Showing results by author "R. J. Rushdoony" in All Categories

To attempt to study Scripture without studying its law is to deny it. To attempt to understand Western civilization apart from the impact of biblical law within it and upon it is to seek a fictitious history and to reject 20 centuries and their progress. The Institutes of Biblical Law has as its purpose a reversal of the present trend. it is called "Institutes" in the older meaning of that word--i.e., fundamental principles, here of law, because it is intended as a beginning, as an instituting consideration of that law that must govern society.

The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries that was a self-conscious move away from the Reformation's emphasis on faith and revelation. It was the mind of man that became the new standard. "My own mind is my own church," wrote Thomas Paine in his Age of Reason (Part First, 1794), which was an attack on all religion that claimed to be authoritative and Christianity in particular.

One of the most neglected but pervasive threats to the Christian world and life view is that of neoplatonism. This leftover of ancient Greek philosophy is grounded upon a dual aspect to reality: It views that which is form or spirit (such as mind) as good and that which is physical (flesh) as evil. Neoplatonism is a "dialectical" philosophy that tries to reconcile two basically hostile concepts and retain both within its system.

Genesis begins the Bible and is foundational to it. In recent years, it has become commonplace for both humanists and churchmen to sneer at anyone who takes Genesis 1-11 as historical. Yet, to believe in the myth of evolution is to accept trillions of miracles to account for our cosmos. Spontaneous generation, the development of something out of nothing, and the blind belief in the miraculous powers of chance require tremendous faith.

An entire generation of victory-minded Christians, spurred by the victorious postmillennial vision of Chalcedon, has emerged to press what the Puritan fathers called "the Crown Rights of Christ the King" in all areas of modern life. Central to that is Rousas John Rushdoony's jewel of a study, God's Plan for Victory. The founder of the Christian Reconstruction movement set forth in potent, cogent terms the older Puritan vision of the irrepressible advancement of Christ's kingdom by his faithful saints employing the entire law-word of God as the program for earthly victory.

First published in 1970, this book helped spur the modern rise of postmillennialism. Revelation's details are often perplexing, even baffling, and yet its main meaning is clear: It is a book about victory. It tells us that our faith can only result in victory. "This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith" (1 John 5:4). This is why knowing Revelation is so important. It assures us of our victory and celebrates it. Genesis 3 tells us of the fall of man into sin and death. Revelation gives us man's victory in Christ over sin and death.

The first section summarizes the case laws. The author tenderly illustrates how the law is for our good, and makes clear the difference between the sacrificial laws and those that apply today. The second section vividly shows the practical implications of the law. The examples catch the reader's attention; the author clearly has had much experience discussing God's law. The third section shows that would-be challengers to God's law produce only poison and death. Only God's law can claim to express God's "covenant grace in helping us."

The purpose of Law and Society, this second of three volumes of The Institutes of Biblical Law, is to show how God’s law applies to every aspect of our lives and world. There are in God’s word specified consequences, curses and blessings, for disobedience and obedience. We cannot understand history apart from that fact.

The need today is for the church to press the crown-rights of Christ the king, confident that his government over all will increase without end: "The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. This powerful volume sets forth a Biblical theology of the state, tracing in detail the history and consequences of both statist domination and Christian dereliction of duty. By firmly establishing the Biblical alternative to modern Christianity's polytheism, the author alerts us to the pitfalls of the past, and provides Godly counsel for both the present and future.

Long before state health care or food stamps, before the creation of welfare ghettoes in our major cities, America’s first experiment with socialism and government dependency practically destroyed the American Indian. Government experts created the Indian reservations. America’s churches whole-heartedly supported it, convinced the reservation would be the key to winning souls for Christianity.

The great problem in the church's interpretation of Scripture has been its ecclesiastical orientation, as though God speaks only to the church, and commands only the church. The Lord God speaks in and through His Word to the whole man, to every man, and to every area of life and thought. To assume that the Triune Creator of all things is in His word and person only relevant to the church is to deny His Lordship or sovereignty. If we turn loose the whole Word of God onto the church and the world, we shall see with joy its power and glory. This is the purpose of my brief comments.

As the last installment of R.J. Rushdoony's commentary series on the Pentateuch, it stands as one of the more dynamic expositions in the series in that it addresses God's demands upon man, family, church, and state. In short, Deuteronomy is the defining volume on theocracy. The redemptive power of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit are the enabling forces for a people to once again live faithful to God's covenant—and Deuteronomy provides the details for that covenant. Rushdoony's study represents a sizable deposit into securing the obedience of the church.

The Beatitudes are the kingdom commission to the new Israel of God, and R. J. Rushdoony elucidates this powerful thesis in an accessible and engaging commentary on the world's greatest sermon.

Faith and Action is the complete collection of the essays of R. J. Rushdoony written for the Chalcedon Report between 1965 and 2001 along with several transcripts of his recorded talks. The large volume The Roots of Reconstruction only contained his Chalcedon Report essays up until 1985, so most of the essays included in Faith and Action were unavailable to listeners for many years until now.

Hypocrisy replaces virtue when men cover their sins rather than confess them to God. This is all too common when men do not preach and practice a Biblical doctrine of confession. The challenge is first to restore the meaning of confession as taught in the Scriptures. As long as confession is seen as a Romanist doctrine, we have no hope of recovering this vital aspect of Christianity. In this path-breaking volume, R. J. Rushdoony examines the Biblical teaching on confession and sets it over against the errors of Romanism and the neo-Freudianism of modern Christian counseling.

Introducing the daily messages by R. J. Rushdoony on the uncompromising faith.These daily messages on the faith for all of life are unlike any compilation of Christian "devotional" ever published. A Word in Season reveals the intense, but simple, approach to applying one's faith to every area of life and thought. This is all done in a format of bite-sized readings on the uncompromising faith.

Our faith should be an informed one because the God who created all things speaks to every sphere of life, and all facts should be studied in light of the revelation of God in Scripture. This is the foundation of Christian dominion. For R. J. Rushdoony, true government was the self-government of the Christian life in terms of God's law, so he wrote his position papers to better equip Christians to apply their faith to all of life. His objective was not to empower the state, or the organized church, but rather to call every person and institution to God's Word, which often put him at odds with ...

Faith and Action is the complete collection of the essays of R. J. Rushdoony written for the Chalcedon Report between 1965 and 2001 along with several transcripts of his recorded talks. The large volume The Roots of Reconstruction only contained his Chalcedon Report essays up until 1985, so most of the essays included in Faith & Action were unavailable to readers for many years until now.

From 1953 to 1956, Reverend R. J. Rushdoony gave weekly radio talks at Santa Cruz, California station KSCO that reveal a perfect blend of strong theology with poignant pastoral counsel. In fact, these insightful, concise messages are so well done they could be used for both individual and group discipleship at any level. They are a storehouse of wisdom, inspiration, strong doctrine, exhortation, and comfort for the Christian life.

There is a resounding call in Hebrews that we cannot forget without going astray: "Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach" (13:13). This is a summons to serve Christ the Redeemer-King fully and faithfully, without compromise. In our time, it calls for a break, not only with the prevailing culture of humanistic statism and its messianic claims and pretensions, but also a wayward church that has made itself the handmaiden to Christ's enemies.