Studies in Eschatology – Zechariah

The Origins of Phariseeism

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Religious studies

Lesson: 11-15

Genre: Lecture

Track: 150

Dictation Name: RR127F11

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Almighty God our heavenly Father we thank Thee that Thou hast provided us with a savior, even Jesus Christ Thy Son. We thank thee that Thou hast given unto us Thine infallible word, that Thou hast given unto us the Holy Ghost (?) and daily Thou dost beset our path with Thy mercies kindnesses and forgiveness. Make us truly grateful. Give us grace in all things to see thy hand, and to praise Thee as we ought, in Jesus name, amen.

Our Scripture is the 10th chapter of Zechariah. Zechariah 10,The Origins of Phariseeism.

“Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain; so the Lord shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field.

2 For the idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams; they comfort in vain: therefore they went their way as a flock, they were troubled, because there was no shepherd.

3 Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds, and I punished the goats: for the Lord of hosts hath visited his flock the house of Judah, and hath made them as his goodly horse in the battle.

4 Out of him came forth the corner, out of him the nail, out of him the battle bow, out of him every oppressor together.

5 And they shall be as mighty men, which tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle: and they shall fight, because the Lord is with them, and the riders on horses shall be confounded.

6 And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them again to place them; for I have mercy upon them: and they shall be as though I had not cast them off: for I am the Lord their God, and will hear them.

7 And they of Ephraim shall be like a mighty man, and their heart shall rejoice as through wine: yea, their children shall see it, and be glad; their heart shall rejoice in the Lord.

8 I will hiss for them, and gather them; for I have redeemed them: and they shall increase as they have increased.

9 And I will sow them among the people: and they shall remember me in far countries; and they shall live with their children, and turn again.

10 I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon; and place shall not be found for them.

11 And he shall pass through the sea with affliction, and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up: and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away.

12 And I will strengthen them in the Lord; and they shall walk up and down in his name, saith the Lord.”

There is a great deal of nonsense that is passed around in the name of Christianity, concerning the supposedly ten lost tribes. We hear all kinds of talk about the 10 tribes being the Anglo Saxon peoples, or the Japanese or the Indians and so on, and the ten lost tribes have been quite a favorite of every kind of cultist as well as many occultists. Unfortunately for these people the ten tribes were not geographically lost but spiritually lost. And Even as Zechariah was writing these people were beginning to turn back again to the face of their forefathers. And Zechariah in his prophecies concerning the things which shall come to pass between his time and that of Christ, addresses his prophecies to both Judah and Israel, both kingdoms.

Both to Judah and Ephraim or Joseph, the leading tribe of the north. And this chapter, and the latter part in particular he speaks entirely to Ephraim or Joseph and declares unto them that God will restore them to Palestine. That He is at present still scattering them abroad; they are in Assyria as some who fled from Assyria, or from the Assyrian captivity had gone to Egypt. But He has sown them among the nations for a time in order to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. They will be a witness. They will make known the word of God, that in the fullness of time, well before the coming of our Lord, they will be gathered again into Palestine, and God will bless and prosper them. And it will be as their deliverance from Egypt in ages gone by. God will overcome for each and every one of these exiles all the difficulties, and enable them to return.

They did return, and we have references to these various tribes in the New Testament. Indeed Galilee was the dwelling place of the ten tribes. And the prejudice of the Judeans against the Galileans was based on the ancient hostility of the south to the North.

But in the first part, Zechariah in this prophecy makes known to the people the condition of God’s blessing. The corporation that is necessary for the coming of the messiah. There had been a drought. The time for rain to come, for the early rain, had passed and there was still no rain. If the time of the latter rain came and passed with still no rain then their crops were wiped out. And their attitude in this situation as they went rainless was to try everything except prayer. And so God says to them in the first verse: “Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain. So the Lord shall make bright clouds and give them showers of reign, to every one grass in the field.” And he goes on to declare God, speaking through Zechariah, that they have looked to idols, they have sought every kind of recourse, except the Lord, except prayer.

In other words, they were ready to believe that help was available from any other source but God; and they sought their relief anywhere rather than from heaven. And men are prone to do this. Men in every age who profess to be Christians reveal all too often that they are ready to turn to anyone and everything rather than God. They will look to man for relief, they will look to politics for salvation, they will look to the state to assist them in almost anything which their heart desires, they will look to science and expect science to provide for them, they will look everywhere except to the Lord, all the while professing to believe in him.

We have here that which came to be finally the ruling spirit in Israel, in Judaism; Phariseeism. Now Phariseeism professes outwardly to be the most religious of all groups. We have seen that in the Old Testament only one fast a year was required, on the Day of Atonement. That fast was only until evening when it was a time of banqueting. The Pharisees demonstrated how religious they were by fasting twice in a week. God required a tithe of his people, the Pharisees demonstrated how holy they were by tithing even the mint beds in their garden, so that if they had a handful of mint, they calculated the value of one tenth of it and gave it as a tithe. The Pharisees at every turn made a great show of their religiosity. The Pharisees could not pray. They were a prayer less people. We are told indeed that they went through the motion of praying, long prayers, but their prayers were not prayers. They were incapable of prayer. And our Lord tells us, again and again of this vice of the Pharisees, this fact that revealed their lack of faith.

In the parable of the publican and the Pharisee who went up to pray, he gives us the so-called prayer of the Pharisee: “God I thank Thee that I am not like unto this publican.” Is he thanking God or praising himself? “I fast twice in a week. I give tithes of all I possess,” and so on. The Pharisees prayer in other words was simply a report to God on how wonderful he was and how little he needed God. There was no sense of any need of God. Phariseeism in other words professes faith in God but insists on a do it yourself salvation, a do it yourself religion.

The Pharisees were capable of all acts of religion except prayer. And it was this weakness that Israel was now revealing. They had come back in faith, they were rebuilding the temple in faith, they were moving forward under religious leaders, but they were not praying. They didn’t need God in their personal lives.

We have a great deal of that kind of religion today. A modern term for it is spare-tire religion. Normally we don’t use a spare tire unless we are in trouble, and we prefer to leave that spare tire in the trunk year in and year out. It is very unpleasant to have to take off your coat and jack up the car and get thoroughly dirty as you change tires. So we prefer to go along without use of the spare tire. Now many people treat God that way. It is a very unpleasant thing as far as they are concerned to be put in a situation where they are helpless and have to pray to God. They have as a result, a spare tire God, a spare tire religion. Phariseeism is a refusal to let God be God. And Israel, by failure in a simple thing like a drought to turn to God, and to make this a matter of prayer, by taking every recourse except prayer, was revealing the beginnings of Phariseeism in its midst.

But God in the 4th verse makes clear through Zechariah that no man can neglect him because all things are in His hand. Out of Him, out of God came forth the corner, or the corner stone. “Out of him the nail, out of him the battle bow, out of him every oppressor together.” This is an assertion of total providence. God governs all things and governs them absolutely, so that the cornerstone, the foundation is laid by God. The nails, the pegs that hold things together are from God. The means of defense and the ability to defend themselves from the enemy is From God, and the ruler or the oppressor, he who drives the enemy before them, because the word here, oppressor, one who keeps hostile nations in check, and uses force to keep other peoples at bay. Even their rulers are from God.

Thus they have received by God’s grace all resources, and yet, they remained prayer-less.

This then is the essence of Zechariahs message to Israel and to Judah. As he prepares them for the blessings that are to come in Jesus Christ, and he warns them concerning the evil I their midst. He puts his finger on the beginnings of Phariseeism. Their prayerlessness. Their inability day by day to commit themselves unto God, to demonstrate their need, and to rely upon Him in prayer.

We have therefore Phariseeism all around us today. It is a do-it-yourself religion, a do it yourself salvation. And today men on every side expect science, politics, man in short, to save them. and they will not pray.

Let us pray. Almighty God our heavenly Father, we thank Thee that Thou hast called us unto Thee and made us a people separated unto Thee. We thank Thee that Thou hast given us a spirit of dependence, and hast taught us to pray, to make our wants and wishes all known unto Thee. To come to Thee in thanksgiving and in gratitude. Our Lord our god, increase our spirit of prayer. Strengthen us by Thy holy Spirit, that we might know that Thou art our sufficiency; that it is out of Thee and from Thee that comes the cornerstone of our lives and of our future. The nails that bind our structures together. Our defense and our victory against the enemy. Our Lord and our god, give us a spirit of prayer; in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] The slightest little victory and too many people are ready to believe that politics is going to save us.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] It’s both, we except what God gives with gratitude, and we ask. So that we should ask and we shouldn’t just be general in our asking, it is fine to pray for the country and the church and for things generally, but we also need to be specific in our asking, personal. Because if God is our heavenly Father, as He says, then we should ask as a child asks his father. In so many things we are helpless, in so many things we know nothing, so we should ask in the confidence that He hears and in His wisdom is ready to grant. We should never hesitate to be very personal in our prayers.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Well, in that case, as with a child that asks foolishly, the answer will be no. But there is this to realize, that we cannot condemn selfishness per se. Now the self of the sinner is an ungodly self, and that self must die. But when we become Christians, at the heart of our new self is Jesus Christ, he is the new man in us. And we are not to hate the new man in us, it is the old man in us, the old self, that we are to hate. And so when Jesus said for example: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” He was establishing as a principle of true relationship, loving yourself. Having a true respect for the new man in you, the Christian cannot function apart from this. So that indeed the ungodly are to despise themselves, because they are sinners, and look to Jesus Christ, but not the redeemed. And as Christians, what is wrong with asking for things since we are the children of God? The children of the king of kings? And the King of Kings certainly does not want His children to feel that they deserve nothing.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] It is not the best kind of prayer, but we know that Jacob prayed such a prayer and was answered. So the best kind of prayer is not bargaining, but we know that God has honored even that kind of prayer. Because the essence of that is saying that: “Lord, I am going to be grateful.” Now what is wrong with that?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Its best not to impose conditions before we do something, but of course what many of these people are saying: “I don’t have the resources now, but Lord if you bless me this is what I am going to do with what I gain.” And that is gratitude, and it’s a wonderful thing. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Well of course I wouldn’t agree with her theology but I would agree with her sense of gratitude; I think we can at that point say that she was being faithful to her pledge to God. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, and we can ask for anything spiritual or material, and as long as it is not asking for something evil, we have a right to ask for it.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes. But we are to ask. And this is one way of growing up, of advancing in the faith, by asking. It also shows a growing confidence in God, because the more we ask of Him, the more we believe He is able, and trust in Him; so that prayer also gives us a great deal in that, it is a growth in faith even when we often ask with immaturity.

One of the great evils of our day is that we have restricted prayer to such a spiritual plane that we as material creatures are not able to pray very often. But I think we need to pray more, and I think we need to pray realistically in terms of our every-day needs, and I think we need to pray continually. By that I mean as we meet little problems; for example, if we are going to meet someone and we are not entirely sure of ourselves, it is a good thing just in a sentence to say to ourselves, as we walk through a door: “Lord give me grace to deal with the situation honestly and fairly, and that it come out to Thy glory.” Or, “Lord enable me to do that which I’ve accomplished as I’ve come here.” I think this is the kind of prayer we need a great deal more of, continual, moment by moment sentence prayers through the day; and dozens of them in the course of a day as we face various situations.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, there are very few big problems that will confront us in our lifetime, so if we wait for the big problems we will only pray a few times in our life. But if we remember that God is able in all things, and take every little problem to Him, then we live a life of prayer.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Well, the requirement of everyone who preaches the word of God, is that they confine themselves to the word of God. This is the only responsibility of the pulpit, to proclaim the word of God, to expound it. Now where Scripture is silent we have no right to speak, and where scripture speaks we have no right to be silent. And what has happened in many many churches is of course that they have decided that certain things they have got to add to the faith. Now in some instances the things they are for is good, and in some instances the things they are for is bad, but that have no business, whatever it is, involving it with the work of the ministry. Because what they are then doing is to reduce the gospel to moralism. Sometimes a good one, sometimes a false one, but it reduces it to a moralism, the kind of preaching you referred to is like the social gospel a reduction of the faith to a moralism, and this is wrong. It is a gospel, it is good news, and it is the power of God unto salvation. And again in areas where Scripture speaks, we have no right to speak. And while I may do certain things and may not do other things, I have no right to discuss this, my personal standards, in this area which the Greek Text of the Gospels, or of Paul rather speaks of (Adiaphra?) things indifferent.

This is not an area where anyone can make social judgments. He can make personal decisions, this is an area of Christian liberty. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] I don’t think there is anything impossible about it, it was simply power politics. I believe that the only place of any people in Scripture is in terms of faith in Jesus Christ. That Israel was the chosen people as long as they believed, when they rejected Christ they were cut off, we are told, and cast off. They can only have any place in Scripture and in prophecy in so far as they become believers, no other way, in the same basis as you and I have a place, because prophecy is not geared to race, it is geared to Jesus Christ and to the grace of God in and through Him. So to believe that Jews in their unbelief are the object of Gods prophetic scriptures is to say that God is going to reward unbelief, that God is making a place for them just because of their blood, and this is nonsense. It is not because of blood, it is entirely because of grace. So that, this perspective I think leads to all kinds of misunderstanding of scripture, I don’t see any grounds for it.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Well, of course, certainly it couldn’t have happened apart from the providence of God. But consider there are other peoples who survived under incredible circumstances. Take for example the Finns. Their history since World War 1. Their heroic resistance in World War 2 to the Soviets. It certainly is the providence of God, but this doesn’t mean they are a chosen people, anymore than the stand the Jews have taken makes them chosen people, and the Jewish stand has not been as strong a one as many others; they had the way cleared for them, politically, again and again. The Rhodesians have made quite a stand. Again this is the providence of God, but this doesn’t mean that they have a place in prophecy, and you can find people who will find the Rhodesians in prophecy, and other people. This is abusing scripture. It is reading everything into it, and you can go back to such schools of interpretation, and you can find over the past 40 years that they have read the current political scene into the Bible again and again and again. And this is not the scripture.

The Scripture is not going to tell us that God is going to be partial to some people because of blood, it is telling us that the end of history is Jesus Christ, and no man is saved apart from Him. There is none other name by which men can be saved. And what we are then saying if we follow this perspective is, whether it is the Anglo Israel perspective, or the Zionist perspective, or the interpretation of Scripture in terms of the Jew, who are saying: “There is another name under which men can be saved, because God is going to save a people just because of their blood.” I cannot agree with it.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] They were saved by grace, Abraham was called ant he covenant was established with him, and with his seed which we are told is Christ. They were taken into Egypt, when God saved them, when they cried unto Him, God said unto Moses: “I have heard the cry of My people Israel.” So God answered their prayer.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, but because they didn’t have sufficient faith, they died in the desert and only two of that generation, Joshua and Caleb entered the promised land. Now again and again when they departed from the faith the book of Judges makes clear, they were punished. And Kings and Chronicles makes the same point, they were punished, they were oppressed when they departed from the faith, and when they finally departed from the faith by rejecting Jesus Christ, Jerusalem was destroyed, the temple was destroyed, the land was destroyed. And it is no longer the fertile, rich, wooded country that it was then, a land of streams and forests. It is a barren desert place, because God said the very ground would be cursed, there would be a curse on Palestine for their rejection. And there is.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] They are not making it flourish in any real sense; what they are doing is, with American financing, that is by selling bonds here, they are able to grow some things, but in terms of pure economics, Israel is a bust. It would fold up without the help of Zionists the world over. Every year they have a bond drive up and down the United States and Canada and Europe and elsewhere to provide funds for Israel. It is not a politically sound or economically sound community.

On the other hand we have got to avoid, and this ties in with something I did bring with me, the other extreme, one is giving the Jews a heavy place in history today and seeing them as the fulfillment of prophecy, the other is to see them as a dark Satanic force and the epitome of all evil, and there are many pseudo conservatives who do this. For example, I am going to read from an editorial and what purports to be a conservative and a Christian paper. What is the reason for all our ills? And I am quoting: “You see we let the Jews into the United States and that did it. The Jew is only the equal of a dog or any beast, according to the Bible, and because they walk upright and can talk makes no difference. In this life here on this earth you live according to the Bible or you are left out when you leave this life for the next. All the troubles of the Untied States are the result Judem, just as it has been in all other nations since more than 1200 years before Christ as the records will show.”

Now that is stupid and vicious. In other words, we don’t have any sin, the Jews are responsible for all the evil. That is Phariseeism. And none of the peoples of the world have had anything wrong with them except that they let the Jews in. In other words, all peoples are good, and the Jews are the bad ones, and they have corrupted everyone. I think this is nonsense. All men have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and our problems today are not because of what outsiders are doing to us, but because of what we are doing to ourselves. And I am not afraid of the communists as much as I am afraid of the Americans today; of Washington D.C. and the people all around us; they are the ones who are destroying our Christian heritage. They are the ones who are corrupting our churches. The Americans are doing this to themselves; this kind of thing is rubbish. Filthy rubbish, and a lot of conservatism today is filthy rubbish. There has been something in the paper the last week or two about Liberty Lobby in (Drew Pearson’s?) column, about Will Carto and a lot of conservatives again are saying: “Oh isn’t it terrible what (Drew Pearson?) is saying about liberty lobby. Well, who is Willis Carto and should we think well of liberty lobby? Willis Carto has promoted very heavily as Western Destiny did, a book named Imperium, the Philosophy of History and Politics by Francis Parker Yockey. And these people tell us that Yockey’s book is the greatest book for conservatives, and every conservative ought to have it, and that Yockey is a martyr to conservatism. And yet if you read it one of the things that is immediately apparent is that this man is anti Christian.

Another, that he is a funny money man, which is certainly not conservative, and third that he is a socialist, because in his conclusion one of the points he makes is that we have got replace what we have today with ethical socialism. His goal is socialism. And yet, Conservatives are told that Yockey is a great man, that we ought to follow Yockey, that his thinking is important for us. In case any of you have Yockey, you can find that demand for ethical socialism on page 617.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Carto, CARTO, Willis Carto. And he is the one that (Drew Pearson?) has been writing about lately.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] W A. Carto… what?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, he likes the introduction. Yes. Yes he has promoted it heavily.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] No, not at all. But because (Pearson?) has criticized him we shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that he is good, because we cannot subscribe to this sort of thing at all. And Liberty Lobby is definitely not conservative on a number of points. Money is one of them, and certainly promoting Carto’s… Yockey’s kind of thinking is not conservatism. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] They do not believe that Jesus Christ is the second person of the trinity because Mormonism does not believe in the trinity. Mormonism can best be understood as an American form of Shintoism. There is no one God; there are many Gods, and all men are going to become Gods. So that, this is basically part and parcel of the same kind of world of opinion as Shintoism. They can revere Jesus as one of the higher Gods, but that is the limit of it. Then Mormonism has many aspects of it that make it very close to socialism. As a result I would say that your liberal Mormons are by far your better Mormons than your conservative ones, because they do believe in centralized control. In centralized government. The purpose of the state of Deseret which was to be the Mormon Empire was to organize a socialized state. As a result I believe that a Mormon would make a poor president in the long run. He would have to be an inconsistent Mormon to be a good one, and I do believe we should vote our faith. After all there is a connection between faith and politics.

Now there are very many fine people among the Mormons, some very well meaning ones, some who in their beliefs are semi Christian or Christian, occasionally you will find. But they are not good Mormons when they are such. They do believe in a system which is not congenial to the Biblical perspective. They have another standard.

[Audience Member] Well they have added to it, in the Book of Mormon they believe that they have added to it…

[Rushdoony] Yes, and what has been added is a correction and a supplement of the Bible, essentially. Moreover the gift of prophecy adheres to the 12 apostles, so that at any time new revelations can be forth coming.

[Audience Member] I had a conversation this week with a minister who called himself Neo Orthodox, and …?... It was really a blasphemous….?...

[Rushdoony] Yes. One person who vacationed recently in Canada visited the cathedral there, and the sermon said that “We were all suffering servants” in other words, we are all Christ’s making atonement. This is becoming increasingly the line in church after church, and you can spot it when you hear for example the church described not as the society of the redeemed, but as the redeeming society.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, the redeeming society, in other words it has become the savior the messiah, and the Christian as the redeeming people, in other words they become themselves saviors, and this has saturated every kind of church today. You find it heavily in your council of church members, you find it in (Carcio?) Doctor (Detar?) has written an excellent analysis of it there, and it is blasphemy to the core of its being. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] The Holy Spirit indwells in all believers; and we are told that He prays within us, so that the more we rely upon Him of course the more strongly he governs our lives. But the Holy Spirit is there to the extent that we depend on Him, then to that extent we have His power. Now I believe that the Holy Spirit can work of course, and the Holy Spirit in the process of ordination is invoked for those who are ordained into clergy; but we also believe that the Holy Spirit works in and through laymen equally well in the discharge of their calling. So the businessman who works in terms of an ungodly situation in an ungodly world, can as he depends on the Holy Spirit be successful when success normally would be impossible. He has the gift of the Holy Spirit; he can depend on Him and find himself a victor. In every kind of vocation we can have the inspiration and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, because He is promised to all believers.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] A very good question: Is there a difference between the neo-orthodox followers and the new evangelicals? The Neo Orthodox party, is that school of thought which uses all the Biblical language and the Biblical doctrines, but gives them another meaning. So that they will talk about the inspiration of the scripture without meaning it. They will talk about the virgin birth and the resurrection, but they do not believe it happened literally. These are symbolical, mythical truths. So that Neo Orthodoxy is a seeming Orthodoxy. It makes use of the language in terms of another faith.

Now the new Evangelicals are very sympathetic to Neo Orthodoxy, so that they have a great many good things to say for it. But the essence of the New Evangelicals is a somewhat different emphasis. They say: “Oh, but we do believe the evangelical faith, we do believe the infallible word and the virgin birth, and the miracle of the resurrection, but we’re not going to stress the things that divide us, and we are not going to argue about things. We will show Christian love.” Now in the name of this love, what they actually do is to surrender all these things that they profess; so that the new Evangelicals are actually surrendering the faith in the name of holding it with love, because they do not want to emphasize anything that is going to set them apart. As a result, you have New Evangelicals telling us what a great Christian Karl Barth is. And if you don’t listen to Karl Barth there is something wrong with you. And we have the New Evangelicals also telling us that we shouldn’t be separatists, we should get in there into the Civil Rights movement and show that we can be better Christians than anyone else, and certainly we shouldn’t offend people we are trying to win like the Communists.

Now you have a New Evangelical or Neo Evangelical conference on evangelism at Berlin recently. Headed by Carl Henry, editor of Christianity Today and Billy Graham. And one of the first things they did was to kick the Reverend Mr. Wurmbrand off the speakers list. Why? Because Wurmbrand had suffered in a Romanian prison at the hands of the communists, and he was anti communist. And they were not going to say anything against communism. But of course they had a lot to say about those who are not for Civil Rights when they met at Berlin.

Billy Graham is a New Evangelical. He is not an Evangelical in his faith. Carl Henry is a New Evangelical. Fuller Seminary is given over to Neo Evangelicalism with some Neo Orthodoxy because (Bromilee?) is clearly I think Neo Orthodox, and one of the great champions in this country of Karl Barth. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] No, in effect what the New Evangelicals are doing is to maintain the form of godliness as Saint Paul said, without the power thereof. They are still clinging to the form while they are departing from it in essence; and you are seeing daily the new Evangelicals becoming more and more openly what they are, social action people. And it is significant that there are more and more of these Neo Evangelicals getting involved in the civil Rights movement, and feeling: “Now I have arrived, I am really showing that I am a Christian.” So, it is only the form, the heart is not there. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] It is the end result of Arminianism. Arminianism, not connected with Armenianism, that’s two different things. Arminianism comes from the faith of Arminius, and the essence of Arminianism is its unwillingness to except the sovereignty of God, and to put confidence in man. So that, Arminianism because its trust is in man, even though it begins by excepting the whole Bible as the word of God, ends up by accepting the whole word of man, and denying the whole word of God. This is its end result.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes. Very good. Very good. Yes? Our time is really up but we will have one or two….

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Well these people all love each other, and they love everybody except us--- (Laughter) And us they hate. Because we are hate mongers, you know. WE are against love, so they hate us. [Tape Ends]