Tenth Commandment

Special Privilege

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Christian Reconstruction

Lesson: 3-5

Genre: Lecture

Track: 117

Dictation Name: RR130BM117

Location/Venue: Parkview Baptist Church

Year: 1960’s - 1970’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] Matthew 25:14-30. And our subject, special privilege. Matthew 25:14-30.

For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money. After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Desiring and taking by force or law what is our neighbor’s is against the 10th Commandment. The organization of such evil covetousness into a system is the creation always of an anti-God society. Every welfare economy, every socialist state, every communist society, is thus lawlessness organized into a system. The state becomes the instrument of lawlessness, of seizure. Now the common justification for such lawless social orders is that it is supposedly morally necessary to wage a war against special privilege. Now the term special privilege is one we need to beware of. It’s a very dangerous phrase, coined by the enemy, and now very commonly used by Christians and conservatives. As a matter of fact, I had to speak on the subject of special privilege, to defend the idea to a group of Christian conservative students, some time back. Because they were all so convinced that the term represented a reality, and that special privilege was something that a Christian should be against.

The term special privilege brings us visions of exploitation and of abuse. The minute it is applied to something it creates prejudice. It has done a great deal of damage, this phrase. If a thing called special privilege, it’s enough to arouse hostility. But my statement to these students was, let’s look at Matthew 25, to the parable of the lord and the talents. Here Jesus Christ himself is indulging in a most flagrant case of special privilege. He declares, in fact, that for unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. This is stated as a general principle of life. A special privilege for those who have. Who’ve earned. Who worked. On top of that, special privilege without it. Because our Lord goes on in another parable just a little later, and declares in his parable of the vineyard, Matthew 20, a man goes out and hires some workmen to work in his vineyard. He hires some at nine o’clock in the morning, some at ten, some at noon, some at three, and some just about an hour before quitting.

And he pays them all the same wages. And the workmen protest, and they say what kind of special privilege is this you’re giving them? Some of these only worked an hour, and we worked all day and they get the same wages. And the Lord said, you were ready to accept those wages when I contracted with you for them. They were fair enough. Moreover, is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own? Is thine eye evil because I am good? Never in all history has there been a stronger case for special privilege, then that presented by our Lord.

Now that’s the charge made against Jesus Christ by the Marxists themselves. So that while for propaganda purposes they sometimes portrayed him as Camp Comrade Jesus, a great deal of the anti-God propaganda behind the Iron Curtain is directed against Jesus Christ as the great advocate of special privilege. And these texts I’ve cited are cited to illustrate that here is the greatest champion of special privilege in all of history. I think something can be made for that statement, a good case for it.

The fact is, no society has ever existed in all of history without special privilege. Nor will there ever be one. Special privilege can be good or bad, depending on the situation. In itself it is not evil, and in itself it is not good. It depends on the situation.

Now the president of the United States has special privileges that we don’t have. That’s fitting and proper. I have special privileges with my wife and she with me, that no one else has with us. That’s fitting and proper. Special privilege is inescapable.

There are, basically, three possible social orders with respective special privilege. And we had better decide what kind of special privilege we’re going to have, because it is inescapable. The first is the Marxist or whatever social order claims total equality. No society has honestly and fully held this. But the Marxist slogan was, total equality from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. Now within a few years, the Soviet Union abandoned this, although it still holds the slogan. But how valid is it, even when it was applied in the early years, more or less? And how valid is it as a social goal? How valid is this kind of equality, anywhere? Actually, this principle creates special privilege. It means an equality of work, but not of wealth. One man may work ten and twelve hours a day, but he is unable to create more than enough to live a very meager life. Another man has the ability to work six and eight hours a day, and create enough wealth to support himself and leave a sizable inheritance for his children. His work is more productive. Now to insist that both these men get the same reward, to each according to his need, is to create a radical inequality. To create special privilege in favor of the man who was unable to be productive, and against the man who is productive.

In a socialist society, the economy is always in trouble. The Soviet Union cannot produce food as it did in the days of Czars. They have admitted in the last week or two, that the maximum amount of land in the Soviet Union which is usable for agriculture, is now in production, and they have not been able to bring the food production anywhere near where it was once, in the old days.

And over half of the production that exists is in the private plots of the farm. So they’re increasing those private plots. That was the announcement this past week. They have created, you see, inequality. The good farmer has been put on the same level as the incompetent farmer, and the result is that production has gone down. And the same in industry. The wealth of the successful in such societies is given to the unsuccessful, and there is special privilege for the incompetent, the lazy, and the unsuccessful. The more strictly the concept of equality is applied in any society, the greater the special privilege to the worst. There is no equality moreover, in an order where men of ability are retarded or penalized. Thus what Russia has done is to trade an older, milder form of special privilege, for a very vicious and ugly one. This is one form of special privilege.

The other form of special privilege is what is called meritocracy. Everything in terms of merit. This is the goal of Fabian socialism, where it exists, and Britain is a classic example of this. The principle of the civil service is applied to the whole social order.

The Soviet Union, incidentally, is picking up more and more of this Fabian socialist concept.

You have tests all along the line. So that no one gets beyond a certain level in school unless they pass certain tests. And no one gets a job apart from tests. And this is creeping into this country, so that someone who was a very capable republican leader, who had managed presidential campaigns, was asked if he would be interested in taking charge of the republican party offices in the state of Texas. When he got there, he found that the industrialists who were controlling the part, had taken tests that they had in their factories and offices, and asked the psychologist to have a similar test for the republican party office, its leaders and workers. And he walked out of there. He said this is precisely the kind of thing our party should be fighting against. And I will not be a party to it.

The origin of the civil service and its testing is, of course, China. The symbol of century old incompetence and stagnation. Parkinson’s books are a very telling indictment of the whole standard of testing and the civil service. And he says that is has produce virtually the ultimate in incompetence. Originally, the purpose of the civil service test was to test them in classical education, to see if they were gentlemen. Gradually they moved to testing attitudes, psychological factors, aptitude for a job, and general intelligence. Now the whole purpose of testing and of meritocracy is that it is hostile to the family system. We fail to understand the purpose of meritocracy if we fail to recognize that fact. The family is the major instrument of special privilege in all of history. Every family member wants the best for his children. Works to provide his children with the best education, to find jobs for them if they are able to do so, to do everything for their children and relatives, and then their friends. The family system thus is the enemy of meritocracy and of Marxism. The poet {?} of course as a modern liberal was anti-family too, and he wrote on one occasion, really to own what you inherit, you first must earn it by your merit. In other words, no child is to inherit anything. That’s the basic thing. Hence inheritance taxes. So that children and grandchildren and relatives cannot inherit. The idea of course of meritocracy is that you produce a society which is based on merit, on ability. Michael Young, an English writer who writes on the rise of the meritocracy, 1870 to 2033, he projects what it’s going to become. An essay of education and equality has stated the issue very clearly, and I quote.

“Aristocratic influence would never have lasted so long even in England, without the support of the family. Feudalism and the family go together. The family is always the pillar of inheritance. The ordinary parent, not unknown today we must sorrowfully admit, wanted to hand on his money to his children rather than to outsiders or to the state. The child was part of himself and by bequeathing property to him, the father assured a kind of immortality to himself, the hereditary father never dies. If parents had a family business, which in a sense embodies themselves, they were even more anxious to pass it on to someone of their own blood, to manage.

Parents, by controlling property, also controlled their children. A threat to cut a child out of a will was almost as effective an assertion of power in industrial, as it had been in agricultural Britain. For hundreds of years society has been a battleground between two great principles. The principle of selection by family, and the principle of selection by merit.

We’ve had to put up with the failings of the family, we’ve had to recognize that nearly all parents are going to try to gain unfair advantages for their offspring. The function of society’s efficiency depends on observing the principles of selection by merit, is to prevent such selfishness from doing any serious harm. The family is the guardian of individuals, the state the guardian of collective efficiency. And this function the state is able to perform because citizens are themselves divided in their interests. As members of a particular family they want their children to have every privilege. We underestimate the resistance of the family, the home is still the most fertile seed bed of reaction.” Unquote. Any time we join in the attacks on the idea of special privilege, we are deciding either in favor of Marxist or Fabian socialism. In a family oriented society, there are special privileges to family members and to friends. But, the family has its standards. A son who does not meet those standards is cut off. Advantages to the hardworking in the family are increased.

The testing method is supposedly good, because it is supposedly scientific.

But in actuality, what it does is to create bitterness. Much of the bitterness of the younger generation, much of the youth today in their rebellion against the establishment, are rebelling against the whole concept of meritocracy. Why? Because in a family oriented society, people who are failures always have a good excuse. I don’t have the right connection, or I could have gotten as good a job as so and so did, I didn’t have the pull and everything is pull. But when you teach a generation that testing and standards that are set up by a bureaucracy, scientific tests are the key to jobs, to the civil service, to industry, to everything. Do you know that every school teacher in Los Angeles passes a test and then is rated 1 to 10,000 and called in terms of that test? Then those who do not do well on the tests, because they accept the whole premise of this scientific humanism, feel that they are no good. And the result is total hatred. The result is of fear of the establishment, and the desire to smash it, to destroy it, because it strips everyone of every excuse, supposedly, and says, if you don’t meet our standards, you’re no good.

This is what it means when the student rebels carry badges, I refuse to be a part of this generation that is a computer punch card. And they had these insignia, do not staple, fold, or mutilate. In other words, I refuse to be a part of the punch card generation, the computer generation. A large part of the student rebellions is created by the concept of meritocracy. And moreover, meritocracy does not produce character. What the tests produce instead, is a bureaucratic mentality. Whether in the civil service, or in industry, or in education, or in the church, where they are now being applied to the ministers. These testing methods produce a bureaucratic mentality.

Thus they eliminate the best as well as the worst. They are not geared to the Christian or the free mind. Meritocracy thus creates a new special privilege class of intellectuals and bureaucrats who thrive on the examination method. Not on performance. Not on being able to do the work. And the result is you create a new special privilege class and a new ruling class. And today in Britain they are creating a new house of lords, and there is talk about the house of lords having more and more power again, as of old. Because who are the new lords in the house of lords? There are practically none of the old aristocracy left. They are virtually all labor leaders and socialist intellectuals who have been made peers. So you have a new ruling class in England. Wasn’t Harold Brown made into a lord just the other day? A labor leader, a loudmouth politician, but this was his reward. He had served the labor party well, and so before they went out of office, he, among others, was made into a lord.

Thus you can have the Marxist dream of, from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs, to create one kind of special privilege class, or you can have meritocracy, which creates the bureaucratic, the pseudo intellectual special privilege class, or third, you can have a family oriented, biblical society which rewards initiative and penalizes the unfit. It limits the state to a ministry of justice, and it give free enterprise and individual initiative freedom to develop. And it declares that to the Lord. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own? Is thine eye evil because I am good?

If someone is working harder I reward him doubly, for unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance, but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

This is special privilege. Biblical special privilege.

Special privilege is inescapable. The only question is, what kind are we going to have?

The old saying, father knows best, is not absolutely true. Men are fallible. And many a father has made a mistake with regard to his sons and daughters, but nothing has ever worked better in all of history, than the freedom of the father to decide for himself whom he will privilege. And the freedom of the employer to decide to whom he will give privilege.

Thus, when James Brian {?} said that the family was aristocratic by nature because parents wanted special privileges for their children, it all sounded good, he was working for democracy he said, but he was working for another kind of special privilege society, an anti-Christian one.

We have no right to legislate in terms of slogans and phrases that the enemy has created. We can only legislate in terms of God’s law. Mans law creates lawlessness in the true sense.

One writer recently made a telling point, as he cited two facts. And I quote, from W.W. Turner. “Two people could have walked down any United State city street in 1930, one with a bottle of whiskey under his arm, and one with a bar of gold in his pocket.

And the one with the whiskey would have been a criminal, whereby the one with the bar of gold would have been considered a good, law abiding citizen. If the same thing happened in any U.S city in 1970, the one with the whiskey would have been the law abiding citizen, and the one with a gold bar would have been the criminal.” Unquote.

That’s a very telling point. And it indicates what has happened to us. Our laws have no reference to the righteousness and the law of God. So that one thing is lawful in 1930, and unlawful in 1970, and neither, in terms of God’s law, can be called unlawful. What is there is God’s law? In the justice of God, that says it is wrong, at any time, to have a bottle of whiskey, or a bar of gold? The law of God condemns drunkenness, that is a chargeable offence, but the ownership of liquor and the ownership of gold can never, in the sight of God, without radical injustice and an offense to God, be called injustice. Such laws, as legislate against things that God does not legislate against, further lawlessness, in that they violate the fundamental principles of biblical law. That all judgment, and all legislation rests on the righteousness and the law of God, rather than the will of man and the policies of the state.

The Bible clearly affirms special privilege of a godly sort. Special privilege can good, or it can be bad. The question is, which kind will we favor. God’s, or mans?

Mans special privilege rests on a violation of the 10th commandment. Coveting what is properly our neighbor’s.

God’s special privilege rests on the family. It rests upon godly associations, where friend favors friend, in terms of certain standards.

Let us pray. Almighty God our Heavenly Father, by law and by word, indeed are a lamp and a light unto our lives. And grant that we may ever walk in terms of Thy word, so that we may avoid the pitfalls of evil, the pitfalls of lawlessness, the pitfalls of humanism. Confirm us in Thy word, make us strong therein, that we might rebuild all things in terms of Thee. Bless us to this purpose, in Jesus name, Amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson?

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Well it’s wrong, because in a sense, his son is also his neighbor once he is on his own.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Well, according to the Bible, the inheritance is divided so that the main heir gets a double portion. Now the main heir can be the oldest son, but it rarely was in the Bible, because it was in terms of character. Christian character, and ability. So that very often, a second son or a daughter could be the main heir, and received a double portion, so that the others received a single portion.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Heirship was in terms of a test. If they were completely unworthy, they received nothing.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Tests in order to vote? This is a different thing. I think a literacy test is certainly in order, because you’re not really voting if somebody has to vote for you. That’s not so much a test, as a standard. Originally, a property requirement existed. It was, in its last elements, struck down just within the past year, by the Supreme Court. That’s legitimate. So, this is not the same as the civil service testing, and the industrial tests, and so on.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. He could have. God made an exemption in that case, and brought judgment upon David and upon the nation. But he could have been executed. In this case, he punished David by bringing about the death of the son, among other things. But yes, judicial murder is subject to the death penalty.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] The 10th Commandment really sums up commandments 6 through 9. It is very closely connected with the 8th commandment. However, it goes further in that it circumscribes the more social aspects of it. In other words, it takes in even the legal forms, and makes them unlawful. But it is very clearly a kind of summary commandment. It’s always been recognized to be such.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. What we have in our country today, is a kind of double standard. On the one hand, the Marxist dream of everybody equal, so eliminate tests, and on the other hand, meritocracy. So you have no tests in schools, supposedly, that’s the goal, but the minute you hit the work-a-day world, every kind of test, a whole barrage of them, is thrown at you. So you have the two things side by side. And it isn’t the first place today that our politicians and our educators have been involved in self-contradiction.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Well, they really have no answer to that. You see, they’re working at cross purposes. The idea earlier was to help the every child through grade school, now every child through high school, even though he doesn’t learn in some cases, and this is documented at great length in New York and elsewhere, even to read his own name on the diploma. Now it’s every child through junior college, this is becoming the new standard. And it’s all ridiculous. Then, supposedly, he’s got to have a test every time he turns around. It’s a hopeless contradiction. They don’t know what they are doing. They can’t rationalize the situation, it’s beyond rationality.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] The biblical approach to the educational process is, free Christian schools. Now in a free Christian school, you don’t have the same problem of testing. Because in such a school, the child is there because the parents are paying for it. And if they’re paying for it, then they want their child to get his money’s worth. And so the parents are making sure that the children learn. Thus, in schools that are grounded on this principle, discipline is not a problem. Learning is not a problem.

On the other hand, I had a long distance call this week, from someone who teaches school in the mid-west, in a Christian school of a particular denomination, where they had bought the progressive educational standard that every child has a right to an education. That it’s owed to the child. And he said it’s become an impossible situation. He said we are organizing to try to break this standard which the parents have foisted onto the school, it’s a parent owned school. Because he said it means that the children have picked up this idea from their parents, and they feel that they are in the saddle. Education is their right, okay, give it to me. You’ve got to do it. Make me learn. Even though I don’t want to. It’s a very ugly situation.

This is what happens, you see, when you destroy the proper standards. But if you have the proper motivation, there’s a desire for testing. There’s a desire for standards, because you want to improve yourself.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Right.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. One of the things that many of these schools have to do yet is to break entirely with the philosophy of the statist schools. They have at too many points a hangover of the old. And the result is they are working with a double philosophy, as it were. A Christian philosophy of education, and a statist philosophy of education.

Our time is almost over. I wanted to report something to you. We have discussed this several times. Most of the evangelical Christians today, Christian or not, or is it a sub-Christian and anti-Christian movement that we find in many of these churches. And of course I expressed the opinion that the evangelical church, so called, are moving outside of Christianity. They are departing from it.

I had a very interesting experience this week. Somebody came by, a young man, a college student, who was selling some {?} Bibles. And somebody had given him my name, so he stopped by, and I told him I had one, and I wasn’t interested, so he wanted to talk and make his witness. And it was very obvious what kind of a witness it was, it very clearly showed. Whether he was a member of Campus Crusade I don’t know, but he showed that kind of thing, God loves everybody. And I said, well it’s strange, if He loves everyone, that He sends them to hell. And I said, we are told that God declares Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated, and that this is a principle of operation, that God predestines some. Well he didn’t want to discuss predestination, so I said, in other words, you prefer your own perspective to what the Bible teaches. And then it came out, he was in education, he wanted to be a school teacher, and I said why? Oh, he had visions of converting tens of thousands of school children, in the public school system. I said well, I know some very fine Christians who are in the public school system, and I think they’re doing a good job there, but they’re not converting masses of kids, and that isn’t their job. Their job is to provide education, and they’re trying to provide education in terms of some kind of standard, and I don’t believe you’re going to do it, nor do you have any right to. Not even the Christian school’s a place for evangelism, a school, whatever kind it is, is a place for education. And the Christian school is a place for Christian education. Not evangelism. Well, he went on to describe the kind of things he was doing, and we got back on this matter of God loving everyone, and proof of it was the many, many homosexuals he had converted. And I said oh, how do you know? Oh, they said they accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior when I witnessed to them. I said, well can you tell me of any of them that have given up their homosexuality? Well, no he couldn’t, but they had accepted Christ.

And I said well how can they accept Christ and continue? I said, that’s a contradiction. That’s antinomianism to the core. Well, he defended antinomianism. We have nothing more to do with the law, and so and so forth, and he wanted to go on of course to tell me how marvelously they had witness, and how some of them had gone to a Satanist meeting and broken it up. I said, I don’t believe that’s morally justifiable. I said, I am against such meetings being legal, but if they are, they have a right to their meeting and you have no more right to break up their meeting than I, disagreeing with you, have the right to come into any meeting you hold to try to break it up. But he defended his antinomian position, and so I reached for a far out illustration, which I thought might show him what his antinomianism led to. And I said, do you mean that you feel you would be justified if you could win souls for Christ, supposedly, that way, to go into or {?} girls to go into, a house of prostitution and work there in order to convert the other people? He didn’t see anything wrong with that. In fact, he went on to say, enthusiastically, a group of us, people connected with him, in San Diego, are going into the houses of prostitution, and he named a particular street where all the sailors go, and he said we’re converting every last girl and every last sailor in the place. And I said, I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it. All you are doing is to defame Christ by what you’re doing. And I said, let me tell you a little story.

On one occasion when I went to one city, I took a limousine to the hotel, and there were six or eight men in that limousine. And this young man who was going to a meeting which was being held there at that hotel, immediately started to witness to everyone of them and to ask them to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior. He interrupted every conversation they were holding. And I said, every last one of them, to get rid of him, because they felt he was a nut, said yes, they did, yes, yes, yes to everything. And I said, when we got there, he was sitting near the door, and he was the first one to get out, and they looked at each other and shook their heads and said, what a kook.

And I said, I heard him several times around that hotel during the week, telling people how easy it was to win people for Christ, he’d won six or eight people just coming from the airport to the hotel. And I said, this is the way it is with you and your fellows. Oh, he wouldn’t accept that. Oh they say they do, and I believe them, the Lord works on their heart and moves them to say yes.

Now is that Christianity or isn’t it? And that is what a great deal of your so called evangelical churches have become. I think it’s blasphemous. And the conversation with this young man made me sick to my stomach. It’s a blasphemy against Jesus Christ. And it’s the only thing you can call it.

Well, on a slightly different and happier note, this from Vancouver British Columbia. The men who work at nine pulp and paper mills in British Columbia are asking for four months of maternity leave as one of their contracts demand. The men, mind you. Although the pulp and paper workers of Canada have only a handful of women among its 5000 members, the union wants maternity leave extended to the men. This is real equality. This week, one of our state senators was talking to me about the fantastic bills that were being introduced in Sacramento, in the name of women’s rights and equality, and I said why don’t you put an end to it? Introduce the bill saying that in the name of equal rights, it’s illegal for women to have any more babies until men can have them also. And he said, to tell the truth, I’d be afraid to introduce it. He said, you have no idea of how far gone some of these people are in their insistence on equal rights. And he said it’s so sick, it’s impossible to tease, or to kid them with anything. When it’s that far gone, it doesn’t have long to go.

Let’s bow our heads for the benediction. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.