On Praying and Breathing

A short little snippet from a R. J. Rushdoony message on the subject of teaching people how to pray. This is some good stuff:

• Praying and Breathing

R.J. Rushdoony and the Institutes of Biblical Law

Institutes of Biblical Law
By Rousas J. Rushdoony / P & R Publishing

I finally did it!!! After nearly 3 years of reading it on and off I finally finished Rushdoony’s Institutes of Biblical Law; all 850 pages (well almost, I have a few more pages of Appendices to go but I’m pretty much done).

While there have naturally been a few things that I’m not really sure I agree with overall I have to say it has been very profitable and one of the most thought provoking books I’ve read in a while. He was definitely a gifted teacher with some brilliant insights into Scripture.

In the formative years of my Christian life I spent a great deal of time in Dispensational churches that warned me to stay away from Reformed doctrines or I would get sucked into their many errors. When I finally got the biblical guts to study Reformed teachings for myself (instead of only listening to one side of the story) and compare them to Scripture I found much to my surprise that a great deal of what I had been told about them was skewed, distorted and often taken out of context. I must say I see a similar thing happening to many of the Theonomists. While I can see why some of the criticisms that I have heard of Rushdoony were leveled against Him (he says a few things that no doubt seem strange to modern “Evangelical” ears) I have found that many of these criticisms are outright lies based on statements taken completely out of context.

While a few of those in the Theonomy camp have notoriously big mouths, and some of them would probably disown me because I’m a Baptist and hold a little more of an Amillennial view of Eschatology, and while I’m not entirely sure I agree with a few of the things that I have heard from some of them, I have to say that I agree completely and wholeheartedly with their fundamental starting point; God made everything, God owns everything and we must arrange every aspect of this earthly existence according to His Word which addresses every aspect of life. We owe this to Him as His creatures. There’s no way around it, this is the undeniable teaching of Scripture and the core belief of almost all of the Reformers and Puritans.

I find it amusing that many of those who seem to revel and glory in the Reformers and Puritans will quickly condemn the Theonomists when the Theonomists and the Puritans are virtually identical in many of their beliefs and practices. There seems to be a great deal of ignorance of what the Reformers and Puritans were really like. Many in our day seem to read a few quotes or maybe a small book or two and conclude that these great men only concerned themselves with “spiritual,” “heavenly” matters when the truth of the matter is that while they kept their hope fixed on Christ and the glory of the age to come, they brought the Word and the Law of God to bear on everything, much like Mr. Rushdoony has tried to do in this book.

So if you’re interested in some serious thought provoking I would very highly recommend this book to you. I often found it very hard to put down.

Politics through Predestination

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The doctrine of predestination simply stated is this:

"God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."

-The Westminster Confession

The usual knee-jerk reaction to this doctrine, even by many professing Christians, is “God ordains whatever comes to pass? What about our free will? That’s not fair!” and for this reason, apparently, it can not be true in their minds because God is always fair, right? Or is He?

What about the events surrounding our births? Did we have any say in whether we would be male or female or did God unfairly make that decision for us? Did we have any say in what country we would be born in or did God force that decision upon us also? Did we have any say in what family we would be born into? How about what race we would be, what color our skin would be, how tall or short we would be, etc. etc. Where is our free will in all of this? Where’s the fairness? Where’s the equality?

What about the man who is born deep in the heart of Africa, never has the opportunity to hear the gospel and perishes in his sin while another man is born into a Christian family, hears the gospel from his youth, and believes to the saving of his soul. Is this fair? Didn’t God send both of them to their appointed places of birth? Couldn’t He have sent both men to Christian families?

For that matter, what about all the other men and women who never hear the gospel and perish in their sins? Couldn’t God have sent the gospel to all of them? Couldn’t God pick me up right now and send to one or more of these people to share the gospel with them? Or better yet, couldn’t He have avoided the whole fall of man altogether? He didn’t have to make that tree, did He? He didn’t have to put it in the garden. He didn’t have to create Satan. He didn’t have to let him fall and He didn’t have to let him tempt Eve either, but He did all of that. Clearly He predestined all of these things to happen. Scripture teaches this and logic demands it. God could circumvent, avoid or stop anything that comes to pass; whatever does come to pass only happens by His knowledge, permission and decree.

But anyhow, I’ve heard many very good messages on this subject but found this one especially interesting as R.J. Rushdoony relates what the Bible teaches concerning Predestination to the subject of politics; two things generally not brought together in our dualistic "christian" mindsets.

Politics through Predestination
R.J. Rushdoony

The Unlimited Liability Universe

"A limited liability company is one in which the liability of each shareholder is limited to the amount of his shares or stocks, or to a sum fixed by a guarantee called "limited by guarantee." The purpose of limited liability laws is to limit responsibility. Although the ostensible purpose is to protect the shareholders, the practical effect is to limit their responsibility and therefore encourage recklessness in investment. A limited liability economy is socialistic. By seeking to protect people, a limited liability economy merely transfers responsibility away from the people to the state, where "planning" supposedly obviates re­sponsibility. Limited liability encourages people to take chances with limited risks, and to sin economically without paying the price. Limited liability laws rest on the fallacy that payment for economic sins need not be made. In actuality, payment is simply transferred to others.

Limited liability laws were unpopular in earlier, Christian eras but have flourished in the Darwinian world. They rest on important religious presuppositions.

In a statement central to his account, C. S. Lewis described his preference, prior to his conversion, for a materialistic, atheistic uni­verse. The advantages of such a world are the very limited demands it makes on a man.

To such a craven the materialist's universe has the enormous at­traction that it offered you limited liabilities. No strictly infinite disaster could overtake you in it. Death ended all. And if ever finite disasters proved greater than one wished to bear, suicide would always be possible. The horror of the Christian universe was that it had no door marked Exit. . . . But, of course, what mattered most of all was my deap-seated hatred of authority, my monstrous individualism, my lawlessness. No word in my vocabu­lary expressed deeper hatred than the word Interference. But Christianity placed at the center what then seemed to me a tran­scendental Interferer. If its picture were true then no sort of "treaty with reality" could ever be possible. There was no region even in the innermost depth of one's soul (nay, there least of all) which one could surround with a barbed wire fence and guard with a notice of No Admittance. And that was what I wanted; some area, however small, of which I could say to all other beings, "This is my business and mine only."

This is an excellent summation of the matter. The atheist wants a limited liability universe, and he seeks to create a limited liability political and economic order. The more socialistic he becomes, the more he demands a maximum advantage and a limited liability from his social order, an impossibility."

-R.J. Rushdoony in Institutes of Biblical Law

Socialism: Society Coveting by way of Law

"The names for the society whereby men can covet everything that is their neighbor's may vary: socialism, communism, a welfare economy, rugged individualism, fascism, and national socialism are a few of the names common to history. Their goal is the same: under a facade of morality, a system is created to seize what is properly our neighbor's. Not surprisingly, such a system shows a general decline in morality. Theft, murder, adultery, and false witness all increase, because man is a unity. If he can legalize and "justify" seizing his neighbor's wealth or property, he will then legalize and justify taking his neighbor's wife."

-R.J. Rushdoony in Institutes of Biblical Law

Moral Anarchism

"When the law, whether in church, state, school, or family, ceases to command men morally, it breaks down, and two possibilities then exist. A first consequence is anarchy. We should not he surprised at the anarchy in family life, the business world, or in the state, nor at the lack of discipline in churches. Men will not obey a law which lacks moral structure. Many children are rebellious against parental au­thority, but too many parents, as humanists, have no moral grounds for commanding obedience and have only transmitted moral anarchy to their children. The rebellion of youth in the second half of the twentieth century has been logical; it has been based on the moral premises taught by home, church, state, and school. Christian homes which have sent their children into public schools have denied their faith and asked for moral anarchism. This moral anarchism saturates every area, including business and employment.

Second, the alternative to moral anarchism is naked coercion, the use of terror. Karl Marx saw logically no valid philosophy save an­archism; pragmatically, he recognized the need for solidarity and hence he favored communism. Marxism has, however, communicated moral anarchism. As a result, the logical course for a working Marxist, as Lenin quickly realized, is the institution of terror. The Red Terror thus became a necessary and accepted substitute for moral force.

Nowhere should moral authority be greater than in the church. Because the church is commissioned to teach the word of God, when it teaches it faithfully its authority is very great. Discipline is then written into the hearts and sinews of the people. More than a church court then demands it: the lives of the people create it. Where the discipline is lax, or it is grudgingly obeyed only under pressure, the people are either unconverted, or the church is either apostate or irrelevant, and irrelevancy is a form of apostasy."

-R.J. Rushdoony in Institutes of Biblical Law

The Myth of Free Speech

"The dream of absolute free speech is a myth and a delusion. No society has ever granted it. We do not recognize the right of a man to shout "fire!" in a crowded theater, nor to call for the execution of the President, nor to publish totally false and malicious statements with respect lo a man. Speech must be responsible to be free, and there is a social necessity for freedom of responsible speech. The advocates of free speech are logical in also demanding free action, freedom from all responsibility in speech and act. No society can exist if such total freedom from responsibility is permitted. Not surprisingly, the most vocal champions of free speech today are those who champion a revolution which will deny free speech to all others tomorrow. They suppress free speech in a very real fear of the responsible word as well as the irresponsible one. The foundations of their fear of contrary words is in part political safely, and in part religious fear."

-R.J. Rushdoony in Institutes of Biblical Law

Capitalization and Decapitalization

Rushdoony on Capitalization and Decapitalization

"Capitalization is the accumulation of wealth, the conversion of work, savings, and forethought into tangible working assets. No progress is possible without some measure of capitalization. It is a serious error to assume that socialism and communism are opposed to capitalization or to capitalism; their opposition is simply to private capitalism, but their dedicated policy is to state capitalism. For the state to plan any program of progress, public works, or conquest, work, frugality, and forethought are necessary. The work is exacted from the people by force; the frugality or savings is again forced out of the people by means of wage controls, compulsory savings and bond-buying programs, and slave labor, the forethought is provided by the state planners.

State capitalism is seriously defective for a number of reasons. Most notably, first of all, it represents theft. The private capital of the people is expropriated, as well as their work and savings. It is thus a radically dishonest capitalization.

Second, forethought is divorced from work and frugality, that is, the planners are not the ones who provide the work and the sacrifice. As a result, the planners have no brake of immediate consequences imposed upon them. They can be prodigal in their waste of manpower and capital without bankruptcy, in that the state compels the continuance of their non-economic and wasteful planning. The consequence is that, wherever planning is separated from work and savings, instead of capitalization, the result is decapitalization. Socialism is thus by nature imperialistic, in that it must periodically seize or annex a fresh territory in order to have fresh capital to gut by expropriation. State capitalism is thus an agency of decapitalization.

…. capitalization in a society requires a background of faith and character. In every era of history, capitalization is a product of the Puritan disposition, of the willingness to forego present pleasures to accumulate some wealth for future purposes. Where there is no character, there is no capitalization but rather decapitalization, the steady depletion of wealth. Society becomes consumption centered rather than productive, and it begins to decapitalize the centuries-rich inheritance which surrounds it.

Thus, decapitalization is preceded always by a breakdown of faith and character. Where men feel that private happiness is man's purpose and goal rather than serving and glorifying God, and finding joy in Him, where men feel that life owes them something rather than seeing themselves as debtors to God, and where men feel called to fulfill them­selves apart from God rather than in Him, there society is in rapid process of decapitalization."

From

Institutes of Biblical Law
By Rousas J. Rushdoony / P & R Publishing

Humanism; Making Restitution to the Criminal

Rushdoony on Humanism and the "Correctional" System

“…. a major movement resulted in a demand for both more humane treatment in prisons, and the punishment of imprisonment as the solution to the problem of crime. It came to be believed that imprisonment could have a saving effect on man, and that punishment in the form of a loss of liberty would lead to reformation.

Punishment next gave way, in the humanist ideology, to rehabilitation, and prisons began to be converted into rehabilitation centers. Thus, in California, one class of prisons is known as a "correctional facility." the "old doctrine . . . that the purpose of the criminal law is to exact from the criminal a retributive suffering proportionate to the heinousness if the offense" has given way to "the effort ... to combine deterrence and public protection with restoration of the offender to a more self-sustaining role in the community." This opinion reveals certain basic errors. First, criminal law is invested with a religious and messianic role, l duty to save criminals. This is asking of the law more than law can deliver. Second, it misinterprets history. Retribution is seen as exacting suffering; this was true of humanistic law, but not of Biblical law, wherein retribution or vengeance is the prerogative of God and His instruments and involves giving justice where justice is due (Luke 18:1-8). Third, this opinion is individualistic, not social, and it concentrates on the person of the criminal, not the victim. Thus, Bennett notes, "The current trend in the disposition of offenders is unmistakably toward individualized penal treatment administered within the framework of a flexible criminal code." Salvation is personal, and the law now concerns itself with saving the person of the criminal.

This personal frame of reference has led to the newer emphasis on mental health, on psychiatric treatment as the answer to criminality.

Humanism thus has come full circle. It began by replacing restitution with the prison system. It concludes now by restoring restitution, by requiring that society make restitution to the criminal for its supposed neglect. Because of its environmentalism, humanism blames a lack in the environment for a man's crimes. This means that society must atone for that lack by restitution. Both criminology and welfare-ism rest on this humanistic doctrine of restitution. Restitution must thus be made to all who are criminals, perverts, or lazy, to all who will not work, or who are failures, to all who give birth to illegitimate children, and to all who in any way are sub-standard. Restitution has once again become the social standard, but it is a humanistic restitution which works in total opposition to God's order.

Humanistic restitution is anti-law in that it is fundamentally hostile to any concept of absolute law. Absolute law is replaced with the absolute person. The result is the end of any law-order, and its replace­ment with a lawyer-order. The difference between the two is a great one."

From

Institutes of Biblical Law
By Rousas J. Rushdoony / P & R Publishing

Biblical Law, Property Tax and Eminent Domain

Here's a interesting little snippet from R.J. Rushdoony's Institutes of Biblical Law on the subject property ownership as it relates to the 8th Commandment.

"The absence of any land and property tax in Biblical law very definitely protects enduring ownership, whereas modern tax laws destroy ownership. To cite an example, in one city, a lovely area of very superior homes, from ten to twenty rooms, some of stone construction, became, in about 25 years, so heavily taxed, that the homes either had to be torn down to make way for apartments, or sold for use as dormitories. The ownership of these homes was made prohibitive to impossible by means of taxes.

In another area, taxes led to the deterioriation of the area, as people moved out and homes were made into multiple dwellings. Taxes then went down, and others moved in, so that a 90 percent change in population occurred in less than ten years. People who had built there, expecting to remain for life, lost heavily. Taxation of property is a means of destroying property and is a form of robbery.

Taxation makes for the speculative use of land, and it destroys the stability of communities. There is a marked hostility today to the development and preservation of communities by religious and ethnic groups, and such hostility leads to the destruction of property. The destruction of the Boston West End Italian community by urban redevelopment and "slum clearance" has been ably described by H. J. Gans. A family centered society, extensively policing and disciplining itself, was broken up by a "slum clearance" project, because the area was coveted by planners. Both the taxing power, and the eminent domain exercised, are anti-Biblical.

Eminent domain is a divine right. It belongs to God alone. The "right" of the state to eminent domain has no place in Biblical law. The state has a duty to protect man and his property, but not to tax or to confiscate it.

To summarize the Biblical tax laws in relationship to the ownership of land, the basic tax was the poll or head tax (Ex. 30:11-16), which had to be the same for all men. It was paid by men only, all men of age twenty and over. This tax was collected by the civil authority for the maintainance of the civil order, to provide all men with a covering or atonement of civil justice…..

There was thus no land tax or property tax. Since "the earth is the LORD'S and the fullness thereof" (Ex. 9:29, etc.), a land tax usurps God's rights and is unlawful. The purpose of Biblical law with reference to land is to ensure the security of man in his property; a property tax of any kind is a denial of this God-ordained security."

Institutes of Biblical Law
By Rousas J. Rushdoony / P & R Publishing

American History to 1865

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American History

Ive been traveling a great deal for work the last five or six months and while I am very thankful for a good job I have to admit I'm tired of being gone so often but anyhow, on the bright side, I have had a lot of time to listen to a great many sermons, lectures and other various teachings that I wouldn't have had time to listen too otherwise (at least not in such a short time).

One of the highlights of the messages that I had the pleasure of listening too was American History to 1865 by R.J. Rushdoony. On the eighteen cassette tapes that I listen too ( it also comes with a study guide and a teachers guide) Rushdoony brought out a great many insites into American History that you probably will not hear just about anywhere else in our day and the Biblical insights into the Government's financial responsibilities were of particular intrest in light of the present insanity we see on the news everyday, its hard to believe that they were recorded in 1974 or so. Rushdoony was definately ahead of his time!

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Some Food for Apologetical Thought

“God is thus the principle of definition, of law, and of all things. He is the premise of all thinking, and the necessary presupposition for every sphere of thought. It is blasphemy therefore to attempt to "prove" God; God is the necessary presupposition of all proof. To ground any sphere of thought, life, or action, or any sphere of being, on anything other than the triune God is thus blasphemy. Education without God as its premise, law which does not presuppose God and rest on His law, a civil order which does not derive all authority from God, or a family whose foundation is not God's word, is blasphemous.”

-R.J. Rushdoony from The Institutes of Biblical Law