From the Easy Chair

The Future & Christian Role

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 178-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161F12

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161F12, The Future & Christian Role, from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[ Rushdoony ] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 62, January 14, 1984.

Well, today we have with us one of our Chalcedon readers, David Rhoads, an economist who publishes the Rhoads Connection, an excellent commentary on the economic scene. We will tell you more about the Rhoads Connection later. We have with us also John Stafford whom you have heard before.

And before we get into our discussion, the are a few things I would like to go into. One of our problems today is that Christians misunderstand their role in this world. For one thing they forget what the meaning of the Church is. The word for church in the New Testament is ekklesia. And ekklesia comes from two Greek words, ek kaleo, called out is the literal meaning. Now immediately a great many people will think of the meaning of that in terms of a pietistic withdrawal from the world, but that is exactly what it does not mean. Ek kaleo meant a military draft for battle. In a time of crisis the ek kaleo was the calling out of those who were able bodied to do battle.

Now this is the meaning of the Church. Some of the old hymns that speak of the Church as a mighty army understood the meaning of the word ekklesia. But today the Church is, unfortunately just what Reinhold Niebuhr in his first book written in the 20s Casebook From a... Or Notes from the Diary of a Tamed Cynic said. He spoke of the fact that the Church was once considered to be an army but was now more like a red cross unit to pick up the casualties who were hurt in life’s battle and were no longer fit for action. And, unfortunately, this is the nature of most churches. They have the casualties, people with whom you have to minister to with first aid and hold their hand and sooth their ruffled nerves.

Or else a lot of people feel that they are to be separated from the problems of life, or others who delve into all kinds of cabalistic symbolic theology in order to find hidden meanings in Scripture that nobody in his right mind would ever imagine to be there or could see there. One way or another the Church has abandoned the problems of our times.

Well, of late, we have had some economists. We have had John Stafford, of course, who is with us again, speak three times on the Easy Chair. We have head R. E. Mc Master, Junior, another very distinguished economic analyst. And today we have David Rhoads, because our feeling is this. Whereas there are some people who are approaching the economic scene in terms of how to get rich while the world gets to hell, our perspective is that Christians were not born to be suckers. We need to be prepared for what is coming, not because we are out to make money, but we want to be effective as Christian soldiers. There is a war on out there. And we need to be prepared from every angle. And one of the major areas of crisis today, in fact, our whole civilization which is falling apart, the age of humanistic Statism, it is falling apart because it has failed to give men bread. It has given him a stone instead and now its economic solutions are proving to be disasters.

Well, with that introduction we will get on. John, do you have something to say or something to ask of Dave as we proceed?

[ Stafford ] Well, I think both, Rush, and I have got to say that I am very happy to be here. I just got here this week.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Stafford ] After some months of preparation and I am very happily settling in, going around looking at property, ranches in particular. I think I have always been a rancher at heart and now I am getting my chance.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. You... you were out looking at properties today, weren’t you?

[ Stafford ] Right. And with David. And we were... we really enjoyed ourselves. It is a beautiful area up here.

On point to two of the things that you were talking about, this concept of preparing for battle and that we are soldiers in a larger fight, I took a class in Ephesians at Dominion Theological Institute about a year ago, a little over a year ago and, of course, Ephesians six talks about exactly that, that what is going on in the temporal world is just a reflection of the larger spiritual battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil, the forces of God and the forces of Satan. And we are told to be prepared to put on, you know, the breast plate and all various other parts of the armor that we need in a spiritual sense. But part of that, as you suggested, goes to the idea of being shrewd and wise. We are told all through Proverbs especially to seek wisdom and not to be the casual company... casualties as you were referring to them where we are supposed to be part of the dominion covenant. We are supposed to go forth, be fruitful, multiply, have dominion over the earth and establish God’s kingdom here just as it says in the Lord’s prayer. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” So there should be a heavenly reflection here on earth.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Stafford ] And so I agree with you 100 percent. I think it is really said that as I understand it, the Episcopalian Church in the United States has thrown out of their hymn book Onward Christian Soldiers and a couple of other hymns of a similar nature which they in their infinite lack of wisdom decided were too militaristic, you know, for the modern age and for the pietistic posture that they did want to take. It... it is really said.

Your recent piece on kenosis, I think, ties into this quite nicely. Was that a position paper?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Stafford ] Right. Well, this ties in with the other thought that you expressed which is that the Christians have to have, in effect, the wherewithal to do God’s work here and I have always thought about it in terms of carrying out the Great Commission. And as you have pointed out on a number of your books, Flight from Humanity, in particular, about neo Platonism, that it is just ridiculous to try to totally separate the spiritual from the temporal, that the two are together and are to work in harmony and there is good in... in both and in that sense we have to have the temple wherewithal to carry the gospel throughout the world. And so if we are, in fact, going through a time of economic crisis, it is very important for those who are part of the Church, the group that you refer to, to have not the... not only the spiritual wherewithal, but also the temporal wherewithal to continue the church and continue the work of spreading the gospel.

On this point David and I have been having a number of discussions in the last couple of days how we view the coming years, especially in the near term. I think—and correct me if I am wrong, David—that we see things pretty much alike I terms of the ongoing currency destruction process. We may differ slightly in terms of the near term on exactly what is going on and what particular investment posture would be the best. I... on the... I know we agree on one point and that is given nearly any probably scenario that stocks have been the place to be for over a year now in my thinking it has been almost two and a half years and I think that you have felt that that definitely for a year and a half at least, that has been a place to protect and enhance capital whereas you felt that the deflation scenario indicated that gold was at least temporarily not the best place to be and I am not quite sure what your position is on bonds. So I won’t try to articulate. I will let you have a shot at it.

[ Rhoads ] Ok... Let me...

[ Stafford ] Let us know what... what your latest thinking is. I understand you have a five year forecast.

[ Rhoads ] Right. It might be good to start with that. First of all, though, like you say, and as Rush said, life is something that you play with both hands. The spiritual and the temporal have to be played together. We have been given both of these worlds and I think one of our main goals in life in a personal way is to learn to deal with them both. And the spiritual, of course, is in a shambles at this time as our... most of our other institutions, everything from economic to political. At the same time, though, I think it is because the old institutions have served their purpose and what we are trying to do now is move on and merge into a new era and, of course, the Church will be a new Church or at least a revitalized old Church, redirected old Church will be the vehicle that will carry us between the two. And I see... I see now emerging the... of course the new Church, the new orientation and the people are becoming disenchanted with the orientation of the old Church, the bureaucracy within the Church, the timidity of the Church to deal with real issues in and real lives, the fact that the put too much emphasis on things that are outside the community and they have abandoned the individual. The new Church will ... will correct all of that.

There are some spiritual difficulties that we have to go through in this process, same as we have some economic difficulties. I think at the end of the next few years most people will come to understand what real wealth is and they will be able to define it in a spiritual terms and at that time be able to convert their temporal savings and investments into something that will be more meaningful in the spiritual and ... and the new church movement at that time.

We have been given, though, a period of four or five years—which I think will be a very good investment climate and it will be an opportunity, then, for Christians to multiply their capital and prepare of the period that comes after that. We have a situation like a field full of chuck holes here, not the least of which is the ... the foreign loan situation. The banking system, the whole economic system can come undone on us like a cut golf ball in an instant. So any forecast has to be prefaced with the remark that if it does not come apart then certain things will happen. If it does come apart then it is a whole new ball game. And it can happen instantly and we can see what, then, the government intends to do, the government and the banking system intends to do to offset that.

Now part of the process that we are in is a long term inflation that could last 100 or 150 years. It started a long time ago and it will be carrying on for a long time. During this long term inflation there are periods of maybe 30 years of disinflation or stability or outright deflation as we saw back in the 30s. Now since most of us ... most of our investment lifetimes are not much longer than 30 years, we have to deal with that, before we deal with the 150 or 200 year curve, keeping in mind, then, that... a disinflationary or deflationary period will end in another inflation. But that will be for the next generation to handle possibly, or it might be our turn in five years. It is really difficult to tell.

But underlying everything is the possibility that the banking and economic system will come apart tomorrow. We start with the assumption, or I start with the assumption that it probably won’t come apart before the 88 elections. If it hangs together then certain other things can happen and are in the process of coming about now. I think the biggest thing on the horizon is a balanced budget. That will come from a cut in spending. It will be a cut in military spending and it will also come from taxes which will be raised after the 84 election. There is no question in my mind but what Reagan intends to raise taxes. It will closet hat budget deficit. They have improved or increased their harvesting, tax harvesting machinery and I think they are going to tap the under ground economy for more than they could ever expect it to hit them. Other things are happening. The increased cash flows are keeping are preventing our... the increase cash flows are permitting companies to stay out of the borrowing market so interest rates tend to stay down.

There is a ... an analog or a model for what will happen if we have a balanced budget. Now that model is the period of the 1920s. After the 1920 ... or after the 1920, 21 collapse that ended the inflation and then there was a period of stability of 10 years after that during which, of course, real estate and farming went into the tank, as we are seeing now. But the stock and bond markets took off. And I think that is the kind of a period that we are in now. And, incidentally, the military, the cut in the military budget will come about as a result of military stand down in Europe and I think we will see disarmament, serious disarmament negotiations start this year. Kissinger has already told us what his plans are. He will be shifted over to the disarmament negotiations this fall. We have some inside word on that. Timing may not be this fall, but those are the... that is the intention. And given the ... the reality of a five minute strike against Moscow I think we will see the regime become very pragmatic and they may even open up their borders in the next few years where we could see something that looks like peace in Europe for the first time in most of our life times.

This is a very dramatic thing and if it happens, why, then, I don’t see anything holding the stock and bond market back. Now a bull marketing stocks has already begun. Bull markets come in three ways. I think we are at the end of the consolidation after the first wave. Interest rates could be sticky until the ... until the government begins receiving its income taxes in April. So they may not go down very much. But I don’t see them going up very much either, because of the high cash flows in industry and the lack of borrowing or the lack of interest in borrowing on the part of most of the consumers.

So what we are recommending now is that people begin accumulating for the start of the second leg which may have started already, but is certainly is bound to start some time after April and there is tremendous technical strength underlying stock market at this time. Likewise it is underlying the bond market. The second wave I would expect to run to 1500 to 1800 on the Dow and it will probably finish within a few months after the election after which we will have the standard post election correction which will last through 85 and then 86, 87 and 88 we will see the blow off in the market and we will see 30... 3000, 3600 on the Dow by the 88 elections.

And in a market like that it is tough to ... well, in a market like that you don’t need gold. In other words, if you have an opportunity to make money in the stock market, tripling your money in that kind of a period, I don’t see gold or commodities or anything else offering that kind of an opportunity, so we are recommending that you retain your core holdings, things that you haven't reported and that people don’t know about. Keep those. You need that insurance, because hard times are coming.

But get into the stock market, but remember that they don't ring a bell when it is time to get out. So get yourself a good advisor. And someone who understands that this thing will end. It could end in one year or, more probably, it will end in five. And when that time comes then you cash in your holdings and you begin buying the things that will see you through the following period which will be probably the greatest depression this country has ever seen.

There is a lot of controversy about whether it will be an inflationary or a deflationary depression. I think that it will be masked and we talked a little bit about this yesterday. I see the destruction of the middle class going on now. Most of the people are falling out of the middle class into poverty. There is a great cloud of people drifting across the country that are not in any of our statistics. They... They... They drift from city to city. The are unemployed. They are un... unemployable. They have been destroyed spiritually and physically. And these people can’t hold an idea. Their attention span is too short. They are uneducable and because they drift they do not draw unemployment. They do not show up on the welfare roles. But this crowd is growing, the crowd of dispossessed Americans is growing. This year 1000 farmers in Michigan alone lost their farms. Just recently the sheriff in one county in Indiana put a stop on foreclosures because there were 700 families in one county in Indiana, a farming county that were up for foreclosure. They Americans are being dispossessed. They don’t own any property. They are... if they have been patriotic they have found that their children and they themselves have been wasted in foreign adventures. The whole of our institutions are discrediting themselves. They have become illegitimate and in this absence of institutions, the people come apart, too. This will increase regardless of whether we have an inflationary or a deflationary depression. It doesn’t matter. That is going to continue at a rapid pace. And, at that time, then, you have to take your winnings or your earnings from the stock market and you have to begin investing them in such a way that you can harness that and put these people back together and begin bringing back legitimate institutions, the first of which will be a new Church.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, that is a very thorough analysis in a brief compass of time, Dave. I appreciate that greatly. I do believe that you are right. I think we are going to continue to drift from disaster to disaster of one variety or another until there is a change in the people. And it has to be a Church that sees itself as an army of the Lord, that is going to create a new society that alone will make the difference. And at present we don’t have but a small element within the Church that feels that way. Now it is a growing element, but this alone, I believe, is going to make the difference, because the crisis of a civilization is at heart a religious crisis. We have gone from God’s law to fiat law, fiat money, fiat politics, fiat everything.

John, what are your reactions?

[ Stafford ] Well, fiat to me means unreal and I think we are really living in an era of unreality. It is a fantasy world existence that many individuals have put themselves into and, of course, you get the greatest concentration, I think, of people living in a fantasy world in Washington, DC, which I just left and thank God that I was able to get out of there.

Actually I do see a few good things happening in Washington. There are some younger conservatives in their 20s, 30s and 40s who are true conservatives, true Reaganites, many of them born again believing Christians who are operating in the middle to lower levels of the Reagan administration. And I think that the army that you talked about is, in fact, being prepared.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Stafford ] So even though I have quite a few problems with the administration in terms of the policies, the pursuit in certain areas, their positions or lack of positions on certain issues that I am interested in, I really see at this point no alternative to supporting the president for another term. Although, of course, I am open to the possibility of some other aspect to change that, but I think as a matter of practical reality the fact that this good work is going on and that the president has, I think, done a pretty credible job given the difficult circumstances that he has had to work with such as the Tip O’Neill Democrats in the House constituting a majority, plus the fact that we all have to remember every time I start to feel critical of the administration I remember that the president was subject to an assassination attempt which was probably a lot more serious than we even now have been led to believe. So in the face of a direct threat on his life, he has at least if allowed these young people to come into the administration, to make a difference during this first four year period and, I think, preparing themselves for the rest of the century. And that is something that we have not had a since... well I can’t remember how far back. I guess the bad guys did the same thing in the 30s in the Roosevelt administration.

[ Rhoads ] A new brain trust. I think your word fantasy... a friend of mine in a very profound moment once said that the biggest problem with the human race is that they... they extrapolate to the ridiculous. And we are at the end of the civilization. We have seen the extrapolation to the ridiculous. We start with the emergence of the individual during the Renaissance period and it becomes the me generation and it becomes an obscene quest for wealth, ego and materialism. And obviously we extrapolate the ridiculous there. The other extrapolation is this illusion of wealth. And when we talk about the collapse of the economic system, really what we are talking about is return to reality. It is a very healthy thing.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Rhoads ] We have an illusion that we are wealthy, but we have got four times as much debt out there as anybody can ever hope to pay.

[ Stafford ] Right.

[ Rhoads ] So we have to destroy 80 percent of this illusion. Now people hang on to these illusions as if they were real. And to take away their property or to take away these illusions is to take away, in many cases, their entire identity, their whole ego is wrapped up in this and to take away this illusion is to destroy their identity. It has to be done and it will be done, but it is a rude shock to these people to be brought back to reality to realize that they thought they were retired and set for the rest of their life and all of the sudden they are a pauper. That is a terrible thing you have to come to terms with. And people go crazy at a time like that. So it makes for a very difficult transition period.

But coming back to reality, then, it ... we don’t just do it in the economic sphere. With the return to reality we get a new spiritual insight.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Rhoads ] Eunice talked about this, Carl Gustav, you know, in his study of some of the manifestations, the... the space manifestations and so forth which he deals with in terms of a ... of a group fantasy or a group illusion. He says that there ... he says that there has never been a time in the last 2000 years when we have seen constellations in the heavens the way we are seeing them now. He says what we see is the sort of thing that we would precede the second coming of Christ. And I think that is what we are looking forward to. So it is a difficult period. But it is also, I think, one of the most exciting periods in 2000 years and I am looking forward to it with a... with excitement and anticipation.

[ Rushdoony ] You know one of the things that I think is most significant and revelatory of the modern mind was the death of God movement at the beginning of the 70s. Recent writers like Michael Harrington have echoed some of that kind of thinking. But the significant fact about the death of God movement has been missed by many people. They never said there is no God. They simply said God is dead for us. Therefore, God doesn’t count.

Now that is like saying I don’t believe in the locomotive that is coming down the track I am picnicking on. Therefore it doesn't exist. And it is that tremendous will to illusion that marks our age and the economic crisis is going to smash that.

[ Rhoads ] No doubt in my mind about it. The thing I liked about that God is dead movement was this bumper sticker that says, “My God is fine. Sorry to hear about yours.”

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Rhoads ] Well, another thing that I heard just within the last few days was this idea that just as usually when Time magazine or Newsweek come out with a front page cover talking about either what a great bull market there is in stocks or what a terrible bear market there is in stocks, that marks the turning point and it could well be that the cover of, I think it was Time—It may have been Newsweek—which talked about the death of God might have really marked the beginning of a repentance, of a turning back the end of the former age and the beginning of revival. And I have heard people from Benedictine monks in Saint Anselm’s monastery in Washington to TV evangelists and to, really just solid people such as Dr. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Presbyterian talking about seeing real signs of revival. I am not necessarily even referring to the polls where such and such a percentage of the American population count themselves as Christians or born again believers. I think that... I think that is wonderful and, you know, hopefully, it is true of everyone who so professes. But I... I think I personally have seen signs of ... of people looking for revival if for no other reason as, Rush, you were talking about before the taping started that the ... the powers that be even, the non Christians, the people who are not on our side, have to be faced with the reality that their whole world is crumbling, that many of their assumptions were false, that the Utopia that they tried to build with their own hands trying to exclude God, not building out on his principles is ... is not working out, that we are having bad effects rather than good effects and even people like Peter G. Peterson who is the former chairman of Lehman Brothers {?} and the pillar of the American eastern banking and financial and political establishment has been going around now, even left that firm to ... form his own

smaller firm in the venture capital area and investment area.

And I think one of the reasons was because he wants to spend more time going around the country and talking to people about the crisis that we are facing. For instance, he believes that social security alone could bring down the entire economic and financial structure of the United States and that the United States as a democratic republic the political form could be radically changed unless we do something radical. And I am using his word about social security. It is absolutely insane that people—and we talked about unreality and fantasy world—for people who up until 1980, 81, even if they started at the beginning with social security making contributions in 1937, of about 22 dollars a year these people could have contributed no more than a maximum of 16,000 dollars. And upon their retirement some of them are getting back 50, 100,000 over the next few years two or three or 400,000 dollars for a 16,000 dollar contribution. Contrarily, a young person of age 20 or 21 who starts contributing now just based on the current levels of taxation and levels of income against which those tax rates are applied will be paying in no less than 330,000 dollars. So to get the same bang for the buck the same return on investment that person would have to be paid back well over a billion dollars after age 65.

Now unless we have a super hyper inflation where, yes, that money will be paid in the billions, but in terms of adjusted for inflation dollars it will only be, you know, a few tens of thousands. We are in a real pickle. And we just cannot go on paying multiples of what people have contributed to social security where we have not taken the money and invested it.

One way that I put it about social security is that social security does not exist but for annual appropriations of the Congress. In other words, there is no trust fund. There are no monies set aside. These are unfunded liabilities which can only come out of additional taxes. So either there has to be radical change or the country is going, you know, down the road to perdition, not just the way many of out quite conservative friends have been telling us for a number of years, but even now the pillars of the eastern liberal establishment.

[ Rhoads ] Well, I... I... I think that what we are dealing with here is a continuation of this illusion and there are a number of people, particularly in government in the bureaucracy who have a vested interest in continuing this illusion. They have a fetish for control These are very sick people. I... I consider them neurotics in most cases psychotics. They are very spiritually ill people and they have a... and they have an intense need to control the world, their world. And you find, as a psychologist will tell you, as their world becomes... as their world begins to fall apart, their fetish increases and their need to control extrapolates exponentially.

Now if I were to pick a period that I might see us moving into, I would say we are moving into the golden age of western civilization and it could last two or three generations as the past golden ages have lasted in Rome and Greece. Historically they look nice. But then you have to remember the history is written by the king’s apologist. When you look at the life of the average person during this golden age, particularly one who is spiritually aware, they are pursued people. They are pursued by these people with a fetish to control. They cannot permit individuality. They cannot permit people to pursue another god. So they pursue the people. The golden age, then, would see an increase of controls on the individual coming from our own government in particular.

And you talk about the social security system problem, it is a tremendous problem. Today the government is studying ways to nationalizing all of the private retirement funds in the country to sure up the social security system. What this means then is that the old people will be drafted and enlisted in a very real way to support the program that was supposed to support them in their old age.

The increase in the ability of the IRS to harass individuals, the laws that they are making today which are not laws. They are... they are administrative rules designed to permit these people to pursue you as an individual and they do it. In physical ways they gain control of your property and therefore try to manipulate and control you. This is increasing. The use of the police and the military, the use of spy agencies against their own people. This is increasing. And I think that the symbol of the era that we are moving into was when the moved the dump trucks in front of the White House. They ... the government has become illegitimate. The people in there are running the bureaucracy and the government of themselves. I don’t think it matters who is charge. He is a figurehead. And as we talked before, people try to assassinate the president. I don’t recommend that. It is like shooting the figurehead on a boat. The guy who owns the boat is going to be pretty sore at you. You are going to end up in real trouble, but the boat doesn't change its course.

So the senior level bureaucrats are the ones who run the thing. The are the ones who set the directions and have a broad latitude of control and they are the ones who pursuing us. They are the ones who will launch the golden age. And in metaphysical terms this is known as the age of the beast. The social security number is a tag like it is a tag on you. It claims you as government property the same as the ear tag on a cow says that he belongs or she belongs to a certain farmer. It is the age of the beast and if you want to know just how bad the golden age can be, read that. And there are two things to keep in mind. In the golden age in Greece they assassinated Socrates. In the golden age of Rome they persecuted the Christians and the western... no major western civilization will see that again.

But this is part of the file that we have to walk through. And remember that human nature is forged in the fires of adversity. This is part of the file that we have to walk through before we can reach the other side and... and qualify to ... and of the new age.

[ Rushdoony ] One of the pictures I have somewhere in my library—I have got to look for it someday—is a picture taken from the White House looking out towards the old state department building. Nothing but an empty pasture between and the Taft family cow tethered outside the White House.

Now as recently as Taft’s day, this century, Washington was a village and the president had a family cow tethered outside on what is now the lawn and the grounds. The change began with Woodrow Wilson when we began to create the golden age of bureaucracy, of monumental government buildings. And Washington has moved from a village to a world capital. And we have lost our freedom in the process.

[ Stafford ] Yeah, as recently as 1952 when my folks moved to Washington it was considered a small southern town and everybody knew each other and there was great civility. There were manners. The streets were uncrowded. The trees grew and bloomed very nicely. And it was, frankly, a very lovely place to grow up. I, you know, have to really be thankful for the opportunity to be at the seat of government in a very pleasant, physically, place at that time.

But now we have got gridlock imported from New York. Ten percent of the population of Washington is homosexual. A third statistic that is really frightening is that out of every 1000 pregnancies over 630 are terminated by abortion in the District of Columbia. That is the kind of a rotten society that the fantasy world Utopians have created for themselves and us in Washington. As a matter of fact, I am hoping, Rush, to write a piece. I have got the title for it, as I do for many of my pieces that maybe I will finally have a chance to get down and to writing. It is called “Washington, DC: Left Wing Capital of America.”

[ Rushdoony ] Well, we Christians have a responsibility as God’s army to take over this world for the Lord, because everything must be brought... every thought, we are told, that far, into captivity to Christ. And we are told that the cry will go out in due time that the kingdoms of this world are the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. So we need to welcome this growing collapse for all the tragedies and disasters it will create as an opportunity, because it will brig the world back to reality. It will make possible Christian Reconstruction. And we are going to have it because the course that is being pursued is suicidal. These people are killing themselves off, are destroying their own ideals. There is a line in the poet William Blake who had a lot of unsound and heretical ideas, but this sentence always struck me as very true. He wrote, “I saw the finger of God go forth giving a body to falsehood that it might be cast off forever.”

In other words, God is allowing mankind to realize his Babylon, his tower of Babel...

[ Rhoads ] Right.

[ Rushdoony ] ...in order to smash it, because man himself is going to see how monstrous it is.

[ Rhoads ] Right. Absolutely.

[ Rhoads ] That reminds me after I saw the movie 10 somebody said there is an ancient curse, “May your fondest fantasy come true.” And we are realizing our fondest fantasies.

[ Stafford ] Well, that sounds like the Chinese curse. May you live in interesting times.

[ Rhoads ] I... I... We... we live in interesting times and I don’t consider it a curse.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Rhoads ] I think it is very exciting.

[ Stafford ] We know all desperate....

[ Rhoads ] for a long time while I felt a captive in my institutions and so long as I didn’t see any alternatives. But then I read a piece that talked about how the Christian voluntary communities rose in the first and second centuries to ... as... as and I am almost... well, it is unnatural safety net to catch the people who are falling out of the empire. The institutions within the empire and the institutions today are becoming illegitimate as we talked about before. People are seeing that and they are turning away from it because institutions, human institutions are supposed to help a person realize and actualize his gift from God.

To these institutions are drafting you for something else. They are using you for someone else’s purposes and when people catch on to that, they drop away. They withhold their support for the institutions and they go in search of something, then, that will help them to actualize and make sense of their own live. And today communities are popping up all around us and they are not just farming communities where you can go and join a monastic order, but they are networks of ... of people who are on the same spiritual path and almost magically they find each other, they find that their neighbor has been on this path for years and hasn’t said anything about it. But the network is all around you. And when you become so discouraged with your life the way it is then you are prime to discovering the network that is there, already around you.

Now a doctor told me a long time ago, “Don’t go prospecting for patients.” And what I am discovering is that when a person becomes so disillusioned, when he becomes in touch with reality, then he will come looking. He becomes, then, a... a patient. And he knows that he has got a problem. Then you can talk to him and you can help him and these networks, then, are picking up these people the same way that Christian communities used to go into the cities and look of the fallen there.

Now you talk about running a first aid station or a red cross. I like to look on it as a recycling bureau.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Rhoads ] Where these people are being cast off by a very sick society, but they are still alive and now they are sensitized. And we can pick this rubble up and put it back together and make an army for Christ, make them whole again and send them back out into the world and they can bring about the whole new world. That, to me, is the future.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Stafford ] Well, that is really interesting, because I think we talked earlier about the work of the early church and, of course, it had a side benefit of building up the Christian community where the Christians would go out in the highways and the byways and under the bridges and take these little children who were cast away by the Roman citizens they didn't want, let’s say a baby daughter or like in mainland China today. There is infanticide against little infant girls. And they scooped them up, took them home, adopted them and brought them up in the Christian faith. And that sounds very similar...

[ Rhoads ] Oh.

[ Stafford ] ...like a very similar operation.

[ Rhoads ] It is... it is happening today. You talk about ... and... and, in fact, the number of terminated births in Washington, DC when the government was funding them exceeded the number of live births.

[ Stafford ] Oh.

[ Rhoads ] It is a necrophilic era that we live in.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Rhoads ] And a period like this the spirit is contained and not permitted to grow and it turns acidic. And then people then turn on themselves. The biggest manifestation of this is a hate for life as the ... the destruction of life and it takes place in spiritual murders with child abuse and spouse abuse and it takes place in real murder s in the case of abortions. There are communities today that go looking for unwed mothers and others who want to terminate their births and they say, “If you would just have the child and then we will take care of it for you.” And that, to me, that is an affirmation of life. And I find that really exciting.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. And there is.... this is why it is so important the point you have made, David. The Bible tells us, “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.” And when men keep thinking, well, when the crash comes then we can have freedom, 10 or 20 or 30 years down the road. You can’t live way. And if you are living in terms of preparing for catastrophe or waiting out the catastrophe you are a dead duck. But if you say here and now I can build a community. I can establish a fellowship. I can do my part in God’s kingdom in establishing his order in my life and the lives of those around about me, then you are a part of the future.

[ Stafford ] Exactly. You are a part of the coming world. And... there is an old story about this one fellow explaining that we don’t have problems. All we have are opportunities. And his friend looked at him and said, “Well, I seem to be confronted by an insurmountable opportunity.” You do need that spiritual turn around to be able to see the good that is coming.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Stafford ] And it is right there, right next to you.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Stafford ] And, you know, it is side by side with the bad and it is just as intense as the bad where at that point where two curves cross. One is going down hill and the other is going up and you can step across just as easily as you could step across one stairway to another.

[ Rushdoony ] You know, excuse me a moment, John, before we go on with that point, I don’t want the time to run out on us before David has a chance to tell people what his address is, how much the subscription is to the Rhoads Connection and how much for a sample copy if he sells a sample copy. Would you tell us?

[ Rhoads ] Well, we don’t give samples, but I have summarized a short report on our five year forecast which we are giving away for free and I will send subscription information with that. Write me, David Rhoads, Box 1047, 1 0 4 7, Ashland, A S H L A N D, Oregon, 97520. And just write on there forecast and I will send you a copy of that and some subscription information and I will also send you some information about a speech that I made last summer that talks about voluntary communities and about the end of our in institutions today which I call “Wait for the Western World.”

The last name is Rhoads, R H O A D S.

[ Stafford ] If I could make a plug, David, I don’t know how many copies are still available, but I know I bought quite a few copies of your book How to Survive a Spastic Economy and I have been giving it to clients as a part of my investment service. I have been donating copies to my church to be resold and the proceeds to go to the church and handing them out to members of Congress such as Stenny Hoyer, the liberal Democrat from Maryland, Prince George’s County that I went to school with at the University of Maryland. And I think it is really an excellent book even though it was written a few years...

[ Rhoads ] It was 1977.

[ Stafford ] Yeah, a few years ago. Still because you take the longer term approach and talk more in terms of principle than, you know, the immediate way to make money, I... I think it is still of great value.

[ Rhoads ] No, I appreciate that. We do give the book as a premium for new subscribers. We are getting pretty close to the end of that, but that along with several other premiums that I give out and two special reports on disarmament and on a balanced budget, brings people pretty well up to date on my thinking. At the same time it gives them the context that I have been using since 1977 as an analysis.

[ Stafford ] The thing that I was going to say earlier, Rush, was that I remember part of my process of coming to where I am today had to do with a meeting that I had with Donald Storey over in Bermuda back in, I think, 1978. Donald was the coeditor and owner of the Bank Credit Analyst which is one of the most respected publications in the world and discussing the domestic and international banking and monetary scene.

And, you know, each of us has to do what he thinks best, but the conversation I had with Donald even though I came to a different conclusion helped me to understand where I was coming from and where I had to go. Donald was basically saying what you were talking about that, well, if the whole world is coming apart, he was going to make sure that he had his assets in the right place so that he could survive and then write... rise phoenix like out of the ashes. And I guess as I... I didn’t disagree that that might be the best thing for him to do. He was a Canadian citizen living in Bermuda and in the process of buying a home in London and putting some of his assets over there. But the more I thought about it there more I said, “Well, you know, I am an American and I love my country and my community and all of the people that I know are there.” And instead of trying to run off to Australia or New Zealand or Alaska or, you know, some other place to get away, I said instead of cutting and running, would stand and fight. And so that really was an important turning point for me personally. And I said, “Ok, that is... that is done now. I am going to stay in the United States and I am going to do everything I can both in... in terms of building my personal position and in terms of being active politically to try to help turn the country around. That is where I ended up as a vice chairman of the Reagan finance committee and supporting a certain members of Congress and the Senate of a rather conservative nature, Steve Sims and John Rousseau and others over the last few years.

And I think it has paid off. The only thing that I am thinking now is about the 10th Amendment to Constitution where it says, basically, that ... that any unenumerated powers given to the federal government are reserved to the states and if there is anything left over after that it remains with the people. And I sense very strongly when we were talking with John Saunders about this the other night, that—and it ties in with your book talking about that the basic unit of... of the political society is the county. And I think we are going to see whether we like it or not—and I like it—a return to local control and a great strengthening in the power and influence of government at the local and state level and really a diminution of the ... of the power and control at the federal level.

I have to agree with David that the ... the... the government has taken a number of steps under {?} and other recent legislation to beef up the IRS and to make it easier for the government to, you know, go after the federal income tax dollar. But at the same time I see people resisting that in a very personal way and... and also I see this almost imperceptible now, but I think it will become more apparent as time goes on shift of power back to the hands of the local people.

And just one other point that is connected with that. I have bent talking with Herb Titus quite a bit and Jim Mc Clelland and others about this idea not only of judicial tyranny, but also of defunding public education, putting all schools on a tuition basis, be they public or private. Now personally, between you and me and the fencepost here, I don't see any excuse or reason for public schools as they are currently constituted. But even if you had them, the idea is that you would fund them with direct contributions, endowments, gifts, that sort of thing rather than by using tax money. This is another aspect of this concept that I just mentioned of restoring local control, parental control, accountability to the system.

And, Rush, I know that you I particular are being considered by many the father of the Christian school movement and the private school movement in America. You have written extensively on this, The Messianic Nature of American Education and other books and publications. I won’t... I wonder if you have a comment on that particular specific idea.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes, the interesting thing to me is that within the last two or three years a number of books have been written calling attention to the fact that the public school movement is a disaster. As a matter of fact, without mentioning any names, one prominent politician was interviewed by three high school journalism students and he figured the publication of this would only be in the local school paper or an essay submitted to the teacher and he said that the public schools were finished. They had destroyed a generation. He saw no future in them. As far as he was concerned you could wipe out the present generation. They took it to their local newspaper and it refused to publish that.

But I think more and more people and politicians are becoming aware of that fact and certainly the Christian school movement is growing by leaps and bounds. The result is today from a fourth to a third of the children in this country are not in public schools. They are in Christian schools. They are in home schools and there are a 100,000 of them in California alone and it is a very rapidly growing movement.

Well, this tells us there is a tremendous revival of freedom under way. People are saying, “Our children belong to us and we are going to control then.” This means a very sizable element of the population.

We have a crisis right now in Nebraska over this public school issue. I had a call from a department at the White House about it just yesterday. And it isn’t a problem that is going to go away. It is building up.

[ Scott ] Right.

[ Rushdoony ] Which tells us that people are turning back to freedom and demanding it.

In the late 50s Carl C. Zimmerman and Al Cervantes wrote a book entitled The Family. And in it they declared that the beginning of the greatest strength and freedom of the family was ahead of us.

[ Stafford ] Interesting.

[ Rushdoony ] So they predicted what has been developing. The family is disintegrating out there, but within the Christian community it is becoming a tremendous force that has Washington upset right now because of what is happening in Nebraska and all over the country.

[ Stafford ] Well that is really fascinating. Excuse me, for a couple of reasons. One of which you have written a piece called “The Failure of Men.” And in that basically what you were saying was that men have been irresponsible. They have not maintained the responsibility for the family and for their work and so forth and so on. It seems to me that we were just discussing this fantasy world thing which really is a reflection of irresponsibility. Mental illness and fantasy world living is irresponsible. Maybe the constructive idea that we can come away with is that the ... that process really is reversing...

[ Rushdoony ] It is.

[ Stafford ] And that parents, in particular, are now willing not take responsibility for the education of their children.

[ Rhoads ] That is what you are talking about, the ... the reemergence of individuals taking responsibility for their lives. The centralization thing has gone as far as it will go. There will be people I the central government who will keep trying to impose their will on us through that mechanism, but people are abandoning it. They are withdrawing their support of it. They are turning themselves to the local level and they are controlling themselves at the local level. And in time they will develop their own local institutions that will protect them from their own federal government.

In Rome the barbarians surged in to the empire and they were co-opted by the promises and they turned them into policemen. They turned them into their own army to keep the tax collectors away and protect them from Rome and its voraciousness that accompanied its decline. This is happening in all spheres. Vigilantism is on the rise because we don’t have a justice system. Mankind will have justice.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Rhoads ] And the vigilante movement is not a movement towards lawlessness as the government would have you think. It is a movement back to lawfulness. People don’t like Vigilantism. It is a second best, but we have got to have some kind of law and so it is coming back. We will have law. We will have order. We will have a social fabric and it is coming together at the county level. Gary North, I think, did an outstanding job on that. He said, “Get active at the local level and create the kind of world that you want at the local level.” And it is happening. And I think it is very exciting, very encouraging.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, our time is up now. Thank you, David. It has been a delight and I know that everyone who hears this will appreciate the information and insight you have given. And, John, thank you. We will be using you now that you are one of us, right along.

Thank you all for listening and we will be with you again in two weeks.

[ Voice ] Authorized by the Chalcedon Foundation. Archived by the Mount Olive Tape Library. Digitized by ChristRules.com.