Contemporary Cultural Ethics

The New Absolutism

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Ethics

Lesson: 1-11

Genre: Lecture

Track: 01

Dictation Name: RR132A1

Location/Venue:

Year:

Thank you. It is always a pleasure to be here at Reform. I shall, in this series, in this class, be dealing with Contemporary Cultural Ethics. In the series in Dr. Smith’s class in the afternoon I will begin, this afternoon, with Ethics, Monastic or Militant. And, my subject there will be to trace the unhappy influence in Protestantism of what essentially is early medieval ethics. So that Protestantism has become, in effect, a new monasticism. Our subject this morning is The New Absolutism. Toward the end of 1975 the evangelical women’s caucus met in Washington D.C. to promote the cause of feminism. The key note speaker was Professor Virginia Ramey Mollenkott. Professor Mollenkott was professor of English at William Patterson College and has been from the beginning of Christianity Today a highly favored writer in that publication. I must confess her arguments at all times have been anything but highly favored with me.

According to news dispatch concerning that meeting in Washington D.C. Dr. Mollenkott spoke as follows, and I quote at some length from this news report. Mollenkott argued that when properly understood, the Bible supports the central tenants of feminism and took on the more traditional evangelicals who triumphantly cite New Testaments instructions of the submission of first century wives and church women as proof that it is forever the will of God for women to remain subordinate.

The basic strategy that Mollenkott argues is that the culture of the Bible must be deabsolutized. A reading some Biblical literalists might have trouble with. Because Patriarchy is the cultural back drop of Scriptures, she argued, it is absolutely basic to any feminist reading of the Bible that one cannot absolutise the culture in which the Bible is written. We cannot assume, she told the 360 women at the conference, that because the Bible was written against the backdrop of the patriarchal social structure, patriarchy is the will of God for all people in all times and in all places. Mollenkott then raised two examples of culture influence practices permeating Biblical material which have been repudiated even by evangelicals in contemporary times; the notion of the divine right of kings, including absolute monarchy, and the issue of slavery. She notes that the Biblical authors assumed that kings ruled by divine right and that absolute monarchy was divinely ordained and therefore God was frequently spoken of in terms of kingship.

Yet, although traditionalists insist that Pauline instructions to first century wives and churches are normative for all times and all places, they do not insist on a return to absolute monarchy and they do not require 20th century Americans to think and speak of God in royal terms. Much the same argument is made in terms of the issue of slavery. Because the Biblical culture practiced slavery the relationship between God and humanity is sometimes pictured as a master-slave relationship, she said. The imagery of slavery and mastery is very foreign to the modern era and neither traditionalists nor feminists would think of addressing God as “our master who art in heaven” nor would they insist that contemporary Christians refer to themselves as the slaves of God. We all agree that one can be a Biblical Christian without believing in slavery. In fact, most of us, even traditionalists would go further and say that enslaving other people is a practice antithetical to genuine Christianity. Biblical feminists then, she argued, are asking that in the male-female relationship as in the areas of slavery and the monarchy we be consistent about deabsolutising Biblical culture.

Now, of course, her statements are a serious misrepresentation of the Bible. I will deal with three misrepresentations in her statement not because they are essential to my argument but in order to clear the ground before proceeding with the question of The New Absolutism.

First of all the divine right of kings is not taught in the Bible nor monarchy. Rather the divine predestination behind all things, all authorities, parents, rulers, authorities in every area. For example Proverbs 8:15-16 says, “By me kings reign and princes decree justice. By me princes rule and nobles even all judges,” (that is rulers) “of the earth.” Again in 1 Samuel 8:1-22 the Lord makes it clear that in choosing monarchy Israel was rejecting God as King.

Her argument therefore that the Bible teaches the divine right of kings is ridiculous. The very doctrine is not only alien to Scripture but in the form she cites it is a part of the modern era.

Then, second, she speaks of slavery as basic to the Bible. But, it is an interesting fact that the KJV very wisely avoided entirely the use of the word slave except I believe in two instances where it refers, in the prophets, to a situation with regard to a foreign power. Slavery is not a part of the Biblical ethics or of any accepted part Israel’s practices as far as God’s law is concerned. First of all, although foreigners could be bought as life time slaves according to Leviticus 26:39-46 they had a duty to work to convert these people and on conversion they were free men. No fellow believer could ever be enslaved. There could be bond-servitude, but there had to be release after a period of time. For debt there could be bond-servitude and for crimes to work out restitution. Those were entirely different things.

If a man mistreated a bondservant or maimed him it gained him freedom and some compensation. Slaves had to be treated as members of the family. The law forbad their return if they fled because their situation was a voluntary one. Now this was recognized through the centuries, as a matter of fact in Medieval Europe many of the converts to Judaism were Christians who had been purchased as slaves and therefore having, at some date, accepted Judaism whether nominally or really, had to be set free. And the same was true even though it was violated by many in Christian circles. They recognized the validity of the law.

This posed in fact in Colonial America a legal problem in that the first converts among the Negro slaves, after a period of six years, in the seventh year went to court and sued for their freedom. It created quite a legal tangle for a while until finally some state legislatures ruled against Biblical law at that point. So, the Scripture is clear and Mollenkott is ignorant of Scripture.

Then third, Mollenkott argues against the patriarchal structure of the Bible. She is unwilling to look at the Biblical facts, or the biological facts, clearly. There is a very interesting book that I can refer you to, Steven Goldberg, an anthropologist, who has written a very telling book entitled The Inevitability of Patriarchy.

A nonpatriarchial view of society Goldberg argues, is an impossibility; and he does not say that men are superior. As a matter of fact it is an interesting thing that in testing of various kinds of aptitudes and abilities with regard to sex man excels only in two areas. You would have to say by in large women are superior. The two areas, in which men are superior, according to various tests that have been devised by anthropologists and social scientists and psychologists, are aggression, which we would say in Biblical terms is dominion, and abstract thinking.

Women’s thinking is concrete, it is specific, it is particular and they far exceed man there and in other areas. Thus, the testimony of contemporary anthropology is that patriarchy is inevitable. The Biblical view of society is such is that you cannot abstract patriarchy from it without destroying Scripture. Patriarchy is not the culture in which the Bible is written but that which the Bible plainly requires. As a matter of fact, when she speaks of the Pauline instruction as being a part of the culture of the day the fact is that the culture of the day, the Greco-Roman culture, was militantly feminist.

Now this brings us to our point. Mollenkott, in calling for deabsolutising the culture in which the Bible is written, is not saying that we abandon Canaanite, Babylonian or Greek or Roman cultures, but that we abandon Biblical law for humanistic law; the culture that God requires for the culture of 20th century humanism. She is not advocating the abolishing or the abandonment of absolutism but only of Biblical absolutism in favor of modern humanistic absolutism. What we must tell her and all like her is that we must rather deabsolutise modern culture. That it is our duty to proclaim the Word of God, the absolute Word, and demand that modern man deabsolutise himself, deabsolutise his culture.

The issue today is not feminism vs. male supremacy but the Word of God; and if we get too involved in issues whatever the right or wrong of those issues be, we lose the center. The issue is thus not, for example, integration vs. segregation, but the sovereignty of the Word of God and the fact that it is the Word of God that must create culture, not humanistic conditions or requirements. We do not approach our problems from our perspective as southerners or northerners but as Christians. We do not speak out of the context because then we absolutise the context, but from the Word of God which speaks down to the context from the perspective of the Sovereign God.

And this has been the fallacy you see of conservatives and of liberals, of radicals and reactionaries, they absolutise the context. And therefore, whether they are right or wrong about the particulars of the context they wind up wrong, because it is only the Word of God that can govern, not the context. We cannot take, as many people do, the fruits and neglect the tree. This is the weakness over and over again of many conservatives for example. They are for God and country, but God is an insurance policy; it is the country they are interested in. We may agree with them as to the specifics of causes but we have to say: you begin theologically, the absolutes are here in the Sovereign and in the Triune God.

It is the authoritative Word of God that must govern, which must prevail. Our absolutes are not on earth. They are not in 20th century culture Dr. Mollenkott, to the contrary. Those who work to deabsolutise the Bible are working for a new absolutism. This absolutism may be democracy, it may be communism, it may be feminism, it may be male supremacy, it can be equality or inequality. It could be a many number of things. We live today in a world of militant new absolutes, humanistic absolutes. How heavily these new absolute have penetrated modern society and the church is apparent in the popularity of pastoral psychology.

Now, I must begin by stating that I have a deep seated emotional prejudice against the subject of pastoral psychology. I recognize there is validity for it, and there is a great deal of merit in its study. But the thing that sets my teeth on edge is that today the kind of book the pastors read is pastoral psychology. After leaving seminary serious theological works are rarely read by the clergy. Their reading is in the field of pastoral psychology.

There is two kinds of books today which are big sellers; occultism on the one hand and pastoral psychology, or any kind of psychology, on the other. Do you see the absorption with man and his problems that this represents? And I submit that, while man has his problems and these problems need to be dealt with, they are not going to be dealt out of the context of the problem, from the approach of psychology, but by beginning with theology and seeing psychology and anthropology as branches of theology. Only if you have a valid doctrine of God will you have a valid doctrine of the mind or of the soul of man. And pastoral psychology, you see, begins out of the new absolutism and its context. ‘You begin where the people are, they tell us.’ Begin with man and his problems, man and his needs. No. You begin with the Sovereign God and His Word. The emphasis on psychology, of course, is existentialist.

Later in the week I will cite the proclamation of some existentialist’s that psychology has replaced theology in the modern world. It has ousted philosophy, metaphysics, and ethics. That the basic motive in the modern world cannot be ethics any longer, it is psychology, the needs of man. How can man enjoy life more, have fewer problems? The concern is not with the glory of God but with the potential glory of man.

In existentialism man is ultimate. The basic assertion of existentialism is the aseity of man. Now, we will be dealing with this doctrine all week in both classes. The aseity of man, his self-being. We cannot understand existentialism. Religious or non-religious, until we recognize how fundamental the doctrine of aseity is to it. the religious existentialists speak of the tragedy of God. Now why? What can that refer to? What a strange thing to speak of the tragedy of God. What is it? why his involvement with humanity in Jesus Christ. You see, if your goal is to have self being, to need no one, to depend on no one, to be your own universe; for God who is ostensibly absolute, self created, self derived, needing nothing; to get involved with humanity is the tragedy of God.

Now for another example. The sexual revolution which is very much with us, is an existentialist movement. Now, one of the cardinal if not the cardinal offense in any kind of sexual revolutionary group, for example a wife swapping event, where maybe 10 couple or 20 couples are involved in an orgy, the cardinal offense for someone, after copulating with someone else, to say to that man or woman: “I love you.” They are barred thereafter. Why?

It is permissible, in fact it is continuously stated: “I loved that.” Of a particular form of sexual perversion or act that was practiced. You enjoyed it. But to say that you love someone is to indicate that you have relationship to them, a need for them. And this is intolerable, it violates the first canon of existentialism, the aseity of man.

Hence it is that in the sexual revolution, couples are insistent on marrying that they go their own way. That even if they are very much attached to each other, and feel no desire sexually for someone else, that they go out deliberately and commit adultery with someone else. To demonstrate that there is no need, an essential need for one another. But of course it goes a step further. Those of you who have read John Paul Sartre’s classic work of Existentialism, Being and Nothingness, perhaps were shocked and amazed at his long session, in the course of a totally philosophical analysis of being, wherein he attacks women. And over and over again his term which borders on pornography for women, is ‘The Hole’ hole. And with pathological venom he rails against women. “She is the abyss, she destroys man.” Why? Because Sartre felt a need, as a sinner, for women. And therefore it was a challenge to his aseity. It was an assault upon himself as God.

It is the doctrine of the aseity of man that leads to the growing legislation, that so-called victimless crimes between consenting adults should be abolished; that homosexuality, prostitution, pot, drugs, and so on, should have no place on the statute books. Because if no one is hurt, then there is no crime.

Crime, you see, is defined in terms of the person of man, not the law of God. There are some that hold that such a freedom is necessary.

Again, turning to the daily papers, recently there was a discussion with a number of clergy man, by a reporter in Los Angeles concerning the issue of these so-called victimless crimes. One pastor who has a national reputation as a fundamentalist preacher, the reverend William Stewart McBurney, said and I quote from the article: “Yet because he is a strong advocate of separation of church and state, he believe that as a clergyman I don’t have the right to legislate other peoples morals, even when I bitterly disagree with them. His reasons are simple he says. “We are not a Christian country, we are a secular country; to force Judaic Christian thought on society is wrong.” Claiming to be a Biblical Christian, the pastor says “he scripture has given us guidance on the subject in Romans 14:5 “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind”. Society should not force the individual to its brand of morality, he maintains. “The point,” says Doctor McBurney, “is that it is God who judges morality and immorality. For this reason I don’t think the law should legislate morality any more than I think the law should legislate immorality.” Of course, he adds, “this leads us to the question of what is morality. It is an allegiance to or a departure from right and wrong. If one relates to other people it involves social consequences and should be regulated. But where right and wrong relates to oneself, reality is subject to Gods law only.” The problem comes when deciding what kind of immorality effects others, and who is to decide what is moral? Although taking Heroin for example is a solo process, it does support the illegal drug traffic, and addicts are known to steal and even kill for their habits. Homosexuality however may violate the senses of those not so inclined, but by classifying it as a crime it may be a violation of personal rights. “When the immorality becomes infectious, contagious, then it becomes a crime against society” says Doctor McBurney. He believes taking drugs is a crime, and homosexuality in itself is a sin. “I draw a distinction between sin and crime,” he stresses. “Crime is against society, sin is against God.”

Doctor Gerald Larue professor of religion however takes a somewhat different view in regard to victimless crimes. He contends that any crime regarding the individual and consenting adults should be abolished altogether, including prostitution and the voluntary taking of drugs. He considers it foolish to think in terms of contagious immorality, and an advanced society that is crammed with advertising and the availability of proper information. He believes that it is through proper education, not penalties and harassment that man will learn to deal with his personal problems and inclinations.” And so on and on.

An entire page of the daily paper devoted to interviews with church people, and all of them came up with similar statements. Almost all of them, except Larue, were Bible believers by profession.

Now, let us go back to a remark by Doctor McBurney: “I don’t have the right to legislate other people’s morals.” Very true. No one has asked him to do that, and no one has asked me to do that either, fortunately. The point is this. Does God have the right to legislate morality for all of creation? He is the creator, Lord of heaven and earth. All things are under His government- church, state, family, school, society, the vocations, the arts, the sciences. And as absolute Lord and governor, creator and king, He has the absolute right to legislate in every domain.

Indeed I do not have the right, nor does McBurney have the right to legislate other peoples moralities, in fact according to the word of God, I do not have the right- thank God- to legislate my own morality. Then indeed I would be in hell. God alone has the right, and He has exercised it. We have no choice where His law is concerned.

Moreover, McBurney radically misquotes Romans 14:5. Saint Paul is speaking of matters of Diet and Holy Days, not so-called victimless crimes. Moreover, McBurney to the contrary, we must say that morality can be legislated. After all, what are laws against murder, against theft? They legislate morality. All law is enacted morality, or procedural thereto. And all morality rests on a theological, on a religious foundation.

In about a month I shall be lecturing at the Notre Dame law school. It will be a legal conference, and I will be the only non-lawyer present. The others are judges, including a Supreme Court Judge. And my subject will be ‘The State as an Establishment of Religion’. The state is an establishment of religion. In fact it has more often in history been the central religious institution in society than the church. The state is required by God to be an establishment of religion, a ministry of justice.

A state has no right to be secular. And yet the head of a major denomination which professes to be Bible believing, recently said that: “We must work against the idea of a Christian state.” Why? Is Christianity to be restricted to the church? Is God only the creator of the church, and do we meet another God when we go outside the doors of the church? Must we bow down to Baal or to man, outside the doors of the church? Either God is sovereign or He is not. Either God is maker of heaven and earth, and all things therein, and therefore the absolute governor, the source of law, the source of morality in every area of life- or He is simply one god among many Gods.

Morality can be legislated. The only question with regard to legislation is: ‘What kind of law are we going to legislate? Christian or Humanist? Or Buddhist? Or Islamic? Or Shinto? Hindu?’ Whatever is our presupposition religiously will create our law.

Today the very reason for the breakdown, the increasing breakdown of law in our society, is because of our humanism, and its conclusion,, existentialism. You can understand the philosophy of existentialism very simply by going to Genesis 3:5. Satan says, this is his principle: “Ye shall be as God” every man his own God, “knowing” and knowing has the force there as Kuyper pointed out a long time ago, of determining, deciding for yourself what constitutes good and evil. This is the modern world, this is existentialism. Every man his own God, choosing, determining for himself what constitutes good and evil.

McBurney says he favors laws only when a crime is against society. But all crime is first of all a sin against the almighty and sovereign God. All crime. It manifests an indifference, no a hostility, a warfare against God and His order. So that when a man commits a crime against me, my person or my property, he has first of all declared war against God. For humanism, for existentialism, for modern man sin is against man and society, not against God. Crime exists therefore only when the aseity of man is denied, when force enters in. Hence when it is consenting adults it is permissible. Hence, if society chooses to vote in any kind of thing and say: “This is permissible” then ostensibly it is permissible.

McBurney says, making homosexuality a crime violates man’s rights. But what right, and what rights do any men have apart from God? In independence of God? We cannot affirm the sovereignty of God and the Reformed faith, without affirming the absolutism of God and of His word, without affirming that he governs every domain. That it is not 20th century culture which must determine our perspective, but the kind of culture that God in His word requires.

Therefore, when man approaches law for example, his function cannot be legislative, he cannot create law, his function is ministerial; he must pass those laws which are in conformity to the law of God. He is a minister of God for good. Man’s society, mans state, mans culture is always a reflection of his religion. And the state is as I said earlier, a religious establishment. Humanism is now the religion taught in state schools, and too often in the churches. What we must in the face of the absolutism of modern culture, what we must do, is to work for the de-absolutation of modern culture, and affirm the absolutism of God and His word, and we must re-establish Christianity as the foundation of all of society, of church, state, family, vocation, school, the arts, the sciences, every area of life. This is our theological and our ethical, our moral imperative as Christians.

Nothing short of that does justice to the word of God and to the Sovereign and Triune God.

Now we have a few minutes in which perhaps you might have some questions. We will both be happy to deal with them now. Yes?

[Audience Member] I am not sure if this is going to come out right, but when we talk about the law being founded on Christianity, and legislating laws that conform to the will of God, the main conflict I come into is where… well, let me put it this way, when this is usually prevented, it is prevented generally leaving out the fact that there must be things in the people, before anything can ever be done as far as that law being manifest in their lives; and I am not saying (?) at this point, but the general presentation of this is, this is the whole crux and goal of puritans, are you going to deal with that during the week?

[Rushdoony] Yes, I will be dealing with some of the implementation of this sort of thing, and of course it does presuppose regeneration. Are there any other questions? Yes.

[Audience Member] Are you suggesting that there is a single Christian culture …?...

[Rushdoony] The question is, am I suggesting that there is a single Christian culture rather than Christianized cultures. I believe there is a culture that God requires. Culture has been defined as: “Religion externalized.” That is all culture is. It is a manifestation of religion. The outward workings of it.

Now, throughout history more than once, cultures have been Christianized in varying degrees. We have never had a consistently and systematically thorough Christian culture. When we do it will be one which begins with a premise of Gods sovereignty and applies it in every area. There is a culture that the Bible requires, emphatically. Yes?

[Audience Member] (Sounds like Greg Bahnsen) I wonder who put the question asking about the possibility of variation within a Christian culture or cult (?) diet, dress, entertainment, that sort of thing (arguing?) about various Christian cultures, all of which are within the boundaries of the law of God, or whether when we have a Christian culture any other Christian culture must reflect it.

[Rushdoony] Ah yes. True, God has created the diversity of mankind, and therefore each of the Christian cultures will begin with the sovereignty of God and the authority of His word, but there are areas where their particular talents and diversities will be expressed. So that, even as I for example have aptitudes in certain areas and a very dear friend of mine has aptitudes in another area, and is every bit as zealous for the sovereignty of God as I am, but when he talks in the area of sciences he loses me in about the second or third sentence. But he is applying the word of God where he is in the context of his situation.

Now that is a little more extreme than cultures and nations, but there is no question that different peoples have different aptitudes and abilities. We tend today, just as our IQ tests are today artificially constructed so that they will eliminate sexual differences; women would come out ahead in most fields except the two I mentioned, and racial differences. Because there are variations; people of one ethnic background will have marked abilities in one area, and not as marked in other areas.

But they don’t want to believe that there are these differences, you see. Therefore they try to eliminate them. Well, in a Godly culture we will consider those blessings of God, to be developed.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, a very good question. A very good question. First of all, in each sphere, the men who are working in that sphere in terms of the theological premise will be a means of criticism, one against the other (?) a check, theologically. The church and the state don’t govern the sphere’s, we will come to that later in the week; so that each discipline will, if it is faithful to the Lord is directly under God and will govern itself. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes. First of all, this is an excellent question, but I would drop the word pendulum; because that has too Hellenic a context, a view of history that is alien. Now, in the history of the church, progressively as challenges have been met by the church which have almost subverted the church, humanism in one form or another, arising and finding a weakness in the Christian armor and infiltrating; then as the church meets it, it (the church) becomes that much stronger. I believe now of course, humanism has come to a very open focus in existentialism, so we have a tremendous challenge in our day, and I believe now there are indications that the church is rising to meet this challenge, and is on the verge of a tremendous and renewed power.

So that, history in Biblical terms is linear. The doctrine of progress is a secularized version of it, and the doctrine of progress is now collapsing because humanism as it abandoned the theological premises of the Biblical view of history is now falling back into a cyclical view of history, into pessimism. And one scholar who saw this, (Brekhart?) the historian, in the last century could see that the whole doctrine of progress without the roots of Biblical faith which he did not have, had no future. And so as he looked into the twentieth century he said: “There is no hope.”

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] It is not a Christian one! (Laughter)

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, oh. Right. Now the whole idea is, to say that… to over indulge in sex for one thing, so that you don’t feel any driving need for it. This is one of their premises. Second, you do it in an impersonal way, so that you don’t need another person. Remember, Sartre says that man is a being whose passion is to be God. And he also then concludes: “Well, if I am God and you are trying to be God, that is a contradiction.” So he has to say: “For me, my neighbor is the devil.” You can’t have two Gods. So you can’t need other people. So you exorcise as it were, your sexual drive, by overindulgence, and by being as impersonal as possible.

Now, they have gone one step further, and some of the leaders of the Feminist movement now, and some of their writings as well as some of their masculine counterparts have said that: “Ultimate sex, from the existentialist view point, is masturbation.” You need nobody then.

You see, they are logical. They are ruthlessly logical. And we have to be as consistent and more so to the word of God if we are going to beat them.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes…

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, but you see what they are saying, the self being of man, you need nothing, you need no one. But if you treat sex that way, as though it is a meaningless thing, you are saying: “I am reducing this area which you say is the ultimate personal area from your Biblical point of view, to nothingness.” Now I had a talk once with a hippy girl about 5-6 years ago. And she was very vocal, she was ready to sleep with anybody. If you want it, we’ll do it. That was her attitude. Whether I like your looks or not. “Because it doesn’t mean a thing, and I am trying to prove that.” You see. She was trying to explode the hang-up her parents and other adults had, that this was a personal, an intimate thing. She was depersonalizing it, rendering it meaningless, and saying: “I don’t need it, nobody needs it, it’s a nothing.”

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes. Yes. So much so you see, they actually put down in writing that it was a badge of honor to get BD, and laugh about it. You are asserting your aseity by saying: “Nothing matters.” I could go further about the extremes to which they carried this in their writings. But I will spare you some of the details.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes. May I make one statement, (avrapro?) of nothing except that it is delightful, just before I left there was a letter in the mail that I took with me, and it was this bumper sticker. (Laughter, tape ends)