shall be impossible(Luke 1:37).

To continue with Lukes account, asthe more detailed one, the Magnicat(Luke 1:4655) is a triumphant arma-tion o aith concerning history. Maryviews the coming birth o her son as a

triumph in history. She exalts the nameo the Lord because He is ullling Hispromises made unto the oreathers.Through the Messiah, God is preparingto dethrone all His enemies, avenge Hissuering saints, and show the strengtho His arm. A reading o the Magnicatis instructive:

My soul doth magniy the Lord,

And my spirit hath rejoiced in Godmy Saviour.

For he hath regarded the low estateo his handmaiden: or, behold,rom henceorth all generationsshall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath doneto me great things; and holy is hisname.

And his mercy is on them that earhim rom generation to generation.

He hath shewed strength with hisarm; he hath scattered the proud inthe imagination o their hearts.

He hath put down the mightyrom their seats, and exalted themo low degree.

He hath flled the hungry withgood things; and the rich he hathsent empty away.

He hath holpen his servant Israel,in remembrance o his mercy;

As he spake to our athers, to Abra-ham, and to his seed or ever.

We have spoken o the audacity ounbelie. It is o two kinds. First, thereare those who deny the virgin birth andall that it means. Second, there are thosewho arm the virgin birth but not whatit means.

To illustrate: Mary has describedwhat the coming o the Son does tohistory: it is nothing less than the totaloverturning and redirection o all things.The major step in this overturning is thecoming o the Son; ater that, all thingselse ollow inevitably in the course otime, so that they can be spoken o asin eect already accomplished. Wil-liam Arndt admits that the Magnicatmeans that through the Messiah, God

will dethrone all enemies.1 This is wellstated; the Magnicat can mean littleelse. Then what shall we say when Arndtadds later (with reerence to 1:52), Inmy opinion, the meaning o the wordso Mary is exclusively spiritual, andadds as proo, The coming o Jesusdid not abolish political tyrannies andearthly poverty.2 Is this not likewisea orm o unbelie, and a rejection ohistory? Does it not reduce Christ to the

role o a mythical hero come to rescueman rom history? What point thenis there in the incarnation and in thebodily resurrection i the world is to bewritten o as the realm o the devil, ashistorically irrecoverable?

Martin Luther sees the Magnicatas describing six works o God in his-


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www.chalcedon.edu November/December 2010 |Faith for All of Life 3

Faith or All o Lietory:frst, mercy; second, God breaksdown spiritual pride; third, He putsdown the mighty;ourth, He exalts thelowly;fth and sixth, God lls the hun-gry with good things, and the rich Hesends away empty. Commenting on the

third, Luther says:For He does not destroy the mighty assuddenly as they deserve, but lets themgo or a season, until their might hasreached its highest point. When it hasdone this, God does not support it,neither can it support itsel; it breaksdown o its own weight without anycrash or sound, and the oppressed areraised up, also without any sound,or Gods strength is in them, and italone remains when the strength o the

mighty has allen.

Observe, however, that Mary does notsay He breaks the seats, but He caststhe mighty rom their seats. Nor doesshe say He leaves those o low degree intheir low degree, but He exalts them.For while the world stands, authority,rule, power, and seats must remain.3

In his Epilog to the Magnicat,Luther addresses John Frederick (15031554), the Electors nephew, with these

plain words:Your Grace should refect that in allthe Scriptures God did not permit anyheathen king or prince throughoutthe length or breadth o the world tobe praised, but, contrariwise, to bepunished; this is a mighty and terribleexample to all rulers. Moreover, evenin Israel, His chosen people, He neveround a king worthy o praise and notrather o punishment

All these things were oreordained byGod in order to terriy those in author-ity, to keep them in ear, and to admon-ish them o their peril.4

Arndt calls himsel Lutheran,but Martin Luther obviously sees noexclusively spiritual meaning in theMagnicat.

Similarly, John Calvin sees the Mag-nicat in terms o history, and he com-pares the worldly powers o the Chris-tian era to the tower o Babel builders,whom God, through Mary, declared Hewould orever conound:

He hath scattered the proud in thethought o their heart. This expressionis worthy o notice: or as their prideand ambition are outrageous, as theircovetousness is insatiable, they pile uptheir deliberations to orm an immenseheap, and, to say all in a single word,they build the tower o Babel (Gen.xi.9). Not satised with having madeone or another oolish attempt beyondtheir strength, or with their ormerschemes o mad presumption, they stilladd to their amount. When God hasor a time looked down rom heaven,in silent mockery, on their splendidpreparations, he unexpectedly scattersthe whole mass: just as when a build-ing is overturned, and its parts, whichhad ormerly been bound together by astrong and rm union, are widely scat-tered in every direction.5

Throughout his commentary, Cal-vin very plainly sees the Magnicat as arevelation concerning history, a declara-

tion that God governs history absolute-ly, and the incarnation as a declarationo His sovereign and redeeming power.

Thus, when Mary says, that it is Godwho casteth down nobles rom theirthrones, and exalteth mean persons, sheteaches us, that the world does notmove and revolve by a blind impulseo Fortune, but that all the revolu-tions observed in it are brought aboutby the Providence o God, and thatthose judgments, which appear to us

to disturb and overthrow the entireramework o society, are regulated byGod with unerring justice. This is con-rmed by the ollowing verse, He hath

flled the hungry with good things, andhath sent the rich away empty To suchgodly persons as eel poverty and almostamine, and lit up their cry to God,no small consolation is aorded by this

doctrine, that heflleth the hungry withgood things.6

As surely as we must beware o theatheists, so must we beware o the un-belie o sniveling preachers who reducethe relevance o the virgin birth to the

spiritual realm, who deny its relevanceto history, or the Magnicat declaresthat God has brought salvation to thewhole world o man, material and spiri-tual, religious, political, and economic,and let those who deny this conesstheir unbelie. The joy o Mary is in thesalvation o God, a mighty reversal oall things, o all human values, powers,and plans by God our Savior. The OldTestament promises to the aithul seed

are being ullled.In the Benedictus (Luke 1:6780),this note o triumph in history is carriedurther. Zacharias rejoices in the actthat God keeps His promises, as hespake by the mouth o his holy proph-ets (Luke 1:70, 7273). A kinsmanredeemer has come, God incarnate asmans next-o-kin and redeemer (vv. 68,72). We are saved rom our enemies,and rom the hand o all that hate us (v.71); the meaning is obviously not spiri-

tual! The religious salvation throughthis God-man is cited as being remissiono sins and the mercy or grace o God.

Jesus Christ is called the dayspringin the Benedictus, i.e., the rising sun orSun o righteousness (Mal. 4:2), whogives light to them that sit in darknessand in the shadow o death, to guideour eet into the way o peace (Luke1:78). The gure is a striking one.Prior to Jesus Christ, the movement o

history was meager, and in the dark.The pilgrims o history were araid tomove; they could not move, having nodirection in the dark. The movement ohistory was Gods movement, the Bibli-cal revelation. Now, with the ullness othe revelation, Gods people move with

Continued on page 18


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Biblical accounts areoten understood interms o how we weretold them as children.I can remember morethan a ew recitations o

the story o the calling o Elisha by theprophet Elijah (1 Kings 19:1921). Theolder Elijah put his mantle (or outercloak, probably a sheepskin) on theyounger Elisha. Im not sure i that everreally made much sense to me.

The brevity and simplicity o Biblicalstories makes them ideal or retelling tochildren, and or the same reason, theyare easily retold in childrens storybooks.When adults try to turn those stories intotheater or cinema, however, a problemarises. The stories need to be feshed out,and there is a need to add to the Biblicalstory or such production. I can remem-ber my amazement when I rst sawCharlton Heston in Cecil B. DeMilles

The Ten CommandmentsMoses had agirlriend? I had not recalled that romany o my Sunday school lessons.

Biblical narratives are almost alwayssummaries o the whole story, so it seemsstrange that Elijah suddenly threw hismantle on Elisha and that the latter ol-lowed him with no questions asked. Weare told in three verses the gist o whathappened, not the entire encounter.Commentaries, scholarly works, andsermons regularly try to help us see the

ull picture o what we might easily missin the narrative.

The placing o Elijahs mantle onElisha seems to have come as a surpriseto the young man. The account onlyemphasizes his response, but he seems,unlike us, to have immediately knownwhat Elijahs action meant.

What Kind of Son Are You?Mark R. Rushdoony

F r o m t h e P r e s i d e n t

Sometimes then as now a physicalact was used to convey a relationship.There are, or instance, numerous Bibli-cal reerences to making ones enemy aootstool. When a rebel or enemy was ul-timately deeated, he was brought beorethe victor and then prostrated himsel,literally oering his head at the eet o hisnew master who could choose whetherto execute him or acknowledge him as asubordinate prince. When Baal worship-

pers wished to dedicate their childrento a particular power, they passed theirchildren through re. Usually, this wasmerely the heat and smoke o the re orincense. In both cases the physical actconveyed a known relationship.

Elisha knew what it meant whenElijah placed his mantle on him. It meantthe prophet had chosen him to a specialrelationship. The placing o the mantlerepresented bringing someone underyour care and nurture. This was oten the

adoption o a child or the acknowledge-ment o a amilial responsibility. Thus,when Ruth conronted Boaz, she said,I am Ruth thine handmaid: spreadthereore thy skirt over thine handmaid;or thou art a near kinsman (Ruth 3:9).Ruth was telling Boaz that he was hernearest living relative, and she wantedhim to acknowledge that act and consid-er her as part o his household. Likewise,there is a Turkish expression or adoption

that means to draw through ones skirt.1When Elijah cast his mantle over El-

isha, the meaning was clear; the prophetwas calling Elisha to be his son and hisheir, his successor in his prophetic work.God had told Elijah to do this. The Bibli-cal account is brie, but it is likely thiswas specically related to Elisha.

A similar event is seen in reverse inIsaiah 22:21, where a garment and callingis removed rom an unworthy man. TheLord told Shebna, captain o the temple,that he would be deprived o his ocein avor o another. That man would beclothed with Shebnas robe and girdleand would thus be given his authority.The placing o royal robes at a corona-tion still conveys a new authority andhence a new relationship between prince

and people.With any adoption you came underauthority. Ruths reerence to hersel asBoazs handmaid was sel-deprecating.She was merely saying she was not seek-ing status, only to be recognized as a parto the amily and under the headship oBoaz.

Elisha would have known Elijah,minimally by reputation. In acceptingthe mantle so readily, he accepted a newposition. Elisha was likely a wealthy heir.

His men plowed with twelve teams ooxen, so their arm was very large andtheir capital extensive. Elisha ollowedwith the plow, apparently keeping theothers in view as their supervisor.

Suddenly, Elisha moved romwealthy heir to the poor prophets suc-cessor. He was under Elijahs authorityand protection. He would serve Elijah asa son would serve his ather. This wasnta job, but a change in relationship. This

is why Elisha immediatelyrequestedpermission o Elijah to say good-bye to hisparents. This meant he already recog-nized Elijahs authority over him. He wasnow the son o the prophet. When Elijahwas later taken in a chariot o re, Elishasmourning cry was, in part, My ather,my ather Just prior to that, he had


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Faith or All o Lieasked Elijah or a double portion o hisprophetic spirit; the eldest son alwaysreceived a double portion o the dividedinheritance. Elisha then took up Elijahsmantle, as his disciple, spiritual successor,and adopted heir. None o the students

o the school o the prophets objected.Elisha had, by his adoption, become

the son o Elijah. Sonship meant submit-ting to his spiritual athers authority;hence he requested and received permis-sion to say good-bye to his amily. Elishacooked the two oxen (in an obviouslyvery large east) and burned their yoke,apparently to signiy the end o his workon the arm and the commencemento his new work. Adoption to sonshipmeant a new delity.

Part o Elishas responsibility as anadopted son was to serve Elijah. Sometime later a member o the court o KingJehoram o Israel reerred to the [then]prophet Elisha as one who had pouredwater on the hands o Elijah (2 Kings3:11). Sonship meant service.

The New Testament reers to ouradoption, calls God our Father, and callsus His sons. Elijahs adoption o Elishawas accomplished by the covering o acloak. God has adopted us by a coveringas well. The meaning oatonementis thato a covering. Our sins are covered, butwe are ourselves covered or washed in theblood o the Lamb.

When Paul spoke o our adoption inGalatians 4, he noted the expectation oobedience: [T]he heir, as long as he is achild, diereth nothing rom a servant,though he be lord o all (v. 1). Elishahad been ordained to succeed Elijah, buthe began his ministry by serving him.

Sons were taught obedience and respon-sibility, not only under the ather but un-der tutors and governors until they wereo age and ready to assume a position oauthority. Hebrews 5 speaks o Jesus asa Son, who learned obedience by thethings which he suered (v. 8).

Some commentators have seen a

reerence to adoption o slaves (a com-mon practice) in Galatians 4 as well.Only those slaves adopted as sons wereallowed to address their ormer masters asAbba, Father or their wives as Mama,Mother. This was a privilege not allowed

to slaves.2

Paul would also warn us that we arenot to remain babes in Christ, but thatwe are to grow up to be perect or ma-ture, ready to assume the leadership roleor which we have been prepared. Thematurity o the son, adopted or natural,does not, however, mean we cease toserve our Father. It only means we havemoved rom the simple service expectedo a child to the leadership responsibili-ties o an heir. [I] children, then heirs;

heirs o God, and joint-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17).

We, as the covered, adopted childreno God, are under His authority. Thisauthority is administered through JesusChrist o whom the Father said, [H]earye him (Matt. 17:5). Our Lord Him-sel put us under His authority whenHe said, All power is given unto mein heaven and in earth. Go ye thereore (Matt. 28:1819). Just as Elijah andElisha were men o authority, the cover-ing or atonement o Jesus Christ and Hiscommission has put us under authority.

Elisha put on the mantle o Elijah torepresent Elishas willing acceptance o hisnew role. Paul told us to put o the oldman and put on the new man, whichis equated with putting on the Lord Jesus(Rom. 13:14; Gal. 3:27; Eph. 4:24; Col.3:10).

In Matthew 22 there is a parable inwhich a man invited to a wedding east

proceeded therein, but without a wed-ding garment. He was thrown out o thewedding in words describing a man be-ing cast into hell. The sin described is notone o dress, but o coming beore Godcasually and expecting Him to accept usas we are, without any desire to change.The man cast out was sel-righteous.

He was saying that, I God wants me,He can take me as I am; I dont needto change. The doctrine o adoptionprecludes such presumption. We cometo our Heavenly Father on His terms,by His grace, expecting like Elisha to be

taught obedience and service.Too many Christians believe they

can come to Christ like the man in theparable o the wedding east. They comeexpecting that God ought to accept themas they are. They believe they are as goodas they can be and perhaps a bit bet-ter than they need to be. They come toGod as i He were a service-providerIthink Ill have salvation, please!butthen reuse to place themselves under Hisauthority. Approaching God as a service-

provider refects neither repentance noraith.

Those adopted by God are coveredby the blood o Jesus Christ and arecalled to submit to Him. We cannot justspeak o the Fathers love o His childrenand neglect that, as a Father, He is ourauthority gure. We are called both sonsand servants, and the expectations o agodly son involve both roles; we learnservanthood in our training as sons andheirs. We are called to obey and serveas disciples or greater purposes in ourFathers Kingdom.

Do you approach God as yourservice-provider or as His servant-son?

1. McClintock and Strong, Adoption,Cyclopedia o Biblical, Theological, and Eccle-siastical Literature, Vol. I (Grand Rapids,MI: Baker Book House, 1981), 78.

2. Ibid., 77.


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In December 2007, I ound myselsitting at Rousas John Rushdoonysdesk in his library in Vallecito, Calior-nia. From the outside, the structure wassimple enough: a small brick buildingbuilt on the side o a hill just below hisormer home. Inside, the 1,300-square-oot library housed an intimidatingjumble o books, correspondence,

records, and the memorabilia o one othe most controversial, infuential, andenigmatic gures o twentieth-centuryAmerican Protestantism.

Rushdoonys desk sat at the head othe library in ront o a replace. Bronzetile busts o John Calvin and MartinLuther, the two great sixteenth-centurychurch reormers, stared down romthe mantel. Rows o foor-to-ceilingbookshelves created narrow clutteredaisles that receded into the darkness.Overhead fuorescent lights provedinsucient or the nearly windowlessstructure, plunging the ends o the aislesin murky darkness. The long, poorly litrows created the uneasy sensation thatthe library receded into innity. Giventhat I had heard that Rushdoonyslibrary totaled somewhere between30,000 and 40,000 books, it was easy tobelieve that the shelves did indeed runto Kingdom come.

I had come to Vallecito as a Ph.D.student rom Ohio State Universityin Columbus, Ohio, with the statedpurpose o using Rushdoonys libraryand his correspondence as the ounda-tion or my doctoral dissertation onthe topic o Christian Reconstruction-ism and its relationship to American

The Lord Will Perfect That Which Concerneth Me:

The Work of Rousas John RushdoonyMichael J. McVicar, Ph.D.

F e a t u r e A r t i c l e

conservatism. Staring into the innityo bookshelves, I suddenly wondered isuch a project was even possible. Howcould I ever hope to collect, catalog,and assess the material in this library,let alone comprehend the man and howhe had accumulated and organized all

o this material to produce some tybooks and thousands o essays, lectures,and sermons? Worse still, the library hada decidedly lived-in eeling about it: it

seemed as i Rushdoonywho passedaway in 2001had simply set downhis pen and walked out to address somematter related to the day-to-day man-agement o the Chalcedon Foundationand would return shortly. I elt like aninvader and an intellectual pretenderwho had been given access to one o the

most signicant archives that most his-torians o twentieth-century AmericanProtestantism had never heard o.

Overwhelmed but undeterred, Iused a digital camera to snap thousandso photographs o everything in thelibrarybooks, manuscripts, letters,axes, journals, ledgersthen retiredto a budget hotel in nearby Angels

Camp where I organized the days workand prepared to take a thousand moreimages the ollowing day. Ater leavingVallecito, it took nearly our months toarrange the material I collected, whichI shited into massive digital PDF lesand printed, much to the conusiono my local Kinkos. The entire outputlled several Bankers Boxes, and it tookme nearly as long to read it as it did toorganize it all.

Three years later I successullydeended my dissertation, a documentthat I could not have written withoutaccess to Rushdoonys library. I am nota Reconstructionist, nor were any o theaculty on my dissertation committee.I began the project with a decidedlynegative appraisal o Rushdoony, but Iultimately ended the project with a nu-anced appreciation o R. J. Rushdoonystheology and his public ministry. Inact, the time I spent with Rushdoonys

personal journals and correspondencelet me in awe o the mans work ethic.During my research, I became asci-nated with the relationship betweenRushdoonys Christian convictions andhis workor Christ.

Martin Selbrede, the editor oFaithor All o Lieand vice president o the

Rows o oor-to-ceiling bookshelvescreated narrow cluttered aisles that

receded into the darkness.


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Faith or All o LieChalcedon Foundation, has asked meto refect on my time with Rushdoonyslibrary and to discuss my research.Ive decided to take the opportunityto refect on Rushdoonys understand-ing o his godly calling to preach the

gospel and to reconstruct the church.This essay ocuses on the ways in whichRushdoonys interpretation o his callinginfuenced the way he lived and worked.

I begin the essay with an overviewo Rushdoonys theology o ChristianReconstruction and outline how itrelates to the problem o work anddominion. Then I use the content oRushdoonys libraryhis correspon-dence, journal entries, and personalledgersto provide a unique vantageor understanding his work habits andto detail how these habits related to hisunderstanding o Christian governanceunder the law o God. My hope is thatthis essay will provide readers oFaithor All o Liewith a bit o perspectiveon how Rushdoony worked while alsoproviding a perspective on the natureand meaningo that work.

Liberty Under Law

Beginning in 1972, R. J. Rush-doony began each new year o hispersonal journals with an epigraph romthe 138th Psalm: The LORD willperect that which concerneth me. Theentirety o the versewhich Rushdoonydid not cite in his journalscontinues,[T]hy mercy, O LORD, endureth orever: orsake not the works o thineown hands.1 The point, o course, wasto acknowledge Rushdoonys work asGods work; to dedicate the acts, deeds,

and labor recorded in his journals toJesus; and, in turn, to ask Christ to blessRushdoonys actions as His own. Inthis sense, Rushdoonys vast library isa monumentto his work as a Christianman. That is, his libraryand the read-ing, teaching, and writing it acilitat-edembody a uniquely Christian orm

o government that stands in oppositionto any orm o governance that placessovereignty in some institution otherthan Jesus Christ and His delegated au-thority to Christian men. Consequently,by studying the contents o Rushdoonys

library, we can glimpse a lie dedicatedto the task o Christian Reconstructionand dominion.

The rst glimpses o Rushdoonysconcern or the sel-government oChristian men can be seen in his earlymissionary work. Long beore he everounded the Chalcedon Foundation,developed the idea o Christian Re-constructionism, or built his library,Rushdoony was a missionary on the

isolated Duck Valley Indian Reservationin Nevada.2 While on the reservation,Rushdoony became acutely aware o theproblem state bureaucracy posed notonly to the Paiutes and Shoshones livingon the reservation, but also or all men,native or otherwise, who ran aoul othe ederal state. Nothing better atteststo Rushdoonys appreciation o the chal-lenge the state posed to individuals thanhis retelling o an exchange with one ohis charges on the reservation, a Paiute

indentied only as Pete.In a 1945 letter to a riend, Rush-

doony reported that as [Pete] saw it theIndian was t only or Reservation lieand the white man [is] ripe or the res-ervation, waiting or some superior manto drive him there. [Rushdoony] addedthat the white man, with his increasingpredilection or a dictated economy, wasrapidly bent on turning the world intoa Reservation.3 Pete agreed vigorously,

adding, Only a lazy son-o-a-bitchwants rights. A man wants reedom andjustice, and he can take care o him-sel.4 O the white man Rushdoonyand Pete concluded, the German andthe Japanese ailed to put him there [onthe Reservation]: the next people mightsucceed.5 Rushdoonys conversation

with Pete is a microcosm o the centralproblem that haunted Rushdoony overthe next two decades as he worked toestablish the Chalcedon Foundation in1965; namely, how might he cultivatethe reedom and justice necessary or

a Christian man to thrive independentlyrom state governance?

Years later, Rushdoony developedthe concept o Christian Reconstructionto answer this question. Reconstructionposits that human beings are primarilyreligious creatures bound to God. Theyare not rational, autonomous beingscapable o acting or thinking indepen-dently o God. Following the teachingso Cornelius Van Til, a Dutch Reormed

theologian teaching at WestminsterTheological Seminary in Philadelphiawho athered an apologetic schoolknown as presuppositionalism, Rush-doony argued that all human knowl-edge is invalid i it is not rooted in theBible. In By What Standard, originallypublished in 1958 and still a standardshort introduction to Van Tils presup-positional system, Rushdoony explainedthat all knowledge emerges rom onestheological presuppositions (i.e., there

is one God, many gods, or no god). ForChristians, that means a triune deitymust be the presupposed source oallreliable human knowledge.

The implications o these ideas arear reaching. As Rushdoony explained,when Adam and Eve succumbed to theSerpents temptation to be as gods,knowing good rom evil, they assertedtheir own intellectual autonomy overthat o Gods.6 Intellectual autonomy

(sel-rule o the mind) emerges as sinulpretense, whereas theonomy(Gods ruleo the mind) is the only source or legiti-mate knowledge. Humanitys all intosin was precipitated by a desire to reasonindependently rom Gods authority.7From this perspective, knowledge is amatter o disputed sovereignty. Every


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Faith or All o Lieully a man until he labored or God.

This account o Rushdoonys theol-ogy should make clear that work andChristian Reconstruction are inextrica-bly related. A Christian man must notonlybelievein Christ, but he and his

amily also have an obligation to workor the Kingdom o God in all aspects otheir lives. Indeed, Rushdoony took thisproblem o godly work very seriously.In a 1962 letter to his uture son-in-lawGary North, Rushdoony wrote,

You asked me about my use o time Here again it is a religious mat-ter, and in this respect I cannot beginto compare mysel with some o theCalvinists and Puritans o yester-year. Itis a question ocalling Modern man,

lacking calling, has no ocus to his lie,and accordingly uses time and moneywithout direction or law Once ourlie has a ocus, then time, money, allthings are used to that one end. Mylie is not without its problems, and itssevere limitations at times, but I amcertain that it is a richer lie than mostpeople live And as I read the liveso Calvinists o old, I know how muchless than they I am able to do, becausetheirs was a more dedicated lie oliberty under law. Without calling andthereore ocus, lie dribbles away. I canbe and am lazier than many anotherman and still accomplish more.15

This problem o Christian workand calling returns us to Rushdoonyslibrary and its complicated relationshipto his public ministry. In the ollowingsections, I turn rom this abstract discus-sion o theology to explore the concreteways Rushdoonys library stands as atestament to this theology o Christ

work. Specically, I ocus on his work asa Christian reader, speaker, and writer.

The Discipline of Reading

To better understand the project oChristian Reconstruction and the eectit had on the lie o its leading voice,we can turn to those building blocks o

thought that does not begin with Godand the Bible is rebellious.8 Rushdoonycarried this point to its logical end, ar-guing that i thinking is an explicitly re-ligious activity, then human thought haspolitical implications: thinking becomes

a matter o kingship, power, rebellion,and, ultimately, warare. Either humanthought recognizes Gods sovereignty, orit does not. There is no middle ground,no compromise.

Rushdoony developed a social andpolitical theology designed to combathumanitys sinul desire to be as gods.In his most amous statement o thistheological system, The Institutes o Bib-lical Law,9 Rushdoony argued that OldTestament Biblical law is still bindingor modern Christians. Why? BecauseBiblical law constrains the ability oan autonomous, rational man to thinkapart rom God by setting clear parame-ters on how one may interpret the worldand thereore on how one may act inthe world. Furthermore, Biblical lawprovides a oundation or a Christianalternative to secular, modern societythat Rushdoony reerred to variously asChristian Reconstruction, theonomy, or

dominion theology.Looking to Genesis 1:2628,

Rushdoony discovered the proactive rolea Christian must play in both humanculture and as just stewards over Godscreation: Let us make man in our im-age, in our likeness, and let them ruleover the sh o the sea and the birds othe air, over the livestock, over all theearth, and over all the creatures thatmove along the ground.10 This cre-

ation mandate is a requirement thathumankind subdue the earth and exer-cise dominion over it.11 While manyChristians today might interpret thisGenesis mandate as either nullied bythe all, or as a command or humans toserve as benevolent stewards o the earth,Rushdoony insisted that it is actually

a commandment to subdue all thingsand all nations to Christ and His law-word.12 He argued that Biblical law andthe sacrice o Christ provide the meansto allow Christians to abrogate the curseo the all. Through Biblical law, a recon-

structed Christian could take domin-ion over the planet and reconstruct allo lie in Christs image.

The concept o dominion manwas an important component oRushdoonys ministerial project, and itis directly related to his understandingo work and calling. Reconstructionbegins with the assumption that Godgave human beings a oundationalormo governance located in their mindsand bodies. Rushdoony insisted, [B]asicgovernmentis the sel-government o theChristian man.13 This statement is builton two components, the rst related tosel-governmentand the second to manor the maleChristian. First, Rushdoonydistinguished between those explicitlypolitical orms o state power that wemight reer to as government and abroader, more amorphous concept ogovernment that orders and structures allaspects o human lie. This understand-

ing o governance challenges the notionthat government is located primarily inthe state and instead insists that it hap-pens elsewhere.

Second, Rushdoonys concept oChristian sel-government suggests thatmen are unique creatures created byGod who are governed by theactothis creation, not by the various contextsor environmentsin which they happento nd themselves by an accident o his-

tory. Godly government is inscribed ontheir bodies and in their minds by thevery act o creation. Gods commandthat man exercise dominion over theearth required multiple orms o work14that culminated in Adams classicationo creation (Gen. 2:19). Thus, Rush-doony concluded that Adam was not


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Faith or All o Lie

any libraryits books. Long beore he

built a small library dedicated solely tohis books in Vallecito, Rushdoony andhis amily shared their living space withhis ever-growing library. So, when theymoved to Woodland Hills, Caliornia,in 1965 to start the Chalcedon Founda-tion, the Rushdoony amily enclosed thepatio o their new home to create a wingroom dedicated exclusively to Rush-doonys library. As his son Mark RousasRushdoony, the current president o the

Chalcedon Foundation, remembered,We had to enclose a large screened-inpatio to house the books. Still, they tookup much o the rest o the house andthe garage.16

Rushdoony accumulated this exten-sive library because he was a compulsivebook buyer who oten went on special

trips in search o new books, preerably

hardcovers because he ound paperbacksdistasteul because o their disposablenature.17 He scavenged or them wher-ever he could and bought them by thebox load. But Rushdoony was no collec-tor. Like a woodworkers avorite plane,each book was simultaneously a tooland pleasure. He depended on books sohe surrounded himsel with them. Hetook them everywhere. Again, to MarkRushdoony: I he had to wait anywhere

or even a ew moments he would openthe book and continue reading wherehe had last stopped. He took a brie-case ull o books on speaking trips andwould come home with several read andindexed.18

In these ways and so many others,books structured Rushdoonys lie. They

determined the size and nature o his

and his amilys home. They organizedthe hours in his day, demanding histime and attention. They disciplinedhim. And, in return, he organized themby imposing a structure on their inor-mational chaos. He wrote in his books,indexed them, imposed his ormidableintellect on them:

When he read a book, he would use asix-inch ruler and a pencil. He wouldneatly underline, using the ruler (neverreehand), an important piece o inor-mation. Sometimes he would double-underline something o particularimportance. Longer passages he wouldmark with a single (or double) line inthe margin parallel to the edge o thepage. An exclamation mark, or an xin the margin would denote a particu-larly signicant passage or statement.

Rushdoonys journal entries rom March 12 through March 19, 1973. Underlined items represent book titles.


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Faith or All o LieHe then would write a reerence tothe marked passage in the back o thebook.19

He noted the date and locationwhere he nished reading every bookand logged each completed volume

in his journals. Since he read approxi-mately one book a day, this meant thathis journals are stued with reerencesto completed books or ones he had juststarted.

This discipline went ar beyondmarginalia and annotations: he careullyand methodically Christianized everytext; a process ordered by the Van Tilianpresuppositional philosophy that heused to determine the outcome o every

thought, ensuring its accord with themind o the Creator. This meant thatRushdoonys encounter with his prizedbooks was circular, a closed loop struc-tured rom beginning to end by a singlebook: the Bible. Thus, the Bible orderedhis approach to inormation and deter-mined the way he read every text thathe encountered. In turn, his drive toread and write about what he read wasdetermined by his calling to Christianworkto bring the hearts and minds oall men into accord with Scripture.

Speaking for Christ

Nowhere is this calling to Christian-ize the thoughts o others more clearlyillustrated than in Rushdoonys publiclecturing. To take a relatively representa-tive period rom his earliest years leadingthe establishment o the ChalcedonFoundation (19651970), Rushdoonyspoke at least 115 times to various

groups. Rushdoony was normally a me-ticulous note taker, and it appears thathe tried to enter all o his lectures into asingle ledger and to record them in hispersonal journals. During this time, hespoke to businessmen, college students,womens groups, and private homeBible studies. These latter meetings were

particularly important because theywere organized or the benet o a smallcollection o regular Chalcedon support-ers. He requently lectured in Cuper-tino, Caliornia, at the home o Dr.Simpson, normally to parties o thirty

or less. Similarly he recorded speakingat homes that he simply identies asbelonging to Muller, Norman Pulty,Wilson, and Bali, with mostaudiences numbering ewer than thirty.Although it is not clear rom his recordswho attended or why, these home Biblestudies were likely made up o womenand men who shared his theologicalposition or who grew to agree with himover time as they regularly attended histalks. The subjects o the talks suggest

that they were aimed at well-educated,politically active audiences interested inChristian perspectives on popular cul-ture, homeschooling, anti-communism,hard money economics, and revisionisthistory. For example, he noted speakingon This Christian Republic (Septem-ber 13, 1964); Psalm 2: Conspiracyand History (October 25, 1964);Revolutionary Art (April 10, 1967);The Soviet View o Money (April 11,

1967).Rushdoony as Author

Rushdoonys prodigious literary out-put was directly related to his speaking:many o his books emerged rom thenotes he took to prepare or his lectures.Any reader o his numerous books isalready well aware o the physical heto these texts, but Rushdoonys journalsprovide a clear image o exactly thekind o work ethic necessary to sustain

this output. For instance, in 1970, theyear leading up to the publication ohis most amous work, The Instituteso Biblical Law, Rushdoony recordedin his journal that he had completeda staggering ty-our chapters o hismagnum opus, the vast bulk o thenearly 800-page tome. He had begun

the rst chapters o the project in 1968.These records suggest that Rushdoonywrote the body o the Institutesin lessthan three years. Its incredible thatanyone could readand critically assessthe content o the Institutesin such a

time rame, let alone write it in such acompressed period.But Rushdoony didnt content him-

sel with such achievements. Aside romauthoring ty-our chapters on Biblicallaw, in 1970 Rushdoony also pennedtwo monthly columns: his regular con-tribution to the Chalcedon Reportandan article or a monthly magazine aimedat rural Caliornians, The CaliorniaFarmer.20 Furthermore, he authoredmultiple book reviews, chapters, and

articles or several other book projectsand magazines. He also authored 2,435individual pieces o mail and lecturedand preached a combined 213 times. Inthe midst o this endless, tireless outputRushdoony also managed to read andannotate 226 books. All o this hedutiully recorded in his journal sum-mary or 1970. In a letter rom 1962,Rushdoony recorded a similar testamentto his personal discipline under the law:

I read 303 books last year, wrote 23chapters, plus reviews, conducted 64meetings, spoke 257 times, and madehundreds o calls.21 When we compareRushdoonys greater productivity as anauthor in 1970 to his output in 1962,we see a more mature writer who hadhoned his crat in the subsequent years.

Homeschooling and the Courts

Beside his reading, lecturing, andwriting, Rushdoony made another con-

tribution to American culture, one thathas been largely ignored or orgotten bymany o his supporters and critics: hebecame an expert witness in many courtcases related to the issues o religiousreedom and home education. Hisrole as an expert witness emerged romhis many lecturing engagements that


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Faith or All o Lieoten ound him making the roundso Christian colleges, high schools,and homeschooling conerences. Ashe spoke on the Christian educationcircuit to promote his interpretationo a Christ-centered elementary and

secondary school curriculum, he becameincreasingly aware o a distressingtrend: parents and church leaders whohad sought reuge rom state educa-tion by establishing homeschools andchurch schools were being prosecutedor running aoul o state and ederalregulations. As Rushdoony encounteredparents and attorneys involved in thesecases, he began putting them in contactwith one another, slowly building anad hoc network o Christians united bytheir hitherto unknown common goalo abandoning public schools.

By the mid-1970s phone calls camedaily rom parents and pastors engagedin these cases, and Rushdoony coun-seled them on how to handle their cases.One o the growing, time-consuming,but necessary activities, he wrote tosomeone seeking Chalcedon literatureon independent schooling, is answer-ing telephone calls rom groups acing

state and ederal pressures to give themcounsel.22 Rushdoony blamed this nec-essary work on the ailure o a previousgeneration o evangelicals to stand upand resist a hal-centurys worth o courtrulings: It has been the dereliction andwithdrawal rom social relevancy oconservative Christianity which has ledto our present plight. It is a happy ironyo history that they are now being com-pelled to make the key resistance.23

Through word o mouth and hislecturing tours, Rushdoonys notorietyalso spread in Christian homeschoolingand day schooling circles. By the early1980s, he had become a much sought-ater expert witness in court trials relatedto independent Christian education. Asa highly polished public speaker used to

debating and equipped with a seeminglyencyclopedic knowledge o U.S. history,educational policy, and Christian theol-ogy, his testimony won the aectiono Christians and bafed prosecutors.Between 1980 and 1988, Rushdoony

testied no less than twenty-three timesin court cases all over the United States.These cases related to Christian school-ing, the establishment o religion by thestate, the independence o Christianchurches, and the right o preachers toengage in conrontational evangelistictactics in public venues.

In his journals Rushdoony recordedmany small vignettesmaterial notavailable in court recordsthat pro-vide us with an impression o what histestimony was like and what impactit had on those in the courtroom. Forinstance, during a trial in Nebraska,as Rushdoony approached the witnessstand, one woman associated with theChristian deendant leaned to anotherand whispered, Whose side is he on?Our side or theirs?24 During the courseo his testimony, the woman audiblyconcluded, Hes not on our side. Heson the Lords side.25 Rushdoonys

intelligence and erocity on the standapparently prompted prosecutors totake him seriously as a threat to theircases. They made eorts in some cases tosuppress his testimony, and in a ederalcase in Maine, the government attorneyproduced careully annotated copies oChalcedon publications and used themduring Rushdoonys cross examination.26

Rushdoonys interest in these casesintensied to the point that they domi-nated the other activities o Chalcedon.Unlike his endless writing, researching,and lecture tours, Rushdoonys workwith those seeking his advice and testi-mony on legal matters took a hard emo-tional toll, which he registered bluntly:

Yesterday noon, I ate (as oten) a coldmeal, alone, because, when I sat down

to eat, the phone rang. A pastor I havenever met, with a weeping womanbeore him, called or counsel; he hadcalled a year beore in another case. Forthe same reason, I ate alone at night. Inbetween, I spent a couple hours againon the phone in like matters. This

goes on daily I will continue, onlybecause the battle is the LORDS In ve and a hal years, I have not beenhome all o any month.27

I quote this letter at length becauseit plainly illustrates the sacrices Rush-doony made or the work o ChristianReconstruction. By the time he wrotethese paragraphs to a supporter, he wasin his mid-sixties and gradually begin-ning to slow in his work.

During the late 1990s, R. J. Rush-doonys health rapidly deteriorated.His hearing and eyesight began to ailhim. But his mind remained sharp.He continued to write and deliver theoccasional lecture or sermon into hiseighties. In act, his last years were pro-lic: he wrote on everything rom magicto Christs Sermon on the Mount,producing manuscripts that Ross HouseBooks will no doubt be editing andprinting or years to come. Eventually,

however, doctors diagnosed Rushdoonywith prostate cancer. His intense dailyregime o reading and writing fagged.By 1998 Rushdoony, now eighty-two,regularly ound himsel too ill to read orwrite. He needed surgery or cataractsand regular therapy or his cancer. OnFebruary 6, 1998, he conded in hisjournals: Did nothing, which is di-cult or me.28 Shortly thereater hisjournal entries became sporadic. They

ended abruptly in the all o 2000. Withhis amily at his bedside, Rushdoonypassed away on February 8, 2001.

Conclusion

Today, Rushdoonys legacy is visiblein everything rom the continuing work

Continued on page 24


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The time was theearly nineties,somewhere in East-ern Europe. We werestreet-evangelizing,and I was translating

or an American missionary. The voicecame rom the crowd that had gathered

to listen to our calls or repentance. Iwas thrilledusually, when you havesomeone who asks a legitimate question,he is eager to learn more, and he acceptsChrist when he has the answers to hisconcerns and questions. I expected themissionary to ask the obvious counter-question, Why do you think Americais rich? and then explain how theaith in Christ changes the culture andcreates the oundation or that liberty,justice, and prosperity that the people

in Eastern Europe wanted to attain aterthe all o Communism. The questioncame as a golden opportunity to tell thecrowd even more about the superiorityo the Christian aith.

The missionary simply said: Oh,riches and poverty have no importancewhatsoever. The important thing is tosave your soul.

I was disappointed. The man inthe crowd never got an answer, and we

wasted the opportunity.American missionaries oten have a

very mystic, almost Gnostic idea o sal-vation. Salvation must be that spiritu-al, nonmaterial reality that has nothingto do with peoples lives here and now.The desire or salvation must lack anymotive whatsoever that can be associ-

Freedom: The Lost Tool of EvangelismBojidar Marinov

G u e s t C o l u m n

ated with this present lie; otherwise themissionary considers it less than authen-tic. A person who comes to Christ orsalvation o his soul must be completelyree rom other motives because, likethe missionary above said, these othermotives have no importance whatso-ever. Salvation must remain the pure

spiritual reality that is untainted bythe real-world considerations or goals.True, sometimes the missionary wouldaccept certainpersonalpains and misor-tunes as a valid tool to lead a person toChrist. But social issues, cultural issues,long-term goals and aspirations aboutlie, thought, knowledge, economy,education, politics, etc., must be letaside when a person makes a decision toollow Christ.

Accordingly, missionaries seldom or

never use practical historical examples othe impact o Christianity on cultures.We seldom hear missionaries preachingon the true Christian origin o Westerncivilization, and we certainly never hearmissionaries giving America as an ex-ample o what comprehensive, practicalChristianity can create in the real world.O course, they cant do that; in theirGnostic view, i a man submits to Christbecause Christianity exhibits superior

ruits here in this lie, that man mustnot be sincere in his aith.

This view o evangelism and mo-tives misses one very important lessonrom the Bible: namely, that both Jewsand Gentiles are encouraged to cometo God because o what He has done, inhistory, on earth. The practical conse-

quences o Gods plan and the practicalimplications o His law are to be used asan evangelistic tool to teach the nations(Deut. 4:58). In the New Testament,the promises o inheriting the earth(Matt. 5:5) and rest (Matt. 11:2829)are legitimate tools to lead people tosalvic aith in Christ.

Jesus doesnt stop at promising onlyheavenly rewards, He certainly declaresthat the rewards or our obedience toGod will maniest themselves in this liealso (Luke 18:30). And in 1 Corinthi-ans 7:1216 Paul encourages believinghusbands and wives to remain with theirunbelieving spouses, hoping that theirpractical example will produce salvation.Practicaland even materialmotivesplay a very important part in the evan-gelistic eort, and the Bible constantlyencourages us to use the practical im-pact o Christianity on the individualand cultural level to spread the gospel.

The Law of Liberty

Freedomor libertyis by ar themost important o those practical toolsor evangelism that the Bible gives us.In act, quite oten in the Bible the veryword salvation is dened as reedom. Wementioned above the words o Moses in

Deuteronomy 4:58, that the nationswill come to God because o His justlaws. But then he reminds them o thatrst day when God spoke to Israel romMount Sinai and gave them His law.And the rst words o the law God gavethem were about the reedom He gavethem rom oppression and slavery:

Its easy or you Americans to play religious: you are rich, and you have plenty o time,so you can aord to entertain yourselves with your religion.


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Faith or All o LieI am the LORD your God, whobrought you out o the land oEgypt, out o the house o slavery.(Exod. 20:2 NASB)

This was the very preamble to thewhole law, and it certainly was the chie

characteristic o the law, that whoeverbelieves in God will have a law that givesreedom. It is the same law that Jamesdiscusses in his Epistle (James 2) andencourages the believers to speak andso do as those who will be judged bythelaw o liberty (v. 12 NKJV; emphasisadded). Jesus Himsel says in John 8:32that abiding in His Word will makepeople ree, and then He promises thatwhoever the Son sets ree is ree indeed.

In the context o the Old Testa-ment, salvation or the Jews didnt havesimply the religious, spiritual meaningo going to heaven. Salvation was rstand oremost deliverance, being setree, and the Jews were expected to cele-brate their salvation rom Egypt. Bothroot words used to denote salvation inthe Hebrew Old Testamentyasha andshavahave the meaning o ree, to setree, to be ree. God was completelyconsistent in His dealings with Israel by

using the sanctions olibertyand slavery;when the Israelites disobeyed Him, theylost their salvation and went into captiv-ity; when they were obedient, they weresaved and thereoreree. And when Hetried to bring them back to Himsel, Hispromise always was: Repent, and I willdeliver you rom your oppressors.

In addition, the law o God gavemore liberties to the people under it thanany other law anywhere else. It certainly

was very lax toward oreign slaves whofed to Israel to gain reedom. The returno those slaves to their pagan masterswas considered a heavy crime and wasorbidden by the law. A ugitive slave waspromised his reedom as long he decidedto stay in Israel, under the protection othe law o God (Deut. 23:1516).

It is oten argued by theologiansand pastors that the reedom that salva-tion brings is strictly spiritual, reedomrom sin. Paul doesnt argue or the lib-eration o all slaves, they contend, andhe admonishes slaves not to worry

about being slaves (1 Cor. 7:21). Butthis is a very limited and dualistic viewo reedom. While it is true that trueliberty starts with reedom rom sin,as Jesus argues in John 8, Paul alsoencourages slaves to use opportuni-ties to become ree, and he orbids reeChristians rom going into bondage.Paul didnt start a revolution or theliberation o slaves, but by his wordshe certainly laid the oundation or thedisappearance o slavery in the uture.

The law o Godthe same law thatJesus said He came toulfllcertainlyhad many provisions or reedom, bothrom slavery and rom unjust govern-ment oppression. And it is that lawthat Paul talks about when he says in 1Timothy 1:811 that the law is or kidnappers [i.e. slave dealers]. And headds, According to the glorious gospel with which I have been entrusted(NASB).

The Concreteness of Freedom

Missionaries and evangelists tocultures that never had any Christianinfuence, or that have lost it, requentlyencounter a major problem. They ndthat when they preach salvation, theirlocal listeners are oten conused as tothe meaning o it. Others simply cannotsee the need or salvation. Salvationas a term has no concrete meaning incultures that never had any idea o hell

to start with. It remains a vague religiousnotion; and it has no concrete meaningthat can convey to them the dire needo their situation. Unless a person isalready deeply touched by the messageo the gospel, he has no idea o the needor salvation, and nothing to compareit to.

Very many cultures like the RomanEmpire or modern India have ideas osalvation that are undamentally paganand anti-Christian; using the sameterm by missionaries creates conusionat best, and dangerous local heresies at

worst. When a missionary approachesa person and tells him o the salvationhe can have in Jesus Christ, the typicalresponse is, What do I need salvationrom? In most cultures around theworld the word salvation has lostornever hadits original concrete mean-ing odeliverance rom slavery. Especiallyin Europe, with its deep suspicion oany religious terminology, preachingsalvation automatically relegates a mis-sionary to the list o socially irrelevantactivists in the culture.

In contrast to this, preaching theoriginal meaning o salvationreedom, liberty, deliverancegives themessage o the gospel the concrete ormthat makes it possible to be conveyed toa hostile culture. The need or reedomis much clearer to the listeners, and it ismuch nearer to their hearts. Unbelieversdont need any special training in Bibli-cal terminology to know they are not

ree and they need reedom.Any person anywhere knows he is

not ree. Even i people do not realize itintellectually, the very reality they live inmakes them aware o their slavery. Anentrepreneur in Europe who has to waitor hours in ront o a bureaucrats oceto get permission or business knowsdeep in his heart he isnt ree. A par-ent who has no say in the education ohis children in the government schools

knows or sure that this is a orm oslavery imposed on him rom above.Every time a person les a tax orm, heknows it is a symbol o captivity to thegovernment. A woman in Saudi Arabiawho is not allowed to give testimony incourt even to save her own lie knowsshe is a slave. Even better knowledge o


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Faith or All o Lieher own slavery has a woman in Aghan-istan whose husband cut o her noseor disobeying him. A couple in Chinawho see their newborn daughter takenaway by the authorities to die under theone child policy knows very well there

is a better world where parents have thereedom to enjoy raising their childrenwithout ear o government policies. Anuntouchable man in India who cantnd any other job except the lowestdirty jobs knows very well he is enslavedto his culture. Every person has aningrained eeling o when his reedom isviolated. We dont have to teach peoplethey are slaves; they know it very well.

Slavery has a very concrete reality;unbelievers know what it is long beore

they know their need or salvation,or even beore they know what truereedom is. Thereore liberty, whenpreached and deended to those people,also has a very concrete reality. Evenwhen there is no rational denitiono reedom, there is always a certainintuitive eeling that reedom ispreerable to slavery.

Liberty as a Tool of Evangelism

Thereore, an evangelists messagemust start with what his listeners alreadyknow very well: they are slaves and theyneed liberty. He must not limit his de-nition o liberty to a religious one, or tosimply the eternal state o the souls inheaven. The gospel gives clear promisesor comprehensiveliberty or Christians,starting with the individual soul oman and going all the way to liberty orhis culture and society. A missionarymust use all the examples o slavery in

a society to explain the cultural eectso sin. Every instance o violation o thereedom o individuals and institutionsmust be exposed in the missionaryspreaching; in act, every instance o slav-ery is a sign o demonic domination ona particular aspect o society. The bestway to expose the idols in the culture

is to point to the slavery they produce.And the missionary must keep repeatingwhat his listeners already know: Youare slaves.

And then, he must continue: Youare slaves because you are separated

rom Christ. Only those in Christ aretruly ree. And that reedom is what Iam here to preach. This is the messagethat most people will stop to hear. It is arelevant message or their lives becausethey know they are slaves and theyhate it. And it is a theologically correctmessage because God continually usesthe slavery o unrepentant men to bringthem to repentance.

But he shouldnt stop there. I he

has gained their attention by pointing totheir visible slavery as the result o theirinner sinulness, he should also have atheology that promises them deliver-ance rom slaveryincluding visibleslaveryas a result o their repentanceand conversion. I people come to themissionary to hear his message becausethey know they are slaves, he had betterbe able to tell them how Christianitycan deliver them rom their slavery.Whether it is slavery to the welare state,

or slavery to the caste system, or slaveryto Islamic shariah law, a Christianmissionary must have a comprehensivemessage that proclaims liberty through-out the land. I he doesnt, he will onlydestroy the very hopes he has created.

Indeed, there are many missionarieswhose churches and missions eventu-ally ailed because they never gave thecomprehensive solution to the hopesthey raised. I you preach liberty, you

had better preach comprehensivelibertyand how to achieve it; otherwise youwill lose your listeners.

What is even better today, twentycenturies since Christ gave us His GreatCommission, is that we have a civiliza-tion that unmistakably exhibits the ruitso Christianity. Whatever the religion or

the worldview o a man is, millions opeople around the world preer to live inthe West where there is much more ree-dom than in their own cultures. It is theChristian oundation that created theWest, and it is the liberty that Christian-

ity produced that attracts immigrantsrom other nations. Any missionary whodoesnt understand this act has a twistedview o Christianity.

But more important than un-derstanding the cultural impact oChristianity on the West is using itas an evangelistic tool when going tonon-Western cultures. Every Americanmissionary must unapologetically de-clare to his listeners the cultural superi-

ority o Christianity and give Americaas the bestalthough admittedly notperectmodern example. Yes, Americais prosperous and ree and just, morethan any other nation. But reedom,prosperity, and justice did not appear byrandom chance in America; there was areason or them, and it was the Chris-tian aith o the ounders o the UnitedStates.

Thereore a missionary mustdeclare that i his listeners covet theliberty Americans have, they must startwith the Christian aith that oundedAmerica. Promising liberty under thelaw o God is the only message thatwill be relevant in this world. Anyother message that promises salvationin its limited, mystic sense is doomedto ail.

A Reormed missionary to his nativeBulgaria or over 10 years, Bojidarpreaches and teaches the doctrines o the

Reormation and a comprehensive Biblicalworldview. He and his team have translatedover 30,000 pages o Christian literatureabout the application o the Law o Godin every area o mans lie and society, andpublished those translations online or ree.He currently lives in Houston with his wieMaggie and his three children.


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People, whether theylike it or acknowl-edge it, are products otheir culture. We all areborn into an ongo-ing story and absorb

premises and presuppositions rom earlyon in our lives. Many who proess belieand loyalty to Jesus Christ and His HolyWord have been educated by those out-

side the aith and hold a multitude oconclusions drawn rom aulty premises.Even within the ranks o Christian ho-meschooling, too ew parents re-exam-ine views theyve held since childhood,and ail to use a Biblical lens to evaluatewhether cultural norms are in act Bibli-cal norms.

Take, or example, the concepto sharing. How many children areorced to allow other children to runroughshod over their belongings becausetheir parents have told them they haveto share? Is this rule a Biblical one, ordoes it stem rom socialistic propagandathat advocates the redistribution oproperty and capital?

Even in Jesus day, the religious lead-ers had perverted Gods law to the pointthat Jesus rebuked them:

Woe unto you, scribes and Phari-sees, hypocrites! For ye compass

sea and land to make one proselyte,and when he is made, ye make himtwoold more the child o hell than

yourselves. (Matt. 23:15)

Jesus would begin many o Histeachings with the phrase, You haveheard it said, and then ollow up with,But I say. In each case, He was address-

You Have Heard It Said... But I Say...Andrea Schwartz

F e a t u r e A r t i c l e

ing some aspect o the Mosaic law thathad been hijacked by the religious lead-ers o His day or their own purposes. Asa result, their disciples were unwittinglyoending God while under the impres-sion that they were being righteous.

The voice o the modern church isone o accommodation rather than god-ly rebuke. The pluralistic mindset thathas been continually orce-ed leaves

most who enter congregations eelingthat all they need is minor tweaking intheir lives rather than a complete over-haul. Weve been told so oten and orso long not to judge, that acceptancehas become the mark o holiness, ratherthan calling people to repentance. Asa result, scooping necklines, droopingtrousers, body piercings, and the like areall acceptable so long as there are vocalproessions o aith to override them.

So, how is anyone to discern i hispresuppositions and resultant actions arein line with a Biblical worldview? Theanswer lies in knowing the law o Godwithin the context o redemption andhow it constitutes a aith or all o lie.Ecclesiastes concludes,

Let us hear the conclusion o thewhole matter: Fear God, and keephis commandments: or this is the

whole duty o man. For God shall

bring every work into judgment,with every secret thing, whetherit be good, or whether it be evil.(Eccles. 12:1314)

Thus, by examining the givens inlie within the ramework o Gods law-word, a believer will stand on surer oot-ing when it comes to living out the aith

in all spheres and arenas o lie. Godslaw separates the act rom ction.

Little Known Facts

The musical comedyYoure a GoodMan, Charlie Brown eatures a songsung by the know-it-all Lucy entitledLittle Known Facts.1

Do you see that tree? It is a Fir tree. Itscalled a Fir tree because it gives us ur,or coats. It also gives us wool in thewintertime.

This is an elm tree. Its very little. But itwill grow up into a giant tree, an oak.You can tell how old it is by countingits leaves.

And way up there, those fuy littlewhite things, those are clouds; theymake the wind blow. And way downthere, those tiny little black things, thoseare bugs. They make the grass grow

And this thing here, its called a hy-

drant. They grow all over, and no oneseems to know just how a little thinglike that gives so much water.

Do you see that bird? Its called anEagle, but since its little it has anothername, a Sparrow. And on Christmasand Thanksgiving we eat them.

And way up there, the little stars andplanets, make the rain, that alls inshowers.

And when its cold and winter is upon

us, the snow comes up, just like thefowers. Ater it comes up, the windblows it around so it looks like its com-ing down but actually it comes up, outo the groundlike grass.

It is easy to laugh at these ridiculousexplanations, but how many similarexplanations have millions o students


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Faith or All o Lie(and people in general) been ed andswallowed since their youth, not only inhumanistic schools but in churches, too,simply because someone in a positiono authority proclaimed them as true?Some examples:

Theearthisbillionsofyearsold,and all lie began as a result o aBig Bang.

Thefetusisnotaperson.Afamilyisdenedbypeopleliving

together who love each other.

But there are other, more subtledeceptions that many believers buyinto that result in long-term negativeconsequences or themselves and theiramilies.

Take, or example, the Pledge oAllegiance, which reads:

I pledge allegiance to the Flago the United States o America,and to the Republic or which it stands:one Nation under God, indivisible,With Liberty and Justice or all.

How many have ever questioned theorigins and premises o this oath?

Most Americans believe that the Pledgeo Allegiance to the fag was the work o

the eighteenth-century ounding athers.In act, the Pledge did not come aboutuntil 1892. It was authored by FrancisBellamy, a derocked Baptist ministerrom Boston who identied himsel asa Christian Socialist and was removedrom the pulpit or preaching politics,specically or espousing the view thatJesus was a socialist.2

Although not in the original orm,the phrase under God was added in1954 and has somehow legitimized this

loyalty oath to many proessing believ-ers. Because they have compartmental-ized their Christian aith and divorced itrom politics and history, they miss theact that the pledge has much less to dowith expressing love or ones country,than more or less blind obedience tothe consolidated, centralized state that

was created in the atermath o the Warbetween the States.3

Most Christians think that the solu-tion to our problems is to vote conser-vative, and many show more loyalty toAmerica than to Christ. They ail to

see that Gods law-word is a seamlessgarment and not a patchwork quilt ounrelated commandments. Jesus sum-marized the law in two great command-ments. The Ten Commandments are anexpansion o the two, with the case lawdesigned to demonstrate practical ap-plications. Thus, when you break one oGods commandments, you really breakall because o that unity. Rushdoonypoints out,

[W]hile a mans aith has immediateconsequences, those consequences arenot necessarily apparent at once. Thus,a man who builds without a ounda-tion has at once endangered his liesstructure, but that collapse will becomeapparent only with a storm. Peoplewho try to establish their lives and theirchildrens lives on a character withoutaith, on morality without roots, havethereby destroyed their uture. Theact that the damage may only becomeapparent years later does not nulliy the

causal relationship.4

Just as general computer virusesdont damage immediately, but hidealongside other programs, alse premisesor revisionist inormation piggybackedon well-established acts spread in a viralmanner throughout our thoughts andlie. Just as trojan viruses masqueradeas something theyre not and eventuallydamage or erase a hard disk, so too theunquestioned or unexamined accep-

tance o what is taught will take its tollin a comprehensive way in our lives andthe lives o uture generations. It is onlythrough a systematic study o the ullcounsel o God that one can identiy themany viruses that have made their wayinto a persons computations.

Uncovering these inections would

be an insurmountable task were it notor the reality that:

All Scripture is given by inspira-tion o God, and is proftable ordoctrine, or reproo, or correc-tion, or instruction in righteous-

ness: That the man o God may beperect, thoroughly urnished untoall good works. (2 Tim. 3:1617)

In order to be thoroughly urnishedunto all good works, nothing should betaken at ace value without examining itrst through the lens o Scripture.

[T]he man who hears the Lords wordsand obeys them is the man who livesin terms o Gods reality. Consequencesare real to him, because actions are not

autonomous nor isolated. All thoughts,acts, and words occur in Gods universe,and all have their consequences in termso the world o Gods law. Nothingexists in autonomy or isolation romGod and His law word. Every mo-ment, thought, and event is inextricablylinked to Gods total word and is in-separable rom it. To be godly means inpart recognizing that we are creatures oGod, His creation and or His purposeand glory, and in seeing our lives intheir totality as a part o that purpose.

Then, instead o piecemeal religion, wehave a Biblical aith.5

In My Life

Back in the seventies as a newlymarried couple, my husband and Ididnt have many possessions. What wehad came as a result o gits rom am-ily and weekend garage sales where wesnatched up bargains. We were regularlycounseled by riends that we shouldacquire credit cards, run up some bills,

pay them o, and thereby establish agood credit rating. This, we were told,was how to become established, andsomeday wed be able to buy a home.I remember the eeling o power whenI saw something I wanted and couldcharge it. I even took enormous pleasurewhen I paid the monthly bills, knowing


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Faith or All o Liethat I was on my way to becoming agood credit risk.

We were nine years into our mar-riage when a riend introduced us to thewritings o R. J. Rushdoony, speci-cally his Institutes o Biblical Law. My

husband and I were so taken with thebook that we began to ght over whowas going to get to read it.6 Slowly butsurely, we were developing a Biblicalmindset, something that we had longedor but up until that point had neveracquired. There were many instanceswhere we concluded that premises andperspectives that wed been taught orpicked up were simply not true. Webegan to reorder our lives so that everyarea was examined rom a Biblical per-spective. One episode sticks out in mymind, when an established way o livingwas conronted with the truth o GodsWord aithully expounded.

We returned home one eveningater a long day o shopping in Carmel,Caliornia. The whole amily was glow-ing over our purchases, and my husbandled us in a prayer o thanksgiving aterwe examined how much we had beenable to buy. Ater dinner, I sat down to

read some Rushdoony, specically hislittle gem Law & Liberty. Within anhour, I told my husband that we hadthanked the wrong person. We shouldnthave thanked God or our purchases othe day; we should have thanked Mas-terCard. I read to him:

[P]rivate property and moral order areclosely linked together. When men aregoverned by God, they are more provi-dent, more inclined to be debt-ree,more responsible in their managemento their amilies and aairs, and muchmore prone to own, cherish and hus-band property wisely. A high incidenceo debt-ree property indicates a highdegree o godly living which is bothprovident and ree o covetousness, orit is covetousness which breeds debt-living. The basic principle o Scripture

is clear-cut: Owe no man anything,but to love one another (Rom. 13:8).We do not truly own property unless itis debt-ree. Debt is in essence a orm oslavery, and the basic unction o privateproperty is to establish us in materialliberty. A man who covets property o

various kinds but cannot live debt-reeis not seeking property on godly termsbut on covetous terms.7

That night we took inventory oour nancial situation. Ten years intoour marriage, we had two children,two car payments, and almost $15,000in unsecured debt. With paying theinterest on this balance, it dawned onme that we were paying interest ormeals that had been eaten, digested, and

eliminated. Also, any great bargainswe procured while purchasing on credit,ended up costing us more than theoriginal price tag. It was then that wehad to conront the sinul premises andperspectives in which we were abiding.Dr. Rushdoonys words stung but wereredemptive.

In Colossians 3:5, St. Paul denes evilcovetousness as idolatry, and he declaresthat it is a sin that we must mortiy or

destroy in ourselves. Such covetousnessseeks to exalt the man and to increasehis possessions, but because it groundsitsel on sin rather than Gods law, it isdestructive o both man and property.Those who move in terms o Godsword become the blessed meek, thetamed o God, o whom the Psalmistsays, The meek shall inherit the earth;and shall delight themselves in theabundance o peace (Ps. 37.11).8

Ater this, we increased the ear-

nestness with which we studied Godslaw and worked our way out o debt.Corrections were made in our thinking,resulting in some drastic changes in ourliestyle.

Another instance comes to mindwhere, instead o having to alter ourcourse o action, we discovered that by

Gods grace we had embarked on a paththat was surprisingly orthodox.

During one o our rst in-personmeetings with Dr. Rushdoony (aterhaving read a number o his books),he inquired about where my son was

being educated. Not knowing that theman who stood in ront o me in myliving room was considered the athero the modern Christian school andhomeschooling movements, I sheepishlyanswered, Actually, we homeschool.He gave a resounding, Excellent!and proceeded to ll my arms withhis books on education and a numberwritten by Sam Blumeneld. I com-mented to my husband later on, Guesswhat? Were accidentally doing the rightthing! However, in retrospect, therewas nothing accidental about Gods lov-ing, providential hand directing us. TheScriptures are clear that those who ask,receive; those who seek, nd; and thosewho knock will nd an opened door(Matt. 7:711).

As I continued to read Rushdoonysworks, my commitment solidied toprovide my children with an educationthat was not piecemeal, but systematic

and thoroughly Biblical. Our amilylearned that there was nothing piece-meal about living out the implicationso Gods Word.

Modern man seems to believe in piece-meal religion: he thinks it is possibleto proess Biblical aith on the LordsDay, repeating the Apostles Creed. OnMonday, he sends his children to a stateschool which teaches humanism. Heworks in terms o non-biblical econom-ics in a humanistic state. And he seesno contradiction. Our Lord however,was emphatic: piecemeal religion isan impossibility: No man can servetwo masters: or either he will hate theone, and love the other; or else he willhold to the one, and despise the other.Ye cannot serve God and mammon(Matt. 6:24).9


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Faith or All o LieThe Conclusion of the Matter

Only when all areas o lie andthought are examined within thecontext o Scripture will we be able todiscern between truth and alsehoodsand unearth errors in our thinking. This

examination needs to be systematic iwe are going to advance the Kingdom oGod on His terms.

The Bible, it cannot be repeated otenenough, was not given to man to be aninspiring word, but the command word.

It is not intended to please man, but todeclare to him what he is in himsel, andwhat he must be in the Lord. The Bibleis inspired, not inspiring; it is inallible,because it is the word o God

A systematic Biblical theology will thusnd it impossible to limit the religiousrealm to the ecclesiastical domain. Godis totally God and Lord: the universe istotally under Him and His law-word.A systematic theology which is aithul

to the living God will thus speak to thetotality o man and his lie.10

Proverbs 3:7 instructs us: Be notwise in thine own eyes: ear the LORD,and depart rom evil. That is how wediscern between the You have heard

it said allacies and the truth o whatGods Word declares. Jesus promisedin John 16:1215 that the Holy Spiritwould guide us in all truth and takewhat is Christs and impart it to us.Systematically ollowing the Lords com-mands with humility and gratitude isthe path to victory.

Andrea Schwartz is the ChalcedonFoundations active proponent o Christianeducation. She has authored our books on

homeschooling along with writing a regularblog www.StartYourHomeschool.com. Sheis spearheading the Chalcedon TeacherTraining Institute and continues to mentor,lecture, and teach. She has homeschooledor over 28 years graduating all o her threechildren. She can be reached by email at

[email protected]

1. Music and lyrics by Clark Gesner basedon the characters created by cartoonistCharles M. Schulz.

2. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Lincoln Unmasked:What Youre Not Supposed to Know AboutDishonest Abe(New York: Three RiversPress, 2006), 156.

3. Ibid., 19.

4. R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes o BiblicalLaw, Vol. 2: Law and Society(Vallecito, CA:Ross House Books, 1982), 532.

5. Ibid., 533.

6. The solution was easy: I read Volume 1,and he began with Volume 2.

7. Rushdoony, Law & Liberty(Vallecito,CA: Ross House Books, 1984, 2009), 85.

8. Ibid.

9. Rushdoony, Law and Society, 527.

10. Rushdoony, Systematic Theology(Val-lecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1994), 117.

Him in the light o Christ. According tothe Benedictus, the great orward move-ment o man in history began in Christ

and with Christ.Much more could be said. Suce

it to say that every aspect o the nativitynarrative is not only historical, but also

directed toward the ulllment o thehistorical process. Unbelievers will revert

to the pagan cyclical view o history,which is in eect a denial o relevance tohistory. And Christians who ail to seethe historical relevance o the nativitywill nd little relevance in history. Themodern spiritualizing o the prophe-

cies o the nativity is a witness to theimpotence o the contemporary church.As has been noted, there is no such

perversion o Scripture and surrendero history in the works o Luther andCalvin.

1. William F. Arndt, The Gospel According toSt. Luke(St. Louis, MI: Concordia, 1956),60.

2. Ibid., 62.

Rushdoony Virgin Birth cont. from page 3

3. Jaroslav Pelikan, ed., Luthers Works, Vol.21 (St. Louis, MI: Concordia, 1956), 343.

4. Ibid., 356.

5. John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmonyo the Evangelists, I (Grand Rapids, MI:Eerdmans, 1949), 58.

6. Ibid., 60.

The Biblical Philosophy o History

By R.J. Rushdoony. For the orthodox

Christian who grounds his philosophy o

history on the doctrine o creation, themainspring o history is God. Time rests

on the oundation o eternity, on theeternal decree o God. Time and history

thereore have meaning because theywere created in terms o Gods perect

and totally comprehensive plan. Thehumanist aces a meaningless worldin which he must strive to create and

establish meaning. The Christian acceptsa world which is totally meaningul and

in which every event moves in termso Gods purpose; he submits to Gods

meaning and nds his lie therein. This isan excellent introduction to Rushdoony.Once the reader sees Rushdoonys

emphasis on Gods sovereignty over allo time and creation, he will understand

his application o this presupposition invarious spheres o lie and thought.

Paperback, 138 pages, $22.00

Time and History

Have Meaning...

Discover Them!


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During the reign oJosiah, King o Ju-dah, the Lords Templein Jerusalem was reno-vated ater a long periodo neglect. As the repair

and cleanup work proceeded, a priestdiscovered something.

Hilkiah the priest ound a booko the law o the LORD given byMoses And Shaphan carriedthe book to the king saying,Hilkiah the priest hath given me abook. And Shaphan read it beorethe king.

And it came to pass, when the kinghad heard the words o the law,that he rent his clothes saying,

Go, enquire o the LORD or me,and or them that are let in Israeland Judah, concerning the wordso the book that is ound: or greatis the wrath o the LORD that ispoured out upon us, because ourathers have not kept the wordo the LORD, to do ater all thatis written in this book (2 Chron.34:14b21).

The Holy Scriptures had been leton the shel and orgotten, and theyoung king was appalled.

The church in America has not

yet reached that pointnot yetbutaccording to a new report by the PewForum on Religion and Public Lie, wemay be on our way.

The Survey

On average, Pew reports, Ameri-cans correctly answered 16 o the 32

How Well Do American Christians

Know Christianity?Lee Duigon

S p e c i a l C o l u m n

religious knowledge questions on thesurvey Atheists and agnostics average20.9 correct answers. Jews and Mor-mons do about as well, averaging 20.5and 20.3 correct answers, respectively.Protestants as a whole average 16 correctanswers; Catholics as a whole, 14.7.1

On questions about Christianityincluding a battery o questions aboutthe BibleMormons (7.9 out o 12

right on average) and white evangeli-cal Protestants (7.3 correct on average)show the highest levels o knowledge.2

Previous surveys have shownthat America is among the most reli-gious o the worlds developed nations,says the report. Nearly six-in-tenU.S. adults say that religion is veryimportant in their lives, and roughlyour-in-ten say they attend worshipservices at least once a week. But the

U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey showsth

nov-dec 2010 faith for all of life

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