From the Easy Chair
Faith vs. Guilt Culture
Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony
Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons
Lesson: 140-214
Genre: Speech
Track:
Dictation Name: RR161CV182
Year: 1980s and 1990s
Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161CV182, Faith vs. Guilt Culture, from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.
[ Rushdoony ] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 292, May 12, 1993.
In this hour Douglas Murray, Otto Scott, Mark Rushdoony and I are going to visit with John Lofton and carry on with what we were discussing an hour... in the previous hour. I would like to begin by calling attention to the fact that a very, very important element in the shift of the western world from a guilt culture of morality to a face culture of appearances was Hollywood often called the dream factory which created a world of illusion and the extent to which people under the influence of films began to live a dream life and to respond to advertising that put all the emphasis upon face, appearance is seldom appreciated by anyone.
I came very early to a knowledge of the face versus guilt culture thinking because in my student days I knew at the University of California an old professor, highly regarded as one of the more brilliant men on the faculty, an old fashioned gentleman. I took a few courses from him and audited some. And he was a member of a famous old New England family, very gracious, very thoughtful. I know he and my father met on one occasion and immediately took to one another because they both belonged to a world that was disappearing. Well, an interesting fact about this man that was beginning to affect some of the students, to baffle them, to amuse them, to lead to endless comment and you would walk out of the lecture hall which would be crowded and you would hear a number of them shaking their heads about it or laughing about it. The man wore suits which were a generation out of date. It didn’t bother him at all. He was obviously someone... well, a very conservative, old fashioned New England tradition. And as long as your clothing was wearable, in good condition, of good material—and they were all of excellent material—you wore it until it wore out...
But Hollywood was beginning to create a mindset in a limited number of students and during the whole time I was there, whether I was taking his classes or not, I would hear students laughing or shaking their heads over this man’s clothing. Appearance was everything.
That is what the world of Hollywood created. And that is why, because of its powerful impact here and also throughout the world in every continent, it has created face cultures, cultures where the emphasis has sifted from morality to appearance everywhere that the films have gone. And whether or not we are concerned with the morality of Hollywood films or whether we look at just what they were in their better days in the 30s and 40s and into the 50s, the emphasis was on a face culture.
[ Lofton ] Well, of course, in politics you see this expressed and you hear it ad nauseum. Perception is reality.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes...
[ Lofton ] All the time. It doesn’t matter what is really true. Perception is reality.
[ Rushdoony ] Coming out of World War II the reason some psychologists said that Eisenhower was going to succeed and the Democrats could not stand up to him was that he represented the father image.
[ Lofton ] Yes.
[ Rushdoony ] We were moving into a post war world and we didn’t know what to think. So we wanted that father image to reassure us. And then the youth image which with Kennedy. So help us God we have descended ...
[ Lofton ] In other words...
[ Rushdoony ] ... to the Reagan, Bush and Clinton images.
[ Lofton ] In other words, we want to a sort of a old young guy.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Scott ] Well that is the ... remember the Eisenhower thing more in terms of an insecure world with... made us feel more secure to have a real good general here in the presidency who was going to keep us safe. But what impressed me more then the clothes is the manners, manners. American manners used to be quite good. In my grandfather’s time they all had Roosevelt’s manners. They were very democratic in their speech. They were very gracious to everyone they dealt with. They were... they listened to what the other fellow said and they responded. And this isn’t to say that there wasn’t a considerable amount of snobbery in the Roosevelts and the others, but you would never get it from their excellent manners.
Now manners in the United States have become very, very strange. If you are at a party—and I have said this before—and you disagree with your host, the hostess comes running with a cookie tray. She gets very upset and people ... people... the air gets cold. You came just to disrupt the party. You will never be invited again and so forth.
Whereas in England if you agree with everything the host says he will never invite you back. He will know that you are an idiot. You have got to be. You can’t agree with everything another man says. You must be lying or else you don’t have a brain of your own. And ... and you were expected to express yourself. And, furthermore, you are expected to say something that hasn’t been said by somebody else.
[ Lofton ] Well, that is a wonderful segue, because I may want to disagree with you.
[ Scott ] Well, you can disagree anytime you like. I would be happy if you do.
[ Lofton ] Although it may not be a disagreement.
[ Scott ] Yes. But there is a... a... a... an element here of genuine manners...
[ Lofton ] Yes.
[ Scott ] ...as opposed to artificial manners or an art... a lack of manners. It is an absolute lack of manners if you cannot express yourself candidly at a party without being made to feel like an outcast.
[ Lofton ] All right. I want to raise what I think ... and... and I have heard you say many times on these tapes about the importance of manners and the way you explain manners, who... who can disagree? I agree with you. The danger here is... or a danger is that if you begin to value manners over morality, you are dead in the water, because one of the things that those of us who preach...
[ Scott ] How would that come into it?
[ Lofton ] I will tell you how. When I preach and because that upsets someone I am accused of being rude. It is rude to tell someone they will repent. If they don’t repent they are going to hell. It is rude to tell someone if they don’t believe in the Lord Jesus Christ they are going to hell. That is rude. Daniel was rude not to eat the king’s food. Paul and Silas were rude to cause to cause a riot in a town.
[ Scott ] {?} If you...
[ Lofton ] ... to turn it upside down. It is rude...
[ Scott ] Would you consider inviting you to a party an invitation for you to get up and give a sermon?
[ Lofton ] Yes.
[ Scott ] That is something else.
[ Lofton ] I would say that if your position is that at no time at any party ought one to ever sermonize, I would....
[ Scott ] I didn’t say that.
[ Lofton ] Ok, good.
[ Scott ] I didn’t say that.
[ Lofton ] Ok, good.
[ Scott ] I didn’t say that.
[ Lofton ] Ok.
[ Scott ] I said that you were not offered a....
[ Lofton ] Yes.
[ Scott ] ... pulpit.
[ Lofton ] True. No I think... I think in the party setting I can see how it could be rude. But... but the problem is that the world constantly accuses those of us who preach of being rude, that you agitate people, you upset them. You judge them. You tell them they are wrong. That is rude. It is not good manners.
[ Rushdoony ] At a party setting if someone is there who is a skeptic or an Atheist, you don’t have to open your mouth. They come after you. So you are a preacher.
[ Scott ] Well, if they know you, yes.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Scott ] Now you are talking...
[ Rushdoony ] They are...
[ Scott ] You are talking...
[ Rushdoony ] aggressive.
[ Scott ] You are talking as two preachers. This has never happened to me, because no one ... no one ever confuses me with being a preacher.
[ Rushdoony ] They will in time, Otto. And if you move in some of the circles you used to, I think you would be in for a real trouble now, because you are a long ways from 20 years ago.
[ Scott ] That is true.
[ Lofton ] I... I think I have heard you speak of... not... not... you know, not literally preaching. But that you have been known at some places and some people have sought you ought to basically take you to task for your views.
[ Scott ] Well... Well, then...
[ Lofton ] And they started the fight with you.
[ Scott ] Yeah, that is a different...
[ Lofton ] Yeah.
[ Scott ] Yes. But generally speaking a social situation is a social situation. I don’t believe that you should lie in a social situation. I think you should tell the truth. I don't think that you have to be obnoxious about it.
[ Lofton ] I can agree with that.
[ Scott ] And I do think that if you are asked to preach, you can go right ahead and preach, wouldn’t you? But what I am saying now is that in the American social scene that I am familiar with it is mostly chat. It is not conversation. It is more conversation in Europe.
[ M Rushdoony ] You are expected to keep everybody comfortable.
[ Scott ] Yes. And this to me...
[ M Rushdoony ] Hot dogs.
[ Scott ] ... is the height of discomfort. I can’t stand those kind of parties.
[ M Rushdoony ] That is why the typical conversation between strangers is the local sports team.
[ Scott ] And... and I don’t watch sports.
[ Lofton ] Or try this some time when some one asks you how you are doing. Tell them. Tell them. I don’t mean about, you know, showing your scar or your... tell them. Tell them. You know, well, my son is in a drug treatment... You know, it is like, uh, oh. Uh, oh, something happened. You know, and one of your favorite books which have... am... am reading for the first time Under the... From Under the Rubble.
[ Scott ] Yes.
[ Lofton ] The introduction by Solzhenitsyn where he talks of the... the gist of it is that nobody talks about anything real today.
[ Scott ] Yes.
[ Lofton ] There is a lid on everything.
[ Scott ] Yes.
[ Lofton ] There is no real conversation about anything.
[ Scott ] But...
[ Lofton ] And the realest conversation you could have is when you talk about God and the Bible and Christ. That to many people is the most obnoxious, rudest thing, the most private thing that you should never talk about.
[ Scott ] Well, Solzhenitsyn at the time he wrote the introduction to Under the Rubble had just... was fresh from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was an artificial society where nobody could tell the truth, not even in your own family. And we are turning into...
[ Lofton ] Exactly.
[ Scott ] ...an artificial society.
[ Lofton ] Exactly.
[ Scott ] Not simply on the question of God, but on every question.
[ Lofton ] But the God question is the most offensive one. That is what I am arguing.
[ Scott ] Well, maybe it is.
[ Lofton ] You can talk about the Baltimore Orioles will not win the pennant and it is a goner. There will be no fist fights really over that. But you say Jesus is Lord, yell that out in a room and then watch it hit the fan. Yeah. Yeah, I have done it.
[ Rushdoony ] You don’t have to mention it. If they know you are a Christian...
[ Lofton ] Oh, yes.
[ Rushdoony ] ... they will come after you. And if they know you are a Calvinist, God help you.
[ Scott ] Oh, the Calvinists are...
[ Lofton ] You know, it... it is called in the Scripture the offense of the cross that the... the... the cross... to... to... to just preach the Word is sufficiently offensive and obnoxious. But the ones who hate it will try to switch the subject to you. They will say, “Well, I... I don’t have anything wrong with... I don’t have anything against God or Christ or the Bible. I just, you know, don’t like you.” And while I... I am not in any way arguing that to know me is to love me, I know who they really hate first. They are God haters.
And what I say to people like that is, “Well, look. Who preached the gospel with the greatest love and compassion?” Well, it is obvious. The Lord Jesus Christ. Well, what did they do to him? He was murdered. He was hanged on a tree. Can I do better? It is not... it is just... I hope you know what I am saying.
[ Scott ] I know what you are saying.
[ Lofton ] A lot of people don’t. There is no such thing to a lot of people as mannerly preaching. It doesn’t exist. They hate preachers. Preaching is now a dirty word in our society. Don’t get preachy, you are told. You know, purity is a bad word. All the words that 100 years ago were much better words are now dirty words.
[ Scott ] Well, not 100 years. You would have to back farther than that. The ...we used to ... I used to feel a certain ... I was encouraged. Let me put it this way, by literature, mostly, to feel a certain disdain for the Victorians. I have changed my mind.
[ Lofton ] Really?
[ Scott ] ...about the Victorians quite some time back. Yes. Because a good façade is better than empty space.
[ Rushdoony ] Well...
[ Lofton ] That is a... that is a ... that is a good puck to throw down here and talk about, because I was just thinking of the Victorian era. This is where you had people who were profoundly immoral, but they knew their wine list.
[ Scott ] No, they knew that they were immoral and there is a considerable difference.
[ Lofton ] But did it matter?
[ Scott ] Yes, it did.
[multiple voices]
[ Lofton ] Did they shun people because they were adulterers?
[ Scott ] They... they...
[ Lofton ] Or...
[ Scott ] Yes, they did.
[ Lofton ] Ok, well, then I would like to hear about this.
[ Scott ] And a sinner who knows he is a sinner is better than a sinner who claims it is good to sin.
[ Lofton ] Oh, amen.
[ Scott ] Now the Victorians were... the Victorians were more intelligent as a rule. They were better educated. They had better manners. I come back to the manners because manners are very important. I have had the experience of dealing with dangerous people. And I can assure you that manners are very important otherwise you will not live long enough to preach.
[ Lofton ] Well, I will tell you something. Dying is not the worst thing that could happen to a man.
[ Scott ] That is true. It is going to happen anyway.
[ Lofton ] Well, now you have said it on the tape. Now you have ... I think of George Will when I think of a Victorian.
[ Scott ] Oh, come on.
[ Lofton ] That kind of manner.
[ Scott ] No, no.
[ Lofton ] Yeah and he named his daughter after Queen Victoria.
[ Scott ] No, no, not at all. Their... their scholarship...
[ Lofton ] Of Franz. I think of Franz.
[ Scott ] ...was... was ...was tremendous. They were very, very ... they wrote books by the... by the mile, by the yard almost on a Rushdoony level. They exuded books for...
[ Lofton ] But... but have we heard anything yet that is necessarily good? I mean a lot of bad people wrote a lot of books.
[ Scott ] A lot of...
[ Lofton ] A lot of frauds wrote a lot of books.
[ Scott ] ...good people did, too.
[ Rushdoony ] Well, in my student days I began to read everything I could on Louis XIV.
[ Scott ] Oh, dear, what a subject.
[ Rushdoony ] And since then I have read two, three, four, five books on Louis XIV, because I have found him epitomizing so much in the modern age. The sun king. He was treated as though he were God walking on earth, the divine right of kings and much more all these ideas centering on him, being portrayed as Zeus, the god. And in his own way rather offended at God because as he said when things went poorly for him in one war how could God do this after all that he, Louis, had done for God?
Now having read all that and also with it the fact that the pope was expected to serve Louis and echo his opinions, I read the writings of {?} the court preacher. I believe I have two volumes of them somewhere still in my library.
It was a very, very interesting experience because all the text books and history books described him as a flowery court preacher, a kid of boot licker and yet when I read {?} for all the courtliness and a certain amount of deferential attitude, he preached the faith more plainly and bluntly to Louis XIV than any preacher in England, Scotland, Canada or the United States whose sermons I have read has ever preached to a congregation of ordinary people. And it tells me a great deal that arrogant as Louis XIV was his arrogance was nothing compared to the arrogance of the democratic peoples of the western world who will not have God’s Word preached as plainly as {?} preached to Louis XIV. So from the degeneracy of Louis XIV we have come a long ways down hill.
[ Scott ] Well, Louis never interested me in the slightest. I always thought of him as a pompous ass who bankrupted France.
[ Rushdoony ] He did all that and more.
[ Scott ] That led it... led it...
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Scott ] ... it killed off all those fine people.
[ Rushdoony ] My... my point is in spite of all that he still had more respect for a preacher than the ordinary person has today.
[ Scott ] Well, that is ... this is a two way street. The clergy has failed the people. And the people don’t think too much of the clergy. The... it is very hard to maintain respect for the American clergy even on an intellectual level, because they have allowed the faith to go off into the swamp.
[ Rushdoony ] But they will...
[ Lofton ] No, it is because... because... precisely because they he ceased preaching directly the Word of God.
[ Rushdoony ] And...
[ Lofton ] In large part because they are afraid of being rude and upsetting people in their congregation. And I just want to say one other thing on this manners and morals thing, because I don’t want to be misunderstood, Otto, by, you know, either yourself or anybody listening. I... what I am saying is what Saint Paul says that it is a very small thing to be judged of men, that he was not a man pleaser. That is the only thing I am saying.
[ Scott ] Well, you are a preacher.
[ Lofton ] Yes.
[ Scott ] And you are not talking to a preacher. I am not a preacher.
[ Lofton ] Yes. You see, so...
[ Scott ] Well,
[multiple voices]
[ Scott ] You and Rush had...
[ Lofton ] {?}
[ Scott ] ...if you had your way, both of you, we would all be preachers and there wouldn’t be any congregation necessary.
[ Lofton ] Well, we all are preachers. We are all priests, prophets and kings.
[ Scott ] But we are not all preachers.
[ Lofton ] No, not formally.
[ Scott ] We may be priests...
[ Lofton ] That is true.
[ Scott ] ...but we are not all preachers.
[ Rushdoony ] But one of the problems is those who do preach are out in the street and hurry if they preach honestly.
[ Scott ] Well, that is true. And that is the fault of the American government.
[ Rushdoony ] That is the fault of ...
[ Scott ] They... they...
[ Rushdoony ] The democratic temper throughout the world.
[ Scott ] They reduce the clergy to mendicants.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Scott ] And the best entertainer gets the largest congregation.
[ Rushdoony ] Every man’s opinion is as good as the pastor’s.
[ Scott ] As ...as a theologians.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes. That is why you don’t have theologians in the pulpit anymore. They are trained to be administrators and crowd pleasers.
[ Murray ] They had a program on PBS last night about evangelical designer churches where the church is...
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Murray ] ...designed around the congregation.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Designer churches. Joseph Mc Auliff wrote an excellent article on that last year.
[ M Rushdoony ] Or go with the Crystal Cathedral for a graduation ceremony.
[ Scott ] Did you?
[ M Rushdoony ] Yeah and it was ... which has lousy acoustics.
[ Scott ] Oh, dear.
[ M Rushdoony ] Horrible. They have to blast the... the things because the acoustics are so poor in there.
[ Scott ] Oh, my.
[ M Rushdoony ] But ...
[ Scott ] What an oversight.
[ M Rushdoony ] What interested me is the pulpit is off to one side and you are looking at the choir.
[ Scott ] Oh.
[ M Rushdoony ] It is the entertainment factor. You are there for the experience of being in the Crystal Cathedral and this massive choir and these huge pipe organs all over you which have to be huge because the acoustics are so poor.
The... the pulpit is way off to the side, which is appropriate, because it is... the Word of God really isn’t that important.
[ Lofton ] Off to the side.
[ Rushdoony ] And this matter of acoustics is very important, because there are too many buildings designed now in terms of appearance. And when they are built they find out the acoustics are impossible. You remember in New York the outrage when they went into the new music center form the old... what was the name of it?
[ Murray ] Carnegie Hall.
[ Scott ] No, Carnegie is still there. They had to fight like tigers to save it.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes, that is right. And the acoustics were splendid in the old .
[ Scott ] Yes.
[ Rushdoony ] And a lot of remedial work had to be done.
[ Scott ] Yeah. And... and Columbus Circle. They set up a whole complex. Bad acoustics which are still bad.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Scott ] Incidentally, I was at the oldest church in South Africa, a very tiny, very tiny church. And they had a small pulpit maybe only 15 of 16 feet high and very small.
[ Murray ] Well...
[ Scott ] Very small pews, by the way. People must have been much smaller then. And you could drop a match from the pulpit to the floor and hear it and Anne made the observation that the interior looked like the interior of a violin.
[ Lofton ] Goodness.
[ M Rushdoony ] Another impression I had from the Crystal Cathedral for the dramatic effect at the appropriate time the lights go on and this huge fountain of windows open and this huge fountain outside comes on and a lot of other people apparently were there for the first time because they all had the same ... you could hear them whispering. It says it smells like a swimming pool. It is stank of chlorine. So this beautiful effect smells.
[ Lofton ] This is Robert Schuler’s church.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ M Rushdoony ] The smell... the smell of the chlorine is very strong. It smelled like you are in an indoor swimming pool.
[ Murray ] Dancing waters.
[ Scott ] Yeah.
[ Rushdoony ] Well...
[ Scott ] Well, it will come back ... it will come back with the troubles. When the crash arrives, I mean the Russians learned about God from the devil.
[ Lofton ] I like that.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Yes. Well, the emphasis on appearances is what is leading the world to do what Christ talked about as an amazing thing. Will a man give his stone for bread, a serpent for a fish? Well that is what they are getting, the people. And church and state alike.
[ Scott ] No question that is true.
[ Rushdoony ] And that is what they want.
[ Scott ] It is not what they want. It is what they get.
[ Rushdoony ] Well, I think they want it, because they are paying for it. They are paying for it. the money that people like Jimmy Swaggert, Tilton, Baker and others have taken, life savings of people who have thrown it at these people.
[ Scott ] Well, you are talking about a lost population searching and searching in all kinds of wrong and crazy places. They begin searching for the meaning of things in the movies, in the theater, in all these cults. I mean the young people that protested against the multiversity at Berkeley were searching. A lot of this is a religious search only in the wrong places. They don’t search in the churches. They don’t go to the churches.
[ Rushdoony ] Yeah.
[ Scott ] You remember the book that you and I both looked at The Secularization of the 19th... of the 19th Century Europe.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes excellent.
[ Scott ] And... and at that time when the working man left the farm and into the cities they found that the middle class churches were above them. They didn’t have the right clothes to go to them to attend them. They had lost the parish church, the neighborhood, the village church and the villages that they left. And in the city the newspapers and the ball games and everything else became the religion. Politics is a religion for a great many people.
[ Rushdoony ] Oh.
[ Scott ] It is becoming the religion of the United States. And it has its form of worship. It has its saints and its devils and so forth.
The Church is... is interesting in the United States. They seem to be preaching to the people they don’t need to preach to and neglect the people that need it. And they also have fallen into a strange kind of canned patter. This is the... I have said this before. This is the first generation of Christians that haven’t evolved a special Christian language. They are still using the thees and thous of the 18th century.
[ Lofton ] Well, the idea of politics as a religion is... is so true. This, of course, in this book that I have mentioned several times that I have mentioned it again to Rush, Charles Norris Cochran’s Christianity in Classical Culture he says that this is what the ancients believed, that peace and freedom and permanent security were achievable through politics and Cochran says that this is the one idea that Christians fought most vigorously and we would add, thank God, successfully. But millions are back to it. Yes.
[ Scott ] We are re paganizing.
[ Lofton ] Yes, yes. Yes.
[ Rushdoony ] That is why...
[ Lofton ] Peace, freedom and security.
[ Rushdoony ] Cochran’s... oh, excuse me, go ahead.
[ Lofton ] Yeah. That he... that... that the idea that peace, freedom and security could be achieved through politics...
[ Scott ] ...in his world.
[ Lofton ] ... through politics or the fortunes of a party or a particular leader. And that is exactly what millions of Christians in this country believe, that we will be saved by a new political platform or leader.
I have sat in meetings in Washington or the... environs there with Christians who have actually said, who might save our country?
[ Scott ] Well...
[ Lofton ] How about Jesus?
[ Scott ] These people believe that they can find peace, liberty and security on earth and they will never find it because it doesn't exist on earth.
[ Lofton ] Certainly not in politics.
[ Scott ] There is no ... there is no security at all in life. There never was. There can’t be. We can walk out and drop dead tomorrow morning.
[ Rushdoony ] Elgin Grossclose wrote a paper one some years ago in which he said the dream of a risk free society is the most dangerous of all myths.
[ Scott ] And what a bore it would be if it was.
[ Rushdoony ] I know. Well, one of the things I think we are going to see in the very, very near future, God will shatter the whole world of appearances and he has begun that work already. So we are going to see the world wide face culture disintegrate and great will be the fall thereof.
[ Lofton ] There will be a sign. They will be given a sign.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Lofton ] I was just thinking about the designer churches and... and what motivates that is the desire not to offend anybody. You just... everybody votes and you try to just make your church into whatever.... it is like silly putty. If the church is a bunch of play dough...
[ Scott ] The whole congregation gets together?
[ Lofton ] Well, yeah. They take marketing surveys and they have focus groups where you have people sit around a table and people watch them through one way glass so they want to know: What do you want... you know, in business they have had these focus groups for years. The idea of the people tell us where they want to go and then we act like we are leading them by going around and giving them what they want. It is democracy in the church.
[ Scott ] Well, they...
[ Lofton ] That is what it is.
[ Scott ] They tried this on personnel level in the ... from the 50s to say the 70s. It didn’t work. One way mirror examinations, interviews, analyses, questionnaires, tests, psychology and so forth. It didn't work at all. I had... I wrote up Black and Decker’s experiments 18 years ago. They never printed it. Went back to go over the same ground and update it more recently and I said, “What ever happened to the industrial psychologist who was a vice president here who master minded the test of the psychological institute in Pittsburgh?”
And he said, “This fellow... I asked that I had the pleasure of firing him.” He said, “He had me down as an amber.” He said, “They had three categories. Red, amber and green.” He said, “I was an amber to be watched.”
[ Lofton ] I thought you were going to say he committed suicide.
[ Scott ] But it didn’t work in business. So business doesn’t use them anymore.
[ Lofton ] Well, when I worked at the Washington Times newspaper they spent tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars on ... on so called focus groups and the name was a misnomer because the groups are all unfocused, because they all say different things and then the paper tries to accommodate. The politicians have the hourly tracking polls which is the equivalent of the focus group. We want to know every, literally hourly tracking polls in close elections. They have hourly polls brought in to candidates to show exactly what people want to hear.
Now I think of this Scripture in the book of Luke where our Lord says, “Woe unto you when all men speak well of you.” But in the church and in politics, particularly, that is the model, that people, the pastor wants all people to speak well of him in the church. He wants to please everyone. And the politicians certainly wants to please everybody, but, of course, the problem is when you try to cobble together some where half of the people contradict the other half, then it becomes, shall we say, problematic.
[ Scott ] Well if you ask people their opinion they will give you one, but in many cases they have no opinion. They form the opinion after the action is taken. They don’t have an opinion in advance and they don’t have an opinion in the abstract. They have an opinion of something specific which is here alive and moving. Then they like it or they don’t like it. By that time it is too late to reach back to the action.
The... there is a... a sort of an ... a lack of intelligence, a lack of intelligence and depth at work in our so-called educated level. These people are not educated. They are schooled. There is a lot of difference.
[ Rushdoony ] I would like to go back to the whole business of designer churches and appearance versus morality. We have had an experiment with his before. When the reformation and counter reformation both gave way before the Enlightenment, the Catholic Church was in a position of unique power. Every ruler and every duke and prince in Europe of almost without exception except for a few Lutheran ones and more than a few, but a handful of them in Germany and then England had a Jesuit at their right hand who told them what to do, how to shape their policy. The power of the Jesuits and of the pope was enormous.
But at the same time, to make up for the lack of content in the life of the Church, because one of the aspects of the Baroque and Rococo areas... eras was that they went from content to appearance in every aspect of the church’s life. You walked into the churches that were built then and you were to be totally over wrought.
You looked up and the vault of the church was painted as though it were a heaven with angels and cherubim and seraphim flying around. The whole purpose was appearance, to overawe you with appearance. And the magnificent displays that the Church put on in all its processionals is one of the most unique facts in the history of Christendom and a neglected fact.
And for a time it did overawe the population and it seemed as though Rome were going to take back Europe. But what happened was that the Church suddenly began to decay from within so that by the time of Napoleon the Church was so poor, the pope was crowned with a paper tiara because everything else had been pawned. And I would say that churches, Catholic and Protestant, are in their own way going the same route all over again. They are substituting appearances for reality. Theology has given way to other things.
[ Scott ] Theology is not even listed among the professions.
[ Rushdoony ] No.
[ Scott ] It used to be the queen of the sciences.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Scott ] And now everybody... the people who have an opinion on religion never come close to a book on theology. They don’t even know that it is a subject that has to be studied.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Lofton ] Well, you... you just used a very important word. An opinion. That is... one is as good as another. You know, you tell someone what the Bible says, well, that is your interpretation. We are talking about what J I Packer called hot tub religion. People just want to go soak in the church. They want to be moved. They would like to cry. They would like to have... they would like to be moved, have a moving experience. I have heard people say I want to go to a church where I can be moved.
[ Scott ] Well, that is not a...
[ Lofton ] Well, an earthquake will do that.
[ Scott ] That is just an emotion.
[ Lofton ] Yeah.
[ Scott ] That is just a sentiment.
[ Lofton ] That is what they want, though.
[ Scott ] You actually have no right to express a view on a subject that you have never looked at.
[ Lofton ] What do you mean?
[ Scott ] Well, if you... you couldn’t possibly have an opinion on a subject that you have never looked into. If you want to ask my opinion of higher math, I am going to have to check. I don’t have any opinion about it. I don’t know any higher math at all. I have never opened up a book on higher math. And religion is a big opinion, a big, big subject. I had no religious expressions of a no religious opinions, I didn’t discuss religion before my conversion. And even after that very little.
To this day I give way when theological issues are raised, but I have not studied the subject that much.
[ Lofton ] Well, I said earlier that, you know, that I think you have technology to talk about. The Scripture makes that clear. That people are crushed because a lack of knowledge. And certainly anyone who doesn’t know anything about any subject ought to just be quiet about it.
But I remember my dad saying from the time I could remember saying anything, “You never discuss... discuss, not necessarily argue. You just don't even discuss religion and politics.”
[ Scott ] Well I always did to some extent.
[ Lofton ] Well, he did, too.
[multiple voices]
[ Scott ] Everyone does to some extent. But how could I... put this? The way it is. Let me say this much that I do not believe I will understand everything and I am perfectly content to live in mystery.
[ Lofton ] Well, but you would quickly also agree that there are certain things that are not mysterious at all, that they are very clear and...
[ Scott ] Yes.
[ Lofton ] they are plain.
[ Scott ] Yes.
[ Lofton ] {?}
[ Scott ] Yes. I am not going to go down the list yet.
[ Lofton ] Yeah.
[ Scott ] But of course there are certain basic things and Jesus ...
[ Lofton ] Yes.
[ Scott ] And so forth.
[ Lofton ] Well, see we... and that... that is what I think really separate Christianity. And... and so many preachers seem to have no idea, but we have a canon, see? We have a fixed text canon. It is not like just, you know, you standing up talk about free trade or... you know, there is a lot of running room in a lot of these other areas. But I ... I don’t see, you know, the... the... there... over and over in the Scripture there is... there is commandments to be of one mind, to be in one accord, to be in unity. But there is one way, the way, the truth. And so when this opinion interpretation, you know, you have your view, I have mine, comes into the Christian area, it just demolishes it. It can’t be brought in.
I am not saying you are advocating that. I am just saying that that is very...
[ M Rushdoony ] Have you ever been to a Bible study?’
[ Lofton ] I was kicked out of one.
[ M Rushdoony ] No, yeah...
[ Lofton ] In my church.
[ M Rushdoony ] ...where the... when the leader says, “I will read this Scripture in my Bible. Now let’s take turns reading it in our different versions. Now, now when you get done with that,” says, “Now what does this mean to you?”
[ Lofton ] Rorschach tests.
[ M Rushdoony ] And it is... it is not... it is not...
[ Lofton ] It is an ink blot test.
[ M Rushdoony ] Nothing is taught. Everything is discussed.
[ Lofton ] It is feedback.
[ Rushdoony ] What does it mean to you?
[ Lofton ] Yeah.
[ Rushdoony ] Not what does God say?
[ Lofton ] Designer Bible study. Yeah.
[ Scott ] Well, I never answer a question of that sort, what does it mean to you? I don’t... I don't believe in those kind of questions. It is like having somebody on television. I asked a woman who just lost her kid: How do you feel?
[ Rushdoony ] Oh.
[ Lofton ] Well, you see that every day, don’t you?
[ Scott ] How do you feel? How do you suppose they feel?
[ Lofton ] A tornado. How do you feel that your house is totally...
[ Scott ] Yes. And...and... and, in fact, I am always amazed that nobody says, “How dare you ask me such a question?”
[ Lofton ] I would like to see him punch him right in the face.
[ Scott ] My... My ship...
[ Lofton ] It feels sort of like this.
[ Scott ] Yes. Yes.
[ Lofton ] Except worse. Yeah, well they have no shame, the questions and microphones they stick...
[ Scott ] And you get into this area also where sub... where if we want to talk about sacred subjects there are places to talk about them.
[ Lofton ] Well, this ... this... now, look. I stipulate and am... that there is a rude way of preaching.
[ M Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Lofton ] That there are places where it would be rude to just jump up and sermonize. I agree with that. But I think that Christians, the overwhelming majority of Christians in this country are far too concerned about pleasing other men and that they don’t fear God half as much as the host.
[ Scott ] Well...
[ Lofton ] Or the hostess. That is the problem.
[ Scott ] Very definitely.
[ Lofton ] They have no fear of God before their face. None.
[ Scott ] Well...
[ Rushdoony ] Well, let me cite something from my childhood. Maybe it was unique and you can tell me, Otto, if it was not. When I was a boy men did not talk about politics. Their statement was if anyone asked them a question of... as to how they felt about the forthcoming election was it is a secret ballot. It is none of your business.
[ Scott ] No. I ... I recall men talking about politics.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Scott ] And, in fact, my Irish relatives used to have great ranting arguments about politics, pounding the table and shouting at the top of their voices. And the following day they were all buddy, buddy again.
[ Rushdoony ] Well, there....
[ Scott ] In fact, lots... lots of rants...
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Scott ] ...about politics.
[ Rushdoony ] Here in California in the 20s you didn't discuss politics. You voted. If anyone asked a question they said we have a secret ballot in this country. It is none of your business. That was very... very common, routine.
[ Scott ] We didn’t do that. The... of course it was a regional country in those days.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Scott ] There... there were different ... different patterns.
[ Rushdoony ] Very.
[ Scott ] There are still different patterns.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Scott ] Upper class Texas is not the same as upper class Massachusetts.
[ Lofton ] Of course, you hear a lot of people saying that now about their faith today. They will say... if ... if you are telling them what you believe and what you think and you say, “Well, are you a Christian?” Well, I... that is a private matter. Or yeah. I am like, “Well, what church do you...” Well, I... that is a private thing. That is none of your business.
When, of... of course it isn’t any of my business. You have the right to say no, but why... I mean... why would you... I don’t know why one would want to keep secret what...
[ Murray ] It is a taboo. It is a social... it has become a social taboo. You had taboos about sex. Now sex is discussed ad nauseum in every sphere of society and yet religion is taboo. Why can’t we discuss religion if we can discuss sex?
[ Lofton ] I think that is part of it. But I think another important part is people don't to be... a lot of Christians don’t want to be drawn into a discussion about their faith because they don’t know anything.
[ Scott ] Well, they may not...
[multiple voices]
[ Lofton ] They are embarrassed.
[ Scott ] Well, they may not know you.
[ Rushdoony ] One writer...
[ Scott ] You maybe a total stranger to them and you are asking them a very personal question.
[ Lofton ] Well, maybe it is wrong to say that because I will tell them and talk to them that...
[ Scott ] Well, it depends upon the sort of individual you run across.
[ Lofton ] Yeah, well, I agree.
[ Scott ] I remember when I get on a train and we traveled in trains and the fellow who sat next to me, the man who sat next to me was usually older. And he would take advantage of his age to start rattling on and telling me all about himself, never asked any questions to me. And I would hear about his wife, how she behaved, what she liked and didn’t like , his boss, what his boss knew and didn’t know, how much he made, what his politics were, everything. Now I get on a plane and I ... unless I institute the conversation will go all the way across the United States without exchanging a word. And when they do talk, they are so careful. I always feel like saying to them, “What are you ... who are you afraid of? Why can’t you express yourself?” And they don’t. They can’t.
Now people of that sort to get on to religion, I can well see you get very strange reactions. It is a dangerous topic.
[ Lofton ] Well, I... it is odd after maybe a lot of things I have said here that I have never in my life just sat down in a seat mate, you know, turned to someone and said, “Well, have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ?” And I...I just... I don't see anything necessarily wrong with it, but I don’t... I don't do that kind of witnessing.
[ Scott ] No, I don’t...
[ Lofton ] I don’t really speak...
[ Rushdoony ] That is Arminianism.
[ Lofton ] Yes. Well, thank goodness that is why I have not done it. But you know it does come up, but I think a lot of people are very uncomfortable.
But, you know, you just can’t have an in depth talk about anything today. When you ask... when you ask somebody, well, are you a Christian? It is almost sort of a mindless question. And suddenly they are stumped. It is like they are... they are...
[ Scott ] Yes, yes, well, that was my starting point.
[ Lofton ] Ok.
[ Scott ] Americans can’t speak. We have lost...
[ Lofton ] Ok, well, that... that...
[ Scott ] We have lost the...
[ Lofton ] Yeah.
[ Scott ] ... the power of speech. This is a silent country. It doesn't talk about any of the really important issues.
[ Lofton ] And wants to shut up those who wanted it.
[ Scott ] Well, they get frightened. They get frightened.
[multiple voices]
[ Scott ] I had... I think I have mentioned this once before. Have Englishmen... not an Englishman, a European who came over here and wrote a one page article in the National Review at least 20 years ago, maybe longer who said he thought before he arrived that he knew this country because of the films and the books and everything else and the people who told him about it. He... he came here expecting to... to be very familiar. But he said of course the were... he said the biggest surprise was that the Jewish influence in the United States and he said the surprising thing about it and the extent of it, which is something he had never realized before was evidenced by the lack of comment about it.
[ Rushdoony ] On that...
[ Scott ] The lack of comment.
[ Rushdoony ] Oh.
[ Scott ] The silence about it about one of the most influential people in our country.
[ Lofton ] Well...
[ Scott ] Now silence is indicative. We have silence across the board, John.
[ Lofton ] Well, this is a... a ... it goes back to this Jewish anti Christianism. I was on a radio show once with a rabbi who was in a coalition for abortion rights, religious coalition for abortion rights. And he was a rabbi. And throughout the program I said, “But you are a rabbi. I mean the Scripture says that hand the shed innocent blood are an abomination to God. Does an unborn baby bleed, rabbi, in an abortion? Is it ... is an unborn baby innocent?”
And this rabbi on the break would turn his back to me and tell the producer of the show, “I did not come here to hear this Scripture. I will not hear...” He was enraged. And when... and when we talked about anti Semitism and I read that... I mentioned that passage out of the Talmud about Jesus boiling in excrement eternally I said, “How about in the interest of improving Jewish Christian relations if you take that out of the Talmud?”
[ Scott ] I think they have now.
[ Lofton ] Well, he said, “First of all...” It was sort of a shocking answer to me. I didn’t know much about the Talmud. He... he said, in effect, “Well, there is a lot of junk in the Talmud, you know. Some of it is just talk and it is crazy stuff.”
And I said, “Well, fine. Then take it out. It won’t matter.”
Well, he wouldn’t advocate that. He would not... he ... as one rabbi would not say, “Well, in the interest of improving Jewish Christian relations I think it should come out.” No. He would not say that.
[ Scott ] Well, I asked the Carnegie Foundation before I converted if they would provide a stipend to me to do a book on minority prejudices.
[ Lofton ] Oh.
[ Scott ] And they wrote back...
[ Lofton ] What an idea. That is a great idea.
[ Scott ] ... a formal letter saying that they had no interest in such a subject.
[ Lofton ] No such thing.
[ Scott ] And yet when you come down to it the attitude of the blacks toward the whites, the attitude of the Indians towards the blacks and so forth and so on, what a subject.
[ Lofton ] Oh.
[ Scott ] And it is... and it is a great neglected subject.
[ Rushdoony ] Well, you cannot deal with in your Englishman only barely scratched the surface. You cannot deal with the blacks or the Jews or the women or the homosexuals. You have a whole world of ...
[ Scott ] Unspoken realities.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Your friend who wrote the book on ... on black bigotry.
[ Scott ] Paved with Good Intentions.
[ Rushdoony ] Paved with Good Intentions. What is his name?
[ Lofton ] Gerald...
[ Scott ] Gerard...
[ Rushdoony ] Gerald...
[ Scott ] Jerrod.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Scott ] Jerrod.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Scott ] J A R O D.
[multiple voices]
[ Scott ] Jarod Taylor.
[ Rushdoony ] Jarod Taylor, yes.
[ Scott ] From Louisville, Kentucky.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes. They would not publish the book. He had to find a minor publishing firm because the only people who are to be subjects of criticism are whites and Christians.
[ Scott ] White male Christians. Don’t forget the gender.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Scott ] I mean gender is different than sex.
[ Rushdoony ] White males. Yes.
[ Scott ] You know.
[ Lofton ] Of any particular age?
[ Scott ] It is more age...
[multiple voices]
[ Lofton ] How old and white male Christian have to be?
[ Rushdoony ] Back in the late 50s there was a scholar who wrote a paper on the change of taboos in the United States.
[ Scott ] Interesting topic.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes. And he said sex has been the taboo for moral purposes, but it is going to be and is showing signs of being death because we can no longer cope with the subject.
[ Scott ] Death.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Scott ] Yes.
[ Rushdoony ] As faith is waning death is becoming an untouchable, unspeakable subject.
[ Scott ] But a very important one and I didn’t ... was it you, John, that mentioned these video types about death?
[ Lofton ] Yeah, faces of death. One tape, three, four and then ...
[multiple voices]
[ Lofton ] They are probably up to 50 now.
[ Scott ] Yes, well, they are big sellers in the video shops.
[ Lofton ] Oh.
[ Scott ] These are actual deaths of actual people in accidents and so forth which have been put on to video cassettes and are being sold or rented in the video stores.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes.
[ Murray ] That is snuff films.
[ Rushdoony ] Oh, that is... yes. That is the ... value of it. It is taking the place of snuff films. There is something sadistic about ...
[ Scott ] Very sadistic.
[ Rushdoony ] ...watching...
[ Scott ] And it is the... most of the stuff that comes out of Hollywood is sadistic.
[ Rushdoony ] Yes. But what I wanted to say the man wrote a marvelous paper on it, but what he didn't realize that with the inability to cope with death men can no longer cope with anything. So here you have a... a white male population of tens of millions that cannot deal with minorities, cannot deal with any subject that is deemed controversial.
Now that is a faith... a face culture, not a culture geared to morality. It is a cowardly culture.
[ Scott ] Well, it... it is more than that. It is a subjugated culture. I wrote about Tacitus the last time. Tacitus is not a ... a... a favorite author for Christian because he was against Christians and Jews. But he did ally liberty to free speech. And people who are not ... who do not feel that they are free do not speak freely.
[ Lofton ] I would say an important thing to add to this is that only saved people are free.
[ Scott ] Sure enough.
[ Lofton ] That you cannot lay guilt trips on Christians. And that is why...
[ Rushdoony ] On true Christians, real Christians.
[ Lofton ] Absolutely, absolutely. And that ... and that is why a lot of these people cannot cope with minorities is they are full of guilt. They believe all the lies and... and they cannot cope. It is the politics of guilt and pity.
[ Scott ] Well...
[ Lofton ] They are easily enslaved to the lie of the moment.
[ Scott ] They don’t know how to... how to talk to a minority who can sense immediately, as, we all can, whether you are comfortable or not.
[ Rushdoony ] Well ...
[ Lofton ] Comfort again.
[ Rushdoony ] A few days ago John Upton...
[ Lofton ] Well, you are right. {?}
[ Rushdoony ] A few days ago John Upton of our foundation, our Chalcedon staff was in DC and had a confrontation with some men in very high places and then met privately at the demand of this one man who professes to be a Bible believing Christian, a Fundamentalist, an Arminian who has held an important position in such circles. And he is so deeply involved in the most sordid kind of corruption and really sees nothing wrong with it although John told him bluntly what he thought of him and what kid of a person he was. And yet when it was all over it wasn’t anything he was particularly proud of. But come off of it, John. What is your racket. How much are you... are you raking in?
Well, it is a good thing that it was Washington, DC and John had a lot at stake at his trip.... on his trip there that he didn’t punch the man silly and throw him out. But that is the corruption we face now, a vast world of church members who profess to believe the Bible from cover to cover but in one poll didn’t believe more than four of the 10 Commandments, each of them had their own...
[ Scott ] Exceptions?
[ Rushdoony ] Four that they were ready to retain.
[ Scott ] I can’t believe this. Really, truly?
[ Lofton ] And throw but the seventh. And three of the four things they take seriously, the best of five.
[ Rushdoony ] So we do have a problem in that we have a vast population within the church that belongs in hell and will end up there. Meanwhile, they are dragging the church down.
[ Scott ] I hadn't thought. I am glad to hear you say that.
[ Lofton ] I think that...
[ Rushdoony ] Oh, I believe it with all my heart.
[ Scott ] Me, too.
[ Lofton ] I think that poll showed that the four things that they thought were the commandments were sayings by Benjamin Franklin. So they didn’t really agree with any of the 10.
[ Rushdoony ] Well...
[ Lofton ] God helps those who help themselves, was one of the commandments they believed in.
[ Rushdoony ] I know one very fine reformed pastor who was scolded ... well, that is a mild word... by a woman who wanted to know, because she was going to speak before a women’s club, where was the text that she was going to use in the Bible, honesty is the best policy. And she read him the riot act when he said, “That is not in the Bible. That comes from Benjamin Franklin.”
And slammed the receiver down after telling him he was an ignoramus.
[ Scott ] Here. That is like the time that Anne in New York ... Anne was... this is a long time back, 30 odd years ago. She was polled by some girl who wanted to know what her goals were in life. She said, “I am an Anglican.” And the girl said, “Well, that is not the question.”
Anne said, “That is the answer,” and hung up.
[ Rushdoony ] Well, our time is about up. Thank you, John. It is always a pleasure...
[ Lofton ] Thank you.
[ Rushdoony ] ... when you...
[ Lofton ] Thank you.
[ Rushdoony ] ...come. We pray for you back there in...
[ Lofton ] Sodom.
[ Rushdoony ] Sodom.
[multiple voices]
[ Rushdoony ] On the Potomac.
[ Lofton ] That is right.
[ Rushdoony ] And thank you all for listening.
[ Voice ] Authorized by the Chalcedon Foundation. Archived by the Mount Olive Tape Library. Digitized by ChristRules.com.