Foundations of Social Order

Apostles Creed

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Apostles Creed

Lesson: 1-19

Genre: Lecture

Track:

Dictation Name: RR126A1

Location/Venue:

Year:

This is an editorial from the Woodland Hills reporter by Ed Pike, And [?] There is a blasphemous book now being advertised under the surprising slogan: don't give this book to anyone for Christmas. The book just off the press was entitled: The Passover Plot, by Doctor [?]. according to the advertisement and we quote: “The Passover Plot asserts and presents detailed documentation as proof that Jesus planned his own arrest, crucifixion and resurrection, that he arranged to be drugged on the cross, simulating death so that he could later be safely removed, revived, and thus carry out the Messianic prophecies.” Never before has a book stirred so mighty a tempest as this. Of course this shocking attempt to destroy man's faith in the sanctity of our Christian tenants takes its place along the side of the left wing generated “God is dead” theory that is being propounded by the atheists in prejudice. [?] after these left wing extremists have eroded away our great religious heritage, after they have robbed the western world of its great faith, after they have emasculated our Christian civilization of its charity, and its elevation of the individual, after there is left only a malleable mass of immoral dope addicted and criminally infested people, then they will take over and convert this sweet land of liberty into a socialistic relativistic carnal house, a graveyard, an insane asylum on a scale equaling the cosmic tragedies which has fallen on the Chinese people, and speaking of slander, a young woman Barbara Garcon a left wing product of the university of California at Berkeley has just published a bitter literary satire entitled Macburg. This slanderous thing based upon Shakespeare's tale of ambition and murder, but Beth cast president Linden Johnson as McBeth [?]. Mrs. Garcon expicitely accused Macburg, Johnson, of being responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Lady Macburg cannot wash the blood off her hands even with all the beautification of all the highways in this accursed land. One passage which is fairly typical of this libel has Macburg, president Johnson expressed himself as follows: “Peace paraders marching stopping, beatniks [? ? ?] Negros starting sit ins, [unintelligible] Asian peasants arguing, bomb them.” and now as vast left wing element in the United States which reacts with violence and horror whenever a strong word is used against it responded to this vicious gutter-sniping, the well known left wing critic Dwight McDonald has ecstatically described Macburg as the funniest, toughest minded and ingenious political satire I have read in years.

Liberal reviewers in the New York Times and Washington Posts rant glowing accounts of the book. Mrs' Garcon, the author of this disgrace honeymooned in Castro's communist Cuba, and is a product of Castro's grant at left wing Marxism. It doesn’t worry me if people think E. Johnson killed Kennedy he said, I really think that [?] Johnson writes even if he didn’t do it. The fact that president Kennedy was murdered by a self proclaimed communist who like Mrs' Garcon had only recently been visiting Castro's Cuba, and who had been active in the red front fair play for Cuba committee [?] of course makes no difference whether to Mrs' Garcon and her left wing admirers, after all these unreasonably believe and try to make other people believe that black is white. The truth which makes men free is usually trampled under by those who justify any means to achieve their end. I thought this would be of interest to you because it gives you an idea of the viciousness of so much of the propaganda and slander that we hear today, and yet we are accused of extremism if we simply tell the truth. Let us begin now with prayer. Almighty God our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee that we can come to thee in the confidence that thou dost and answer prayer. Thou knowest the hopes the burdens the fears of every heart here present, do thou speak unto us the word that we need, give us joy in our salvation, confidence in thee and resolution O Lord to stand firmly in the assurance that thou art the King, that with thee is victory, and that thou be for us, who can be against us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Let us turn now to the second chapter of Acts, verses twenty two through thirty six. We begin today our study of the creeds with the apostles creed. The apostles creed. Acts two, twenty two through thirty six. Ye men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by Him in the midst of you as you yourselves also know. Him being delivered by the determinate council and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. Whom God has raised up having loosed the pains of death because it is not possible that he should be holden of it. David speaketh concerning Him I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice and my tongue was glad, moreover all my flesh shall rest in hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption, thou hast made known to me the ways of life, thou shalt make me full of joy with thy counseling. Men of brethren, let me speak freely unto you of the patriarch David, that he is proved dead and buried in the sepulchers unto this day. Therefor being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh that he would raise up Christ to sit on the throne, he seeing this before us spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up where we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath sent forth this which we now see and hear, for David is not ascended into the heavens, but he sent himself. The Lord said unto my lord, sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, o lord and Christ.

It has become common place in recent years for various churches to post that they are creed-less. Creeds are regarded as restraints on the person, and restrictive of faith. Any church professing to be creed-less is either guilty of hypocrisy or ignorance, it is impossible for any church, any religious organization to be creed-less. The word creed comes from the Latin credo, I believe. In any religious organization, before you can become a member, you must affirm certain things, I know for example the church that boasts that it has no requirement of anyone who chooses to join except that they be sincere, and that they be seekers after the truth. However, before you fulfill their requirement, you must first of all deny that the truth is in the bible, you must deny that the truth is in Jesus Christ incarnate, that he is the son of God, that he was virgin born and that he rose again from the dead, and you must believe in man. Thus, although they professedly have no creed, before they can regard you as sincere, they must question you to make sure you do not have a set of Christian beliefs. Instead, you must profess to a set of humanistic beliefs. This is creedalism. Creedalism is the formula of faith, it is what the individual believes, and whether it be set forth in a short statement such as the apostles creed, or in a longer statement such as the humanistic creed or the creed of humanism, or whether it be simply understood, every religious organization has an explicit or implicit creed. Now what is a creed in relationship to a church? Every organization has certain standards of membership, and with the church these are articles of religion, of confession of faith, canons, a directory of worship, church order, a prayers book, and a considerable body of authority to statements as supplements to scripture.

What is the relationship of a creed to all these things? These church standards cover the whole scope of the churches faith, and the churches government. The creed is the door to the house of faith, the creed is the basic minimal statement required of every member before he can profess membership in the church, and Christian faith. A creed therefore is the door to the house of faith, more than that, a true creed is personal. Thus it is the apostles creed as well as the Nicene and other basic Christian creeds begin: I believe in God, the Father almighty, I believe. We do not say we believe, because we are not there to profess what the church as a whole affirms, in the creed, every believer even though a thousand or ten unite to affirm it says always I believe, this is my personal stand, this is my faith, I assent to this. It is this that marks the Greek Orthodox and Russian orthodox churches from the western churches, and those eastern churches, the believer says we believe, in all western churches it is I believe. This has made a vast difference. It has made for trouble in the western church because when the individual believer must profess the faith, must say I believe, I accept these articles in the creed, it rests therefore on his understanding, on his assent to these articles. But when he simply recites we believe, then he is saying this the church believes, and it is not personal.

As a result, the life of the Greek orthodox on the whole has been one of stagnation. In the west, the church has had trouble, all kinds of controversy from the beginning and divisions, but progress and vitality, precisely because from the beginning its creedalism rested on this: I believe. The western formula therefore meant from the beginning church trouble and progress. The apostles creed of course was not written by the apostles, the term apostles creed means that this creed is a summation of the apostolic preaching. In our scripture lesson from the second chapter of Acts, we have Peter's sermon on the day of Pentacost. The apostles creed is the summary statement of Peter's sermon and indeed of all the apostolic preaching. Very early we find the apostles creed taking form. In the old Roman form, it reads as follows: “I believe in God the father almighty and in Jesus Christ His only son, our Lord who was born by the holy ghost of the virgin Mary, was crucified under Pontious Pilate and was buried, the third day He rose from the dead, he ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the father, from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead, and in the Holy ghost, the Holy church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body.” as is readily apparent, our present version which came into being by the end of the second century is somewhat longer, there are additional words inserted merely to round it out and to make the meaning clearer, to expand the meaning.

The Apostles creed and indeed all Christian creeds are unlike all other statements of all other religions. In every other religion, wherever you have a statement of faith you have a body of ideas which demand belief, a set of claims, a set of concepts concerning reality. As a result, it is an expression of a philosophy, an idea. The apostles creed is radically different. Instead of telling us certain ideas that are wonderful or desirable, telling us for example the humanistic creed does, that man is to be believed in and there is great hope for mans future, man simply resolves to do these things, or telling us as the creeds of some other religions do that out beyond this world there is nothing but nothingness. Instead of these things, the apostles creed offers us no ideas, but simply a synopsis of history. The apostles creed simply says history was created by God almighty, maker of heaven and earth, history requiring salvation has been given Jesus Christ His only begotten son by God the father, Jesus Christ entered, lived, died, and was resurrected in history, and now is the lord and judge of history, his holy congregation is operative in history, which culminates in the general resurrection and everlasting life. The whole creed therefore is a declaration concerning history. It deals with the triune God, and with the people of God in history. It declares that God is the creator, the almighty one, who made all things, that he sent His only begotten Son Jesus Christ, the second person of the trinity into this world, that Jesus Christ who was miraculously born of the virgin Mary, died for our salvation, was crucified and resurrected, ascended into heaven and is there now as our judge and our advocate, He will return at the end of the world to judge the quick and the dead.

It affirms our belief also in the third person of the trinity, the Holy Ghost, then it affirms that God's word is continuing in history not only directly in His person but also through the holy congregation. This was in the old English creed used before the Norman conquest the way the apostles creed read: the holy congregation. The church of course is another word for congregation, and in the old testament where we read the word translated as congregation, its the same word basically as the Greek word in the new testament which is translated as church, ecclasia. Now the holy congregation means that body of believers who are holy, that is separated and dedicated unto God. As we saw the old Roman form did not include the word Catholic, it read the holy church. The holy catholic church was added to make the meaning clear, that this was not a particular church, not that of Rome or of Constantinople nor of Alexandria, but the entire church both in heaven and on earth, the universal church of true believers who are separated and dedicated unto God in Christ. In other words, the communion of saints, or in the words of the old English form, of the saints of society. The forgiveness of sins is affirmed as a present reality so that in history there is a body of believers, a body of men who labor not under the curse, not under the burden of sin and death, but in terms of the glorious liturgy of the sons of God, the forgiveness of sins, and the end of history if the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

One word which appears in the creed in the English forms sometimes leads to confusion, the word hell, he descended into hell. The word hell in English is used to translate two words in the new testament, Gehenna and Hades. Gehenna is literally what we mean when we say hell, Hades is a general term for the other world, also for the state of death. Hades therefor is inclusive of both heaven and hell, it is a general term for the other life, the other world so that when the creed declares he descended into hell it means that literally that he descended into Hades, into the condition of death, not that he literally went to hell. The whole creed therefor is the declaration concerning history that it was made of God, is totally governed by Him and shall culminate in the coming again of Jesus Christ. One of the things we commonly see in almost every church today is the dialectical separation of faith and history. We find for example Karl Marx differentiating between the Jesus of faith, and the Jesus of history. The Jesus of history these neo orthodox theologians and preachers tell us was a man who was born in Palestine who had certain ideas and labored under certain illusions, and was crucified and is dead and moldering inside some forgotten grave. The Jesus of history thus was a failure, but the Jesus of faith is that idea that man gained and set down in writing, which although it has no relation to history has inspired men from that time forward. Now this difference between faith and history, this dialectical separation is totally alien to the bible, it is simply paganism, and no Christian can accept it without forfeiting the faith. Basic to our faith and to the apostles creed is the affirmed acclimation that God the father almighty is maker of heaven and earth, and to this every believer says: I believe in God the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. Creationism is basic to the creed and to its emphasis on history, God is the creator who made all things, and because God created all things and all things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made, He is therefor the law giver, the sustainer, the determiner of heaven and earth and of all history. If the world had not been made by God, if the world, the universe were self generating, then even if God existed no matter what He said it would be irrelevant to this world, irrelevant to man because mans law would be derived from this self generating universe, not from God. But because God created heaven and earth, God's law governs heaven and earth, and this makes for the fundamental difference between biblical morality and all pagan morality, which we saw a few weeks ago.

Pertellion [sp?] pointed out this difference, and the days of the persecution of the Christians and his apology he called attention to the fundamental difference between Christians and all others, especially the people of the Roman empire. He said, the senate is the source of all law for you; your senate o Romans, not only establishes what is right and wrong, what is moral and what is immoral, but it can also declare men to be gods and create gods therefor your senate is above all gods and is the source of all law, but for us, God is the source of all law, of all morality, and God alone. In all non Christian religion without exception, religion has nothing to do with morality, morality comes from politics, and wherever politics determines morality you have paganism and anti Christianity, and precisely this governs the church today, the morality of the modern church is determined by politics, it is socialistic morality, hence it is the social gospel. It is anti Christian to the core.

but if Creationism is true, if God the father almighty is maker of heaven and earth, then God alone is the source of all morality and law, His word therefor is law over church, state, school, business, family, every area of life. As a result, from the very beginning whenever church came together such as in the formulation of the creeds in the ecumenical counsel of the early church, it also formulated canon, or Canon law. The word canon means rule, or measure, a yardstick does the same, and the thesis of the early counsels of the church was that canon law was the rule or yardstick or measure of scripture applied to all of life. Do you understand now why conflict between Rome and the church was inescapable? Do you understand now too why those of us who believe in this the word of God are in inescapable conflict with the State? Because to believe that this is the word of God, God who created all things is to believe therefor that there is a canon, a rule, a measure, a yardstick, the word of God, which must be applied to all of life, every sphere of life, and the minute you affirm that there is such a rule, such a canon, you are immediately at war with the world, and you better face the fact that there is a war and you are not going to be raptured out of it, you are going to have to stand fight and conquer, and conquer we shall in Christ the king.

Moreover, non biblical faith everywhere is active, activistic. The believer in all other religions looks at life and he says this is the way I want it to be. I believe in love, therefor I will say that everyone should love everybody else, I believe in brotherhood, therefor I say this is the truth even though men are at war, men are fighting, everybody must love. I believe in equality, therefor all men must be equal and I will make them so. As a result, every non biblical faith tries to force a particular idea onto reality, but biblical faith, biblical creedalism is [?] in this area, except reality. I believe in God the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, I believe that what He has begun in history and He has declared concerning me and my need of salvation and what shall take place according to God's purpose in history. I believe it, I assent to it, and in this is my hope, it affirms an act of redemption by the triune God. As a result, it is the believer who is the man who faces reality. Those who affirm Christian creedalism look at reality and faces it instead of seeking to impose upon in an ideal, they have assented to history and this is the essence of creedalism, it is saying amen to God's history of man, of the world, and of God's holy purpose.

This then is the apostles creed, the door to the house of faith and the judge of life. It is significant that throughout the centuries from the days of the early church this creed has not only been recited but it has been sung, it has been sung because it is a glorious statement, a joyful one, it is a faith which declares that because God is the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and has done such wonderful things as the scriptures and the creed declares we can rest in confidence, He who has give Christ to die for us would do yet more and care for us. Let us pray. We give thanks unto thee almighty God for this thy word, for the glorious salvation in Jesus Christ, for our most holy faith, for the blessed assurance our father that thou art maker and governor of all things. Make us ever joyful in this faith, grant that our hearts sing with expectation knowing that even in the face of adversity and battle thou art with us. Thou wilt never leave us nor forsake us, our God we thanks in Jesus; name, amen. Before we begin with our questions I'd like to share with you since we've dealt with creationism in part, a very amusing thing from the comic strip D.C. Recently on creationism, and the one character is asking the other: “alright smart guy, prove that man came from the ape! Okay, apes have tails right? Yes. Have you got a tail? No. You see? You are no longer an ape, apes have tails.” That is very much like a great deal of scientific thinking that goes on today.

Any questions now? Yes.

[Audience] What is the difference between Hades and purgatory?

[Rushdoony] Well a very great difference because first of all reformation churches do not accept purgatory, and second, Hades refers to the place of the dead and generally to heaven and to hell both, in other words the other world. So Hades is a radically different concept.

[Audience] (Unintelligible)

[Rushdoony] No, of purgatory you find the first evidences of belief in it in Judaism under the pharisee's and second with the Maccabees you find hints the doctrine of purgatory, and also thed works of super arrogation. Yes.

[Audience] What does it mean by the quick and the dead?

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, the quick is an old word for living, and we find it often used in the bible, “him hath he quickened, that is made alive.” this is the case of a word changing somewhat in meaning, for example another biblical word in the King James version that has changed its meaning the sentence: “quit ye like men.” in other words, acquit yourselves, behave, act stand like men. There was a little rumpus during World War two when one little manual for soldiers with prayers and various verses of scripture, I think it was put out by the Episcopal Church, was passed out to men and the commanding officers saw the verse that was written on the cover, quit ye like men. He didn’t understand the meaning and for a while he was quite upset and angry. But the quick and the dead, the living and the dead.

[Audience] (Unintelligible) ...old nursery rhymes..

[Rushdoony] Yes, be lively, or living. Yes.

[Audience] Now where can we find a copy of the (Unintelligible]? Is it in the bible?

[Rushdoony] No, it is not in the bible, it is in many churches in the hymnal or in the book of common prayer, or the book of common worship.

[Audience] (unintelligible)

[Rushdoony] Yes, in some cases some churches have changed a word or two, some instead of holy catholic church, read holy universal church which is the same word, to avoid misunderstanding, others read “he descended into Hades”, others “He descended into the place of the dead” I believe the Lutherans have the place of the dead. But minor variations mostly those two in order to avoid misunderstanding.

[Audience] (unintelligible)

[Rushdoony] (Laughter) Well (unintelligible) that's a situation of rapid growth and the idea of creeds are new to you, but I don’t think anything in the creeds today to what you believe.

[Audience] (unintelligible)

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well you see, one nature church says we have no creed but Christ, well they're about as hard and fast in their creedalism as any church when you get into them. Community churches for example profess no creed, the congregational churches today profess no creed, but all of these churches are highly creedal, and in many cases their creedalism is humanistic creedalism. They have a body of beliefs, and the basic creed which we will be studying for the next few weeks, the Nicene next week, gives us our faith in its essentials, and each of them represents a landmark, one of the great victories of the faith, the culminating victory of course in the formula of Chalcedon. In some churches however, these are used every week, now most churches use the apostles creed weekly, and others use the Nicene creed in communion services. Yes.

[Audience] The Athanasious Creed, now I have no way to find that, I thought that (unintelligible)

[Rushdoony] Yes, well we will deal with this very soon and perhaps it would be a good thing to mail out when we finish in the newsletter a copy of all these basic creeds to everyone, and perhaps include the old English form, because I think it is an especially beautiful wording, not only quaint, but very telling of the apostles creed. So perhaps in March we will get all of these including the formula of Chalcedon into the mail.

Yes.

[Audience] (unintelligible)

[Rushdoony] No, I can read that very quickly to you, would you prefer me to read you the old form and then the modern form to give you and idea of the differences? I believe in God the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. Now in the old Roman form I believe in God the father almighty. The next sentence. And in Jesus Christ His only son, our Lord. Its the same in the old form. Was conceived by the holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary in the old form: who was born by the Holy ghost of the virgin Mary, was crucified, dead and buried, He descended into hell, the third day He rose again from the dead, was crucified under Pontious Pilate, and was buried, the third day He rose from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the father almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of the Father, from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the holy Ghost, in the old form, and in the Holy Ghost. The holy catholic church, the holy church. The communion of saints identical in the old form, the forgiveness of sins, identical in the old form, the resurrection of the body, identical in the old form, and then the seventh century or a general form: and the life everlasting amen.

[Audience] (unintelligible)

[Rushdoony] It could be that it was struck, I don't know after that. Any other questions? Yes.

[Audience] I'm confused, (unintelligible)..the fact that other religions were not.. morality.. return to morality because.. have religion than none at all, but on the surface what we get so far as religion it looks like they're trying to say.. (unintelligible)

[Rushdoony] Comparative no, they don’t even attempt it. Comparative religion of course is an area of study, the very idea of comparative religion was established by people who are trying to make all religions one. Now, religion apart from Christianity has never tried to govern morality. All it has talked about is the other world and the powers there and your relationship to them, and what you are going to be like in the other world, and even there its ideas were governed to a great extent by the state because the state was the means to getting to the other world. The state controlled heaven as it were so that your real religion was to believe in the state, you believed in the emperor or the Pharaoh.

[Audience] (unintelligible)

[Rushdoony] Yes, you read in all of them that these religions uphold to the established morality and so on, instead what they should tell you is that here was a move to establish an empire, a state, and at the same time a religion of that state and a morality of that state. For example, Mohammedanism is not so much a religion as Islam, a rule. It is a political order. This is its basic purpose. Now it is a political order which says that it represents the divine order on earth, and therefor it has the power to determine morality. Confucianism was pure and simple political science, political theory, and therefor because Confucianism was political theory by a philosopher in politics, it dealt with morality, it didn’t touch on religion. It has become a religion, a religion of the Chinese state is what it did become. Now Buddhism said there was an ultimate nothingness, and therefor there is no good and evil, no right and wrong, thus it had no morality, but it did affirm certain things as to a state, a world order, and so on in the various Buddhist states altered Buddhism in terms of their particular tastes, so you have some Buddhists who say there is a heaven and others who say there is nothing there, just nirvana, an utter blank. So Buddhism is primarily what the state makes it, and when Islam broke up into various states Islam increasingly became what the state made it. In every non Christian religion, this is it. For example in ancient Greece, where did you get you morality? Well not form the Greek gods, you can read all the stories of the Greek gods and you cant find any trace of morality there, you can find quite a bit of immorality, but no morality. And this is true if you read the stories of any of the gods, I’m using the Greek gods and the Roman gods as illustrative of this, in that morality was not connected with their gods and with their religion.

where did you get it? From the state. First you had your politics as in Aristotle, and having determined politics, then you determined your ethics or your morality. As a result, one of the first battlegrounds in the church was over abortion. This is where it came to head on conflict with the world, because the thesis of every state was simply this: the right to life and death is the right of the state because the state is god on earth in effect. Therefor, if the state decrees that you can kill babies, you can. If the state decrees that you must, you must. As a result, the slaughter of the innocent for example by Herod was nothing to report in history, he had that right. The slaughter of all Hebrew children by Pharaoh was nothing to report in history from the standpoint of all paganism, Pharaoh had that right. And of course you find Socrates and Plato saying that there must be no unlicensed births, that the only births permitted are those licensed by the state, if any children are born out of not wedlock, but out of license, the child is to be killed and the parents are to be punished, because the right to life and death, religion power, belongs to the state. And as we are now having a return to this pagan moralism, morality from politics, one of the things right now under all out attacks is our Christian laws on abortion. What does this do? It means that the right to life become the right of the state, its not God;s power that governs life, its the states power, and similarly with capital punishment, and then with euthanasia, mercy killing. You have a three pronged attack here, all of which will do one thing, to say that the state determines who is to live and who is not to live because the state is the source of morality. And of course today the state is the source of morality, in that it is saying you must integrate and you must love where you feel that you cannot love morally. So, the encyclopedias, the comparative religion textbooks are lies, they're full of lies, they are bent upon confusing the issue so that they can push us into a common front with the enemy and destroy us, and the sad fact is that there are very few who realize this not one in ten thousand in the pulpit today who realizes that in all non Christian religions, and you can get this from the old religious books of these faiths, the state is the source of law and morality. Yes.

[Audience] (unintelligible)

[Rushdoony] Yes. Christians can.

[Audience] I dont know that I can exactly, but I think we should have the clearance to involve in the common law, as if.. (unintelligible)

[Rushdoony] Yes, you touched on something that is so tremendously important that I wish I were up to answering it. But very few have gone into this, one sociologist who began as a radical, and as he studied this became quite conservative was at Dartmouth until his return, Eugene (?) has pointed out that our common law tradition is old Christian law based on Christian canons, and its a survival in our culture today that gradually is being warred on to have it replaced by statist law and of course by federal regulations, executive orders. But the old common law still survives, but very few lawyers are aware of much about common law, very few study it.

[Audience] (unintelligible)

[Rushdoony] Yes, right. And this is why the supreme court has done so much to undercut case law.

[Audience] They undercut it by making false proclamations. If they don’t like the law, then bam.

[Rushdoony] Yes, very good. Yes.

[Audience] (unintelligible)

[Rushdoony] Yes, we are turning the thing upside down, the supreme court is deliberately destroying case law, precedent law, which rests on a canon of truth, a basic principle, and enunciating new principles of law which are entirely hostile on common law traditions. Yes.

[Audience] It seems to me that things had a.. (unintelligible) am I right?

[Rushdoony] Yes and no, it is setting a precedents, but what it is actually doing is to replace- [Recording ends here]