The Lives of Your Children at Stake

Humanism vs. Christianity

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Education

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 1 of 5

Track: 66

Dictation Name: RR146A1

Date: 1960’s-1970’s

[Rushdoony] My own called me have heard me speak about the Ohio school case. He said he had just discussed the Ohio school case with a state Senator who was friendly to our position. The state senator confided in him that every state department of education across the United States was quietly following the Ohio case. It win or lost {?} then in every state there would be moves against Christian schools with one ultimate goal, to eliminate them totally. Two or three years ago a prominent attorney in Washington D.C. that he believed by the 1980’s the major political battle in this country would be between not conservatives and liberals, socialists and anti-socialist but between Christianity and Humanism. He said moreover it will be a war unto the death, and he said “everything will be done to disguise from the Christians the reality of that battle so that they will continue to halt between two opinions.”

Christianity is a world and life view that is God has a word for every sphere of life because God is totally God; He is absolutely sovereign. He declareth “I am the Lord and beside me there is none other.” There is not one area of life, not one atom in all of creation that is outside of the Lord God of hosts. There is no hiding place from Him, nor any area where His word does not govern. Either the word of God speaks to every area or it speaks to none, because either He is totally God or He is not.

We cannot understand the history of our faith unless we realize, first of all at the time of our Lord’s birth the Roman Empire had just been born. There was a great advent celebration, celebrating the coming of the Emperor to power. Remember the original term for what we now call Christmas was advent; the advent of God the son. Caesar’s advent was celebrated with this proclamation throughout the empire: “There is none other name under heaven by which men may be saved then the name of Caesar.” Now do you understand why, at the very beginning of the birth of the church, this was the proclamation of the church, and that it was a declaration of war against Caesar? That warfare was inescapable, either Christ is the name by which no man can be saved except by His name; or else Caesar is the savior. This was the issue. Whose name Christ or Caesar’s?

Now Caesar tried to mask that battle, the Caesar’s did everything to tell the church “there’s no cause for alarm.” As a matter of fact as the battle got under way some Roman Emperor’s went so far as to pretend to a faith in Christ. One Emperor had an image made of Christ and put in his private chapel and had it publicized that he actually prayed at times to Jesus. The purpose of this was to lull the Christians to sleep, to give them the idea that if they only co-operated with Caesar all would be well. But beginning with the day of Pentecost the fundamental confession of faith of the early church was summed up in three words; “Jesus is Lord.” Now Lord means God, it means the one who is the warrior King, the One under whom all things exist by Him were all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made. On the day of Pentecost Peter concludes his great proclamation in these words that “this same Jesus whom ye crucified is both Lord and Christ.” And over and over again Saint Paul declares “Jesus is Lord.” In Philippians the second chapter the tenth verse he quotes the prophesy of Isaiah as fulfilled in Jesus, that at the name of Jesus “every knee shall bow; of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” Jesus is Lord.

Now the churches throughout the empire, whatever else they required at the time of Baptism of the convert, the basic confession had to be this; Jesus is Lord. That was a declaration of war, why? Because when the Christians were persecuted and brought before the Roman officials what they were asked to do was not to stop worshipping Jesus, in fact we have records that indicate that they said “go your way worship your Jesus, we’re ready to grant you that privilege, we’re ready to make you (and their term was elicit or) a legal religion, licensed. Licensed by the Roman Empire, free to do whatever you want provided you get your license and pay your tax as a church. Only stand before the altar and image of Caesar and say these three words, Caesar is Lord. That was the issue, who was Lord? Christ or Caesar?

We know that Polycarp, and we have account of his martyrdom who grew up as a young man in the days of the apostles, was in his old age at 85 arrested and confronted with this question. And he was asked “Why sacrifice yourself needlessly, go and worship your Jesus simply say that Caesar is Lord. Why die when so simple a thing stands between you and worshipping Christ?” And Polycarp witnessed both then and when again this request was made of him, because the Romans didn’t want martyrs, why bother our courts and clog up our legal systems when it’s so easy? That was their attitude, so even as they took him to be executed they gave him another chance. And he said “I am 85 years old and my Lord who died for me has not renounced me, how dare I renounce Him?”

There were Christians so called who thought it solved problems to say “Caesar is Lord” and to go back and worship Jesus saying “He’s my savior but I won’t confess Him as Lord” And there were congregations as well as pastor’s who felt that way. By and large the church refused to recognize them as Christians, as a matter of fact there was a split in the church later over whether these people should ever be allowed to return to the true church or not. A sad fact is that it is now those who confess Jesus as Lord to the state who are being told there is something wrong with their faith.

Now to understand further how the early church felt we need to recognize something more, we don’t understand the New Testament when we read it because we do not understand the meaning of the word “church”. The word church in the English comes from the Greek Periacos {?} as in Periacon doma and Periaca Oika {?} The house of the Lord. It refers to a building or an institution, like the Presbyterian, the Baptist, the Episcopal, the Congregational, the Methodist, and other churches. But the Biblical word, the New Testament word and this is not original with me, if you look this up in the new Bible dictionary you’ll find this, and in many old standards works; but it’s forgotten in the churches as such. The Greek word is ecclesia. And it is basically the same word as we have in two Hebrew words which are translated as congregation and assembly.

Now these two Hebrew words are used in the Old Testament at times for the civil government for Israel, at times for the Tabernacle or temple, at times for the army of Israel, and often for the entire covenant people. They meant essentially “God’s kingdom.” Now this is its meaning in the New Testament. It can refer in part to a local congregation but it basically means the entire kingdom of God. Now with this in mind you can begin to understand why the early church felt as it did. Wherever the work of Christ being down, there was Christ’s kingdom; and it was not Christ who pays tribute to Caesar but Caesar who is under the authority of Jesus Christ. And they felt that every area of life; church, state, school, family, the arts, the sciences, the vocations, must be under Christ the King.

They went out therefore and whatever they did they did not because the state granted them a license but because Christ ordered them; whether it was educating their young, carrying on welfare activity, or anything else. Do you know that one of the things they did was to go around, that was the time of easy abortion and in those days doctors were not as good and they couldn’t always successfully abort babies, so these unwanted babies were born and it was commonplace to abandon them daily under the bridges of Rome; or in the other cities near the city dump. But leave them there to die. The Christians went around and picked them up, regularly; parceled them out and reared them in the faith. Not to very different, is it, from what pastor Roloff is doing? He gets them a little later in life. They never recorded those babies as members of the families; technically they were non-persons, slaves; because they didn’t have legal existence. As you know the slaves in the South had no legal existence, they were non-persons to a degree before the law. They did this because they wanted no entanglement with the state, they would not acknowledge Caesar as Lord. The Roman government knew they were doing it, they knew also it was gaining a tremendous respect among many conscientious pagans for the Christian faith; and it was bringing converts to them. So finally they said it would be illegal to rescue these babies, but that became even more embarrassing for Rome so they had to repeal that law.

But do you see what the church saw, the Christian community? By church I mean the kingdom of God, Christian society, saw as its responsibility under God. Not only what we term the Christian school, but Christian welfare work; every area of life and thought that became a mission was therefore under the kingship of Christ and not of Caesar.

Now in terms of humanism man, or the state is Lord. And what the state schools are trying to get us to say is; the state is Lord. Confess Caesar is Lord, come up and bow down before the altar of Caesar and get your license and go out, we love you. This is what Rome said, “we think you’re wonderful people, we’re just trying to help you to function more effectively. Get your license here, but say that Caesar is Lord.” And this is what humanism is now asking of us. Why, by the way, were the public schools started? Well I’ve written a book about that entitled The Messianic Character of American Education the men who established state control of education in this country were Unitarians. So the first thing to mark them was a hatred of Christ and a desire to eliminate the power of Christianity on children; because if you control children you control the future. Charles G. Sumner, the abolitionist senator for Massachusetts, told Horace Mann when he was encouraging him “We must remove the serpent’s coils from around our children.” And by the Serpents coils he meant Biblical faith. That was their motive; it’s never changed, so the function of the state schools is the destruction of Christianity. This was spelled out very clearly by John Dewey as well as others. I’ll deal with that in one of the later sessions.

The other great purpose was what was then known as centralism. We would call it totalitarianism, socialism. So that their purpose in seeking control of the schools was to destroy Christianity and to introduce centralism or totalitarianism. Now if you like that, send your children there, and allow them to license your schools. Then you no longer confess Jesus as Lord, you may call Him your savior but He’s really then only your fire insurance agent; and I don’t think Jesus Christ our Lord accepts that role.

Now I’m going to deal very briefly with some of the key areas of difference between Christianity and humanism as diametrically opposed religions. First of all for Biblical faith it is the sovereignty of God which is the starting point, God is God; “I am the Lord beside me there is none other.” whereas for humanism it is the sovereignty of man and the state which is the starting point. What we are simply saying is, God is God. Whereas humanism says “man is God.” Humanism is simply original sin. What is original sin but what the tempter said “Yeah, hath God said? Ye shall not surely die but ye shall be as gods, everyman his own God, knowing” and the Hebrew word there, knowing has the force of determining for yourself, establishing for yourself what constitutes good and evil; situation ethics, the morality of the public schools; experimental ethics every man his own God choosing good and evil for himself. But as against this our Lord says that man shall live by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God. Not a part of that word, but every word. Then Christianity declares that God’s word and person comprise the truth. Whereas humanism says that truth is pragmatic, that which works, and existential. It is what we find works and is helpful to us.

After all Friedrich Nietzsche said that very often a lie is more useful and works better than the truth. Therefore, he said, “We must regard a lie as more basic. Very often more useful, and more the truth for us then what men call the truth.” Modern sociology begins and ends on that premise that you begin with this faith in man and the ability of man to remake, to regenerate man; and anything that conflicts with that you do not consider. Moreover it says that the idea of truth is something that belongs to the age of religion. Now we are concerned with technology, how to make things work, how to enforce what we believe in, how to put over what we want to effect. There is no concern with truth.

Now if God’s word and person comprise truth for us then it follows that for us as Christians education is into God’s truth in every realm. We must then seek to understand God’s word as it applies to every area of life and thought; and we must bring every area of life and thought into captivity to Jesus Christ as Lord. Whereas for the humanist education is the self realization and self development of the child, the truth is in him, the child; so allow the child to express himself. For us when the child expresses himself it isn’t a manifestation of truth, but of original sin, of depravity. The two positions cannot be more diametrically opposed. Humanism is the logical development of all the ancient paganism, of all the religions of this world apart from our faith, so the two are coming into open conflict. We had better realize that it is, as this attorney declared, a war unto death or we will be the causalities there in.

Then it follows for us as Christians education is discipline under a body of truth, this body of truth grows with research and study but truth is always objective, it is God given, not manmade. Whereas for the humanist education is freedom from restraints and from any idea of truth as something outside of us, God given. There’s no longer any truth there in nature for the humanist; it’s in man. We’ll return to this idea later in the week, it see where it has led educators.

Then it follows that if for a Christian education is discipline under a body of truth, that Godly standards grade us. We must measure up to these standards. The teacher grades the pupil; but the teacher moves in terms of a standard other than herself. There is a standard greater than man, above and beyond man in terms of which we are graded, we measure up to it. On the other hand humanism says the school and the world must measure up to the pupils needs, so the pupil grades the teacher.

Now I have lectured in secular colleges and universities all over the country. Within the area of the states that adjoin Ohio I’d say I’ve lectured to perhaps ten or twelve such institutions. And I’ve noticed that it is routine to pass out, in many of these schools a grading sheet to the pupils to grade the visiting lecturer or if I’ve taught at a summer session to grade the entire course. They do the grading, and this kind of grading is more uninhibited and unrestricted. The profs. do not dare flunk to many; in some schools practically not at all. The pupil has no such restraint on his grading; if you think that doesn’t inhibit many of the professors you’re sadly mistaken. . You would be inhibited if a board or an administration regularly looked at how these students graded you. Your teaching would be governed by them. Well is it any wonder that we have problems with our youth; that they have been rebellious? They judge their parents; this is what the public schools teach them, they’re learning their lessons well. They go out and judge the world and they want to burn it down and destroy it if it doesn’t meet their requirements, they’ve learned their lessons well.

Then next in the Christian perspective mans will and the child’s will must be broken to God’s purpose, we do not bend God to our will; God bends us to His. We are told that even the wrath of man shall praise him, it shall fulfill his purpose. That when Satan believed it was his grandest moment in all of history when men sat and condemned our lord to death, this they did not knowing that the scriptures were fulfilled, and that God’s grand purpose was fulfilled when Satan thought he was doing his worst. But the Humanist says society must be broken and remade to mans’ will, and the child’s will is sacred. Don’t punish the child; don’t inhibit him, allow the child to express himself. The world around us, the family, all things must be remade in terms of mans will. Mans will how? Why in terms of mans will uninhibited, unaffected, unrestrained by any outside teaching, whether by church, parents, community, civil government, or even school.

You hear so much today about youth in alienation that word alienation, and trying to find myself. Well how in the world do you lose yourself? They’re trying to find themselves because they are brought up in terms of existentialist philosophy, which is humanism come to full flower. Cause they are taught by existentialist philosophy that they have an imposed self that is not their true self, their parents, the church, society, have imposed requirements and restrictions on them including toilet training. They can only find their true self when they throw all these off. Some of you may remember the sixties and some of the demonstrations like the march on Washington. I have a friend who works in the pentagon, those students marching on Washington were trying to find themselves by revolutionary activity which meant throwing off all their inhibitions; and that meant among other things their toilet training. So they fouled the entire area around the Pentagon in happy glee, and proclaimed that they were being liberated. They were finding themselves.

That’s the logical implication of state schools and their philosophy. And remember by and large it was the best students of the 60’s that were involved; the better students, because they grasped the basic principles of modern educational philosophy better than the others. And today on the secular campuses it’s the best minds that are being blown, that are into drugs. That’s the new kick rather than revolution; they’re trying to find themselves through drugs.

Now in terms of a Biblical faith mans problem is sin, and man must be re-created by God and obey every word of God in order to be blessed. The key chapter in scripture that deals with this is Deuteronomy 28. Read it when you go to your room tonight, the oath of office in the United States was once taken with an open Bible on that passage. God declares that if you obey my every word all these blessings shall come upon you and overwhelm you, irresistible blessings to those who believe and obey. But if you disobey me there shall be irresistible curses, all these things shall come upon thee and overtake thee; and the image is of a beast of prey in both cases pursuing and overcoming someone. And in one case the blessings, in the other case with curses.

Finally according to scripture the basic institution, the one institution that was created before the fall is the family. It is God’s basic institution, not the Church - the worshipping body, nor the state- the ministry of justice, but the family. Whereas for humanism the family is obsolete, the individual the atomistic individual or the state is basic, depending on whether the humanist in anarchistic or totalitarian. Now Humanism will saturate a curriculum if all you have done is to adopt a secular school curriculum and to sprinkle a little Holy water over it in the form of compulsory chapel and Bible. Every area must be re-thought in terms of the word of God. This is what our foundation is concerned with.

For example one of the things that we are excited about, because already graduate students are in various universities using the material quite extensively and no doubt bedeviling their professors. A very brilliant mathematician, a Harvard PhD in math, Dr. Vern S. Poythress who this last year was at Cambridge wrote in our first number of the journal of Christian reconstruction, which was devoted to the doctrine of creation, an article titled Creation and Mathematics or What does God have to do with Numbers?” Then on a more advanced level dealing with higher math in our newly published book, The Foundations of Christian Scholarship edited by one of our staff members, Gary North. He goes on to deal with the fact that apart from the infallible word and the doctrine of the trinity you have no mathematics. The whole structure of mathematics collapses. I’m not a mathematician so I won’t try to reproduce his argument, but I commend his two studies to you, they are tremendous.

We forget, you know, that there was no such thing as a university until Christianity came along, because Christianity believes in one Lord, one Faith, one baptism. Well if you have one Lord, one God a triune God you have a universe. Under polytheism in antiquity you had a multiverse with many gods, each with his realm and no common law. You couldn’t have science with that; you couldn’t have more than a rudimentary mathematics. The Greeks went so far and their math collapsed. It is significant that the student rebellion of the 60’s began at Berkley where Dr. Kerr as president had begun a process whereby the idea of a university was to be abandoned, and it was henceforth to be a multiversity; and shortly after that process began they granted their first degree in magic, a Masters degree. Why not? If you have a multiverse, and a multiversity anything is true except Biblical faith which asserts one Lord, one faith, therefore one law; because it is a universe. That idea is now gone.

This is why the idea of truth is collapsing. You can’t have a universal truth if you have a multiverse.

Or history, I won’t go into this much because at three thirty in the workshop I’ll be dealing with this, but the fundamental issue is humanism verses Christianity, who determines history God or man? Or the sciences, is it the rule of chance or the rule of materialistic determinism? Well both are humanistic alternatives. This is why the idea of causality has collapsed, because it is born of Newtonian science and a materialistic determinism and it is a one to one idea of causality and this is an impossibility. Scientists no longer talk about causality; they went some years ago to the probability concept. When I was at the university, Berkley university of California, I was told that we could not say that the sun will rise tomorrow in the East and set in the West. We can only say “probably this will be so”. Only if we can observe every sunrise and sunset from the beginning of time to the end of time can we then say “it is so”. Otherwise we can only say that there us a probability. They didn’t want to deal with causality; it’s too theological a concept. Now they are abandoning the probability concept because it still reeks of theology. What do you have left? The God of scripture alone answers the problem of science. Modern science has its origins in the puritans of England; because of their faith they were the first scientists of England.

At a later hour I shall deal with the fact that one of our top molecular scientist has conceded he is not a Christian; that now that we have abandoned such a belief, he never uses the word God. That’s the ultimate you know in pornography in academic circles; I find that professors almost have heart attacks at secular universities when I mention God, and when I mention Christ it almost causes them to collapse on the spot. It’s the ultimate in pornography in such circles. Four letter words, that’s of another sort, that’s fine. But this scientist concedes that science is collapsing, (as I say I’ll go into that later on) because we no longer have a faith in the universe, or in the creator behind it.

Or in literature, here the issue between Christianity and humanism is very sharp. What is a classic? Well the idea of a classic has changed from generation to generation, and over the centuries if you jumped back a few centuries the idea of a classic and what constituted classics would be very different from what people today say it is. But in most cases for some generations it’s been a humanistic definition. I recently read what was called one of the great world classics, the Vietnamese Tale of Kieu. It’s a very moving story, but it is pagan to the core. It’s a masterpiece of paganism. It has throughout an overwhelming self pity, something no Christian has a right to indulge in, a continual indictment of God, not of man, a belief in the goodness of man, and a view that man is the victim of God. Sin in other words is on God’s side. Now a Christian classic must reflect a Christian world and life view. For us conflict is not metaphysical, it is moral. There is an ultimate harmony of interest in all things, because God made all things and all things work together for good in terms of his sovereign purpose. We cannot take over the humanist classics and use them without teaching another religion to our children; and they will imbibe it.

Or, since our time is short to hasten on, to look at language and grammar. Grammar and culture are interrelated. We are now told that these are very arbitrary things. But culture being simply religion externalized the kind of faith you have behind a culture determines its grammar. WE have in those cultures that have a background of Christian faith a clearly marked sense of time, of past, present, and future. But the more cultures’ develop in their paganism the more they abandon that concept which originally I believe all cultures had because of the background of creation, and the original revelation of God to all men. But as cultures develop they lose that time sense, they have no sense of the future nor any real sense of the past, they become what are schools are today; existentialists. It’s the now, they’re now people. They become now cultures. Moreover words, what are words? Why words are miniature propositional truths. They set forth something; a word defines and limits something. But if you deny the idea of propositional truths in philosophy you are going to deny it in the area of language, in the area of grammar. And what do you have then, a communications gap of course.

So today we talk about the communications gap, the credibility gap. Why? Because truth does not exist, words today are things to be used existentially to serve man, and man has no obligation to use words with integrity. So you have a breakdown of communication because you have a breakdown of language.

Now to bring this to a conclusion because our time is really up. You see Biblical faith is a total concern because ours is a total God. Christians therefore cannot bypass education without bypassing the Lordship of Jesus Christ, without committing suicide. Because Jesus is Lord, not Caesar, and because the name by which alone men may be saved is not that of Caesar, not that of the state but the name of Jesus Christ. There is no area of life and thought which we must not claim for Christ our Lord, our King, our Savior. Thus Christian schools are key aspects of the Church as the word is used it the New Testament, Christ’s realm; Christ’s kingdom. You cannot surrender that realm to the humanists, to the state; without thereby surrendering Jesus Christ as your Lord. Let us pray.

Glory be to Thee oh God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. By Thy grace and mercy redeemed us through the blood of Jesus Christ and made us a new creation. Empower us oh Lord that we may go forth in every area we enter, every place where our foot shall tread we claim that area for Christ our Lord. Make us more than conquers through Him that loved us. Fill us with Thy Spirit that we may reclaim churches, schools, families, boys and girls, men and woman, the arts, the sciences, civil government, vocation; everything for Christ our Lord. We thank Thee our Father that Thou has said that Thou wilt never leave us nor forsake us, so that we may boldly say “The Lord is my helper I shall not fear what man may do unto me.” We thank Thee oh Lord that Thou art He who dost rule and overrule in the affairs of men, not a sparrow falls apart from Thy will; that Thou art He who dost number the very hairs of our head. Give us strength and courage and boldness in this confidence so that knowing that underneath all the experiences, the trials, the testing’s of this life are of Thine everlasting arm. We move forward to teach, to evangelize, to conquer, knowing that if Thou art for us, who can be against us? Our God how great Thou art, and we praise Thee. In Jesus name, amen.