From the Easy Chair

Christian Reconstruction

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 194-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161P28

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161P28, Christian Reconstruction, from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[ Rushdoony ] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 115, February 11, 1986.

This evening I have with me two guests that we are very happy to have with us on the Easy Chair, Dennis Peacock and Bob Mumford. And we are going to deal with Christian Reconstruction in this session. As a matter of fact, we are together for a planning session all day tomorrow on ways of extending the ministry of Christ to all the world.

Dennis, Bob, it is a pleasure to have you with us. Dennis...

[ Peacock ] I am very glad to be very with you, Dr. Rushdoony.

[ Rushdoony ] Rush, please.

[ Peacock ] Ok.

[ Rushdoony ] Will you tell our listeners something about yourself and your background?

[ Peacock ] Ok. Very briefly I was born in Seattle and had an encounter with the Lord when I was a young boy and yet had difficulties walking consistently in the faith because I had a lot of pressure put on me. I was an athlete and, or course, you know, the pressures of being an athlete in this culture were fairly severe. I graduated from high school in Seattle and came down to the University of California at Berkeley in 1961 on an athletic scholarship. Got injured in 1962 and when through the whole Berkeley scene from 1962 to the end of the latter part of 1967, excuse me, which, in my case, involved and included political activism. I was very much involved in the civil rights movement and became a Marxist, was a Trotskyite for several years and got out of western philosophy and went into eastern philosophy for a couple of years. I worked as a speech writer in San Francisco for the AFL CIO state offices. And in 1967 at a point of real desperation in my life I had an encounter with Jesus Christ which, of course, totally turned my world and my life around.

I began to try and find a way into the church which we may come back to later in this conversation. Because of my philosophical training it was very difficult for me to find my way into the organized church because of the training and, quite frankly, the world view that I developed while I was a student at Berkeley. I couldn’t find a holistic Christian thinkers or kind of a holistic view of reality. So essentially what happened is myself and a number of other people began holding Bible studies and those Bible studies grew into the hundreds of people and we ended up starting a network of churches.

And I have been in the ministry full time since 1972 and count it a real privilege to have the Lord bring our lives into contact and through exposure to your writing and I am excited about what the Lord has for us in the future.

[ Rushdoony ] Thank you, Dennis. And now, Bob, I don’t think there are many people listening who are not familiar with the name of Bob Mumford, but in your own words tell us a little bit about your background and experience.

[ Mumford ] Thank you, Rush. I am... my own early experience was similar to Dennis in the fact that I had an encounter with the Lord at age 12 and it was very problematic. And in the absence of any kind of follow up or consistent Christian testimony or teaching within the home, I soon fell away from the Lord and walked for 12 years in a very complicated kind of an existence, because once you have known the Lord and are not walking with him, I... I often say it is probably the most miserable form of human existence.

At age 24, from age 12 to 24, I was still in the navy, came home on leave and then while home on leave had a very ... a very impacting encounter with the risen Lord, went back to the ship, had the joy of leading quite a few of those men to the Lord on the ship, felt strongly the call of God and came out... actually came out of the navy. I was going to stay in the military which I really enjoyed to ... to get a degree and go back as a military chaplain. I wanted... I saw that as a very real mission field. Came out, of course, went to school, on to seminary and have been, since then, a Bible teacher for the most part. I ... I have pastored on occasion, but for the most part I have been a seminar leadership kind of a Bible teacher, both here and in many nations.

And very recently I have been impacted by the climate change, by what we see happening and what we see needing to happen in the Church. So it is a joy to be part of the Easy Chair tonight.

[ Rushdoony ] Thank you.

Dennis, you said something about problems with the Church. Let me tell you my own experience there. I was struggling against going into the ministry for a long time. My father was a minister. As a matter of fact, the clergy in my family form an unbroken line back to the early 300s of the Christian era. And yet I knew the Church since my father was a minister. I know the problems of ministry and the weakness of the Church. And something my father told me once had a powerful impact on me. He said, “There is nothing in the world that this more wonderful than the Church, because it is the body of Christ and nothing in the world that is, at times, more repulsive than the Church, because it is also the body of men.” There are two sides to it. And he said, “One will cause you joy and the other grief.” And that is very true. And we see that in what comes out of the church in the way of earth shattering things and what comes out of the church often in the way of frustrating people and hindering their growth, in the way of pettiness and of backbiting. And that sort of thing has taken place from the beginnings of the church’s history when we consider how much Paul suffered at the hands of churchmen in his day in one church after another. Members were sinners challenging his credentials, criticizing him, making fun of him.

You realize the Church has had its share of problems. But it is not the problems we want to deal with tonight. It is the opportunities and the duties.

I think I can introduce that subject best by reading from a little book published in 1977 Thy Kingdom Come by Ern Baxter. And in it there is this passage and I quote:

“I believe that in this hour, God is bringing into focus a fact that has been distorted for many, many years, and that is: God's purpose is not to redeem a bunch of people to sit at a bus stop and wait for the bus to come along and get them out of the world's mess. Rather God has redeemed them and cleaned them up and put Himself into them that He may send them back in to clean up the mess and be the salt of the earth and the light of the world so that with the power of the gospel they may vindicate God's purpose in the death and resurrection of His Son,” unquote.

And to read just another passage from Ern Baxter’s Thy Kingdom Come. And I didn’t know I was using his title when I wrote my book Thy Kingdom Come, which, perhaps, was published before. I don't recall. At any rate, to quote Ern Baxter again:

“But Jesus declared, ‘Now I will build My church. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against My church.’ For years we have interpreted this negatively. We have said, ‘I'm in the Church and thank God, the devil can't get at me. The gates of hell cannot prevail.’ So we have huddled together, feeling protected by that Word of the Lord. I don't think that's primarily what He meant. Personally I have never been attacked by a gate. I've never had a gate jump off its hinges and chase me down the street. So what is our Lord saying by this?

“He's saying, ‘I am God's ultimate purpose. There is nothing beyond Me. There's nothing after Me. I have come to do God's ultimate thing. I will build a congregation that will succeed. They will kick the gates of hell in,’” end of quote.

[ Peacock ] Praise God.

[ Rushdoony ] I like that.

Well, that is our calling to kick the gates of hell in. And towards that end we have already been active, haven’t we, Dennis, in organizing groups to think about Christian action realistically in one sphere after another, to recognize that the crown rights of Christ our Lord include his crown rights over every civil government beginning with the United States as far as we are concerned.

[ Peacock ] Rush, can I just...

[ Rushdoony ] Surely...

[ Peacock ] ...hop in here...

[ Rushdoony ] Surely.

[ Peacock ] for... of a minute. A number of things that you have already shared have brought several things to my attention. At the risk of sounding like some kind of an admiration society here, I... I think the work that you, in... in particular and... and some others have done is so critical to the body of Christ really accepting its responsibility. As I shared, you know, my background as a philosophy student, one of the things that was very, very hard for me to understand in the Church was that until ran into your work, I was not able to find anybody that was writing about the Church from a... what we call in philosophy a teleological point of view, that is looking at the job that the Church is supposed to accomplish in history. All that I was exposed to in my early, early walk with the Lord in the late 60s and early 70s primarily focused on the position that Christ was going to save us and get us out of this mess as Ern Baxter alludes to in his book, which didn’t square with the kinds of experiences that I had had even as a revolutionary at Berkeley.

I think the thing that has been the most difficult for me as a Christian to countenance has been the fact that there ... until the last few years, seemingly was not only so few Christians with an overview of what God wants to do in history, but related to that is so few Christians with the guts to put their lives on the line to really stand for what they believe. And... and I say stand not in the defiant sense of the world is not going to change my theology, but stand in an aggressive sense as in I am coming after those gates and nothing is going to stop me. So those are things that, you know, maybe we will come back to some of that, but those are the things that have really challenged me and... and that ... that I am so excited that I see going on in the body of Christ right now is you have got thousands and tens of thousands of people beginning to come out of the slumber and see that God has an overall job for the Church to do on the earth and the clearer their vision becomes on that job and the nature of the kingdom of God, the more fortitude, the more conviction they have to be willing to be self sacrificial in that cause. And that is what... that is what energizes me and excites me as I want to see the people of God called up to the vision of the kingdom of God and the work of God in such a way that the back biting and so many of the nonsensical things that have gone on in the Church because the Church has been self centered and... and anemic in its vision. See, I believe God will wash those things out of the Church once the Church begins to really see its job.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Mumford ] We see, for me, I come at it from ... not from a philosophical point of view. I come at it from a ... oh, it would be a Biblicist. I come out of a Pietistic, Scofieldian world. I went to Bible college. I took the ... the teaching at face value basically without reexamining... reexamining it. I think that the most critical issue today is expectancy. It is not that many of the people who are or were in a place such as I they believe that, but they don’t expect it. They don’t expect God to do anything in the time space world. And, you know, if somehow we could handle the whole business of expecting Christ’s lordship to be practical, you know, demonstratable, functional in... in present life and when it comes a marvelous thing happens to any church at the same time.

A lot of the back biting and the ugliness and the things that we talk about, some of that is from ... is from raising up the Church as an army and then not marching. So then the army shoots itself.

[ Peacock ] Yes.

[ Mumford ] I mean, it really does. It... it turns in on itself, because there is no clear goal for the Church to move towards.

[ Peacock ] Exactly.

[ Rushdoony ] You know, Bob, I have often used that point with regard to an army that does nothing by citing General Mc Clelland, the union general of the Civil War.

He was loved by the army, because he never took them into battle. He avoided it on every occasion. Very few men in history have been better at drilling an army than Mc Clelland. His troops were cracker jacks in formation and on drill and on parade. But he could not bear to take them into battle and to muss them up. So every time there was a threat of an engagement, he used ever excuse to duck it. He would manufacture statistics claiming that the confederate forces out numbered him two or three times when the reverse was true. The only time he got into battle was by accident. He was very popular. In fact, he ran against Lincoln and the war was prolonged because Lincoln had trouble getting him out. He was too popular.

But here was a man who acted as though the purpose of an army was simply to drill, not to fight. And there are all too many churches who feel that the be all and end all of a church is to be organized as a church and have everything in neat, apple pie order, not to be a barracks room, a training ground for action in the world.

[ Peacock ] Can I just push...

[ Rushdoony ] Surely.

[ Peacock ] ... ahead and say that, you know, Bob, of course, has been a ... a leader much longer than I have in the Church. And I ... we... we spent a lot of time talking about these things. I really wonder what the Church, what... what our vision of the Church is going to look like even 10 years from now. I have got very strong suspicions that it is going to be radically different. I... I think one of the things that we have experienced in the last 10 years is we are convinced that the church is no longer building. And, of course, most Christians are ... are ... and I am not trying to be critical. I am just trying to tell it like it is. Most Christians still think of the church as a building. And then you have got the group that comes out of that mentality and then they think the church is a meeting. You know, that if you get the saints together you are going to have church.

Well, I... I would suspect and I am coming to... to believe this with some degree of conviction that the church is the place where God wants to take a stand on the earth, that the church is to be a platform upon which the gospel can be worked out by the power of the Holy Spirit through the lives of believers and that the church is, in fact, a launching pad for the work of God. It is not only not a building, it is not a meeting. It is a lunching pad. It is a place where God is able to through his people demonstrate the work that he wants to do on the earth.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Mumford ] The ... for me there is... a... I come back to this word expectancy as we touch this thing with Mc Clelland and... and what is the Church. I... it seems to me that the Bible is very clear that there are three specific realms that must be engaged. That is, the religious or the spiritual, the... the social or the governmental and the economic. Now for whatever reason, the Church has yielded its authority, its sphere, its answers in the ... in the social and the economic. The Church has rolled over and played dead.

Now I think it needs to be clear to our listeners, whoever, a pastor, whoever a Christian everywhere that since we have surrendered answers in those realms, that those who have now taken the leadership are not going to roll over when we try to speak clear, biblical answers to the sphere of ... you cannot read the Bible and... and not understand the... the reality of social, political answers that... that are found in the Scriptures. The same is true with economic answers. It is a... it is a frightening to see how much the Bible says about clear, biblical answers in economic realms so that spiritually we expect answers, but economically and politically the Church ... the Church doesn’t expect answers and, consequently, you know, from my view, they don't see them when they read the Bible. Consequently, this present emphasis is stirring up a lot of excitement among many leaders.

[ Rushdoony ] I would like to pick up on something that each of you said, expectancy, Bob. You spoke about that. And, Dennis, you spoke about the philosophical tradition.

Well, the modern age began with the Humanists looking forward to a heaven on earth that they were going to build. But little by little philosophically they destroyed the reality of their hope. They destroyed the reality of a universe. The tradition from Descartes through Barkley to Hume ended up denying the reality of a physical world, of anything except I think therefore I am.

[ Peacock ] Right.

[ Rushdoony ] And after Kant the whole world was reduced to the subjective experience of man, no reality. Man was his own universe. And, little by little, the belief in progress itself in any hope for man, any future disappeared. So expectancy is gone on the part of the Humanist of anything except disaster.

So we are in the last days of Humanistic Statism and we are going to see in the next few years the disaster that Humanism is increase and the expectancy they have now is a disaster, a catastrophe.

Well, the Christian community cannot be a part of that. They have to revive their expectancy of victory in Christ. And they will command the future. And there is no other way. I recall in the late 60s meeting with one of the most important men in America who, for some reason or other wanted me to go to work for him for a while for a job that I felt was useless, although I felt flattered that he considered me for it. But he was a man without any hope, really. He was predicting that the century would end with the triumph of world dictatorships, of Marxism of the Dark Ages returning for about two centuries. Now this is the way a great many people feel. This is the way our opponents feel. They are programmed for defeat. And we in Christ are supposed to be programmed for victory. This is the victory which overcometh the world.

[ Peacock ] Right.

[ Rushdoony ] Even our faith.

[ Peacock ] Rush, let me just make a comment about that. I was teaching on Sunday and in a particular church and I was teaching on faith and one of the things that is... that has dramatically changed in my understanding of the essence of faith and I think is... is having an effect in a number of places, because a number of other men are... are seeing this and preaching it is that faith becomes powerful when it aligns itself with God’s overall purposes. Most people who preach faith today in the body of Christ direct that faith towards some kind of personal gain. And I was teaching out of Hebrews chapter 12, which talks about how we need to strengthen our feet and make a straight path for them if we have been trained by the discipline of God.

And it occurred to me so very, very clearly that the way to get healed, that God heals us by faith when we begin to set our feet in the direction of freeing other people who are captivated by the enemy. Jesus in Isaiah 61 identified the central element of his ministry as one who has come to set at liberty the captives. And I believe that the faith that God is going to require of Christians is going to go far beyond a faith for our finances or a faith for our health or a faith for God’s blessing. I need to mention as important as that is, that God is calling us into a faith which is going to make us liberators of the captives. I think the Church needs to begin to see the world as the prisoners of war and that our job is to go into that occupied territory to become Rambos, you will, to go back into the jungle of ... with ... of religious Humanism and into the jungle of Christian Pietism and into the jungle of all forms of unbelief and rescue those prisoners of war. And that is the faith that really is going to overcome the world. But it is not a... it is not a faith in what God is doing to do for me. It is a faith in what God is going to do through me.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Very good.

[ Mumford ] The ... the... the climate change on... that I think that Dennis is referring to and ... and Rush is referring to is... is one of ... and it is hard to say without sounding like you are attacking or criticizing, for that is not what is in my heart. But the ... the other worldly nature of Christianity. And... and I could cite hundreds of illustrations as anyone else, but the whole business... I... I jokingly referred the other day to a ... I was trying to learn how to use a CB radio. And I am sort of intimidated with it and so the man on the other end of the CB radio said to me, “What is your handle?” Well, I didn’t have a handle. And so he said, “Well, what is your occupation?” I said, “Well, I am a minister.”

“Oh,” he said, “Your handle is sky pilot.”

And I ... I reacted, deeply reacted because I realized the image out there is not one of liberation.

[ Peacock ] Right.

[ Mumford ] The image out there is not one of constructive engagement. The image out there of the Church is that ... that a pastor is a sky pilot. He is one who is now preparing people to fly through the sky. And I certainly realized that the issues that we are dealing with is whether or not the Church has honest, biblical, workable answers for a society that is destroying itself.

[ Rushdoony ] ...gave him a computer, because he said, “I have barely come up to the electric switch age.” Well, I was reminded in what you said, Bob, of a sentence in Scripture. Our Lord stated, “He that doeth my will shall know the doctrine.” Now that verse has been very much neglected and, I believe, it is the answer to the age of Humanism, because Humanism, as you all know, Dennis, began by stressing abstract knowledge, not merely knowledge, but abstract knowledge as the key to everything so that you are supposed to understand things before you move.

[ Peacock ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, if we wait until we understood things we wouldn’t use the electric light. switch most of our lives, if ever, some of us.

[ Peacock ] Right.

[ Rushdoony ] Or ever drive an automobile, because we don't fully understand the principles there. But our Lord tells us that it is not knowledge that is power, but doing his will.

[ Peacock ] It will be...

[ Rushdoony ] He that doeth ... yes. He that doeth my will shall know the doctrine. And I think we have to stress this increasingly because it will mean a reversal of the whole order of priorities in the minds of Christians. They are dealing with abstractions. They are dealing with withdrawing from the world. They are dealing with just abstract learning as though it were the key to power and they are being good humanists in doing that.

[ Peacock ] You know, Rush, and Bob could speak to this with more church authority than I could, but one of the things that I see going on all over this country is as the Church is beginning to broaden its horizon of its responsibilities and I don't even want to use the word into the political realm because I think that the... the definition of that realm is the political realm to some degree does a disservice to the Church. I think what we are talking about is the prophetic realm, that is the realm that the Church is supposed to impact with the commandments of Christ. As the Church is becoming more involved in that realm, it is having a very interesting effect on its eschatology. You know from my particular background like Bob I was initially exposed to a pre tribulation kind of a theology and because my background is ... is in the charismatic Pentecostal world, you know, that is a very prevalent view eschatalogically. But the thing that is so exciting to me is—and makes your point out of, you know, John 7:17—is that as the Church and the leaders in the Church are beginning to get their toe wet in the water of activism, it is unconsciously changing their theology and they are beginning to challenge so many of the assumptions. And the... the interesting thing is that it proves the Lord’s words again and again is they didn't come to those changes through a theological position. They didn’t study their way into a change, but rather the activism that is coming out of their life is now backing up and is changing their theology from an activist position. It is changing their heart, if you will, and as their heart is being changed it is coming back up to their head and now they are intellectually challenging because of the activism, their theological presuppositions. I hope that make sense.

[ Rushdoony ] Oh, yes. Wonderful sense.

[ Mumford ] Well, I... the word minister now when we talk about political and I know this both inflames and encourages according to which position you are in. But in Romans 13 he calls this government a minister of God. And I have been thinking through the minister which is civil, the minster which is mercy, which is.... has to do with social impacting a nation in the social realm and the ministry of the Word. And it seems to me that we have had the ministry of the Word without the accompanying understanding that these are ministers. And it... you know, when I saw the word minister it really... it... it... you know, being a Biblicist, being a man who... who holds to the plain meaning of Scripture, it was encouraging to me to see that word and how it affects all of society. This has sort of been something I have been reaching for.

[ Rushdoony ] That is a good point, because in Scripture we have a ministry of government and we are required to see it as a ministry and the state has as much a duty to be under Christ as the Church does.

[ Peacock ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] Then there is the ministry of education. And the Levites in Deuteronomy 33:10.

[ Peacock ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] ... are told that this is their ministry, instruction. And we have the ministry of mercy, of ministering to the needs of people, of being God’s good Samaritans to all the world. And then there is the ministry of the word of grace. So there are many ministries and we have a responsibility in all of them so that if we restrict ourselves to one area and say, “This sums up the ministry,” we have deformed the Word of God.

[ Peacock ] We... when we were trying to build churches and that was an... an adventure all unto itself because of a number of crazy guys like me could not fit into what we found or at least felt like we couldn’t and began to set up try and build New Testament churches which is a dangerous project at best, but one of the things that we came to discover after a number of years is we had lot of very activist oriented people, a lot of Jesus people is what we began with and people who had already made severe commitments when they were in the world. They tuned in, turned on and dropped out. So that when they came into Christianity they weren’t trying to free themselves from materialism, they were by and large already free. And you have those kinds of people who get turned on for the Lord. All of them wanted to go into the, quote, unquote, ministry. But the only avenue that we made available during those years was to minister the Word, because that is what a minister was. And, you know, you talk about growing some lop sided saints. You know, we... we did our fair share of growing some lopsided saints. But when we began to see the kingdom of God we began to recognize that every life has got a ministry in it and to be in full time Christian service is to do best what God has called you to be whatever your realm is. And that radically has changed our picture of what the Church is.

[ Mumford ] The concept of the kingdom and it becomes a superseding concept. It allows us to rise to see something of Christ’s dominion over ... over the earth, over civil government, over this thing. Now I don’t know, you know, I know... I am sure the listeners to this understand that. But for many people when you talk about lopsided Christianity for whatever reason—and I think—I don't know if I... where I read it, but someone talked about surrendering to the professionals, that somehow the Church surrendered economics, surrendered, you know, health, education and welfare, surrendered everything, that is, the church’s prerogative was all surrendered.

[ Peacock ] Yes.

[ Mumford ] ...and... and then we guard this. Now it seems to me that the ... the symptom or the syndrome is that if we now involve ourselves in this we are going to neglect, quote, the preaching of the Word. And I think this is a very real fear...

[ Peacock ] Yes.

[ Mumford ] ... a very real hurdle, a very real obstacle, if you will, to many men who would want to do that, but are afraid to ... to be involved in these other realms would take them away from being a careful, you know, honest and... and with integrity preaching of the Word.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Back in the 50s when I first gave a series of lectures on the need of Christian schools, the necessity of starting them. A minister jumped up to interrupt me to say this would destroy the church and deflect them from...

[ Peacock ] Right.

[ Rushdoony ] ... the ministry of saving souls.

[ Mumford ] That is the issue.

[ Rushdoony ] And that is the kind of reaction that for about 20 years was quite common. Now you don’t hear it any more.

I am going to throw in something that if Otto were here he would say because he has often said it. He has pointed out that in the early part of the Middle Ages when there was the great enthusiasm for cathedral building and for building some of the great Benedictine churches, it was at that time when a relatively small congregation or parish or community of not too many thousand would put up buildings that we can’t imagine, say, Los Angeles erecting today. And it was because the Church was such a total ministry, healing. The hospitals were all a part of the ministry of the Church. It had something to say about man’s economic life. It provided a place for the poor. It took care of all the charity in the community. It took care of travelers. It was the good Samaritan to all who came and went. In 101 ways it was a ministry. And, as a result, it was so necessary that people were ready to go and work long hours every week to make sure that the Church was built. It was because it was a necessity for their life, it ministered to every aspect of their lives. And we have to recapture that vision and develop it further. And I think we are going to in the days ahead. I see it coming already.

[ Peacock ] You are talking about authentic Christianity. You are talking about people. I don’t want to sound preachy, but one of the things that is fire in my bones is I think much of the gospel in the West or certainly in the United States is fundamentally flawed in the way that it is preached in as much as it preaches to the self interest of humanity. We present Jesus as coming down to die for us and tried to save us. And, of course, I believe in all of that. I have got no unorthodox convictions about that. But man is not the center of God’s eye. The Bible doesn’t teach that. That is a humanistic thought and it permeates modern Christianity.

The center of God’s eye is Jesus Christ. And Paul went at great lengths in the book of Colossians to show that in Christ all things are preeminent and summed up. And until we preach the preeminence of Christ we are going not have a kind of Christianity where man’s comfort is the main event of what he looks to God for. And you are not going to have the kind of workers that we saw in those days that you just alluded to until we see that the Church is a place worthy of expending our energy for people other than ourselves. That is the great problem American churchianity is that we have got a self centered gospel instead of a Christ centered gospel.

[ Mumford ] Well, this didn’t happen accidentally. You know, what are the events that separated what I would call evangelical Christianity? That is my basic background is evangelical Christianity. How did it get so separated from the ... it seems like ... now I am speaking simply from my background. I am not there now philosophically nor am I there theologically, but my journey has been to find how did I get separated so far from involvement in life as being an evangelical? How did I get so separated from involvement in life?

[ Rushdoony ] I think it was because about 1660 the Church began to withdraw from the world and to say that our ministry is to the inner man, not to the whole world and they began to surrender the crown rights of Christ. I think the Lord now is working a great restoration, preparing his Church to conquer all things as Humanism begins to fall apart. I know that in the late 70s it was a very marvelous week for me when I had two telephone calls from people I had never heard of and I don’t remember their names now. But they called and it was with some difficulty that they had located my whereabouts.

They called because they said they had been accused of being my followers and they had never heard of me. What had led to that? Well, they were taking the whole of what the Bible very literally and seriously and applying it and feeling a duty to go out and conquer everything for Christ.

Well, that was one of the high moments for me, because what it told me was that the Holy Spirit was at work and if he is working in two people like that, he is working all over the world to arouse people, to bring them back to his Word, to read it with different eyes so that they see what was intended there.

I have this little sheet of paper here. A very wonderful man, a Catholic priest who has been by here to Vallecito. I have seen him twice. And the same kind of leading of the Spirit brought him to me because he found he was being led in the same paths. And this was an insert in his bulletin for this past Christmas and he sent it to me feeling that I would enjoy it. And it is titled, “My Christmas Wish.” And I will just read two lines. “I wish for the restoration of all things in Christ, a world free from sin, a world in which God is enthroned, rather than man.”

[ Peacock ] Praise be.

[ Rushdoony ] Now that is marvelous. And that is happening all over the world so that the Lord is preparing people for a mighty action in the days ahead.

[ Peacock ] Amen.

[ Mumford ] You should tell our readers about the group that you met that had never heard of Dr. Rushdoony as well.

[ Peacock ] Oh, this is from ... we had a meeting in Washington, DC recently, Rush. And it was with some major church leaders in some of the realms that we... we are involved in. And these are men that had churches of six, seven, 8000 believers every Sunday. These were, you know, large churches. And they have been preaching Christian reconstruction from their perspective and preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and they have never heard of your books. And ... or in some of the other major Christian Reconstructionist. So we were just aghast because we said, “How in the world could they have been preaching these things and, you know, involvement in the holistic society and not have been exposed to your literature.”

So they asked me, “Has he written any books?” At which point I said, “You know, if you spent the rest of your life reading you wouldn’t get through all of them.”

So we are excited to be here with you and to be able to take some of your reading materials back. And it is going to go into a network of, you know, 100,000 believers in this country who are already primed by the Spirit of God for Christian reconstruction and who, as your... your literature and your research comes into their hands, you can expect that the army is going to be greatly strengthened.

[ Mumford ] The... I... I think some time in word pictures. And one of the things I saw, I think I saw, was that for some time I always saw truth coming like through a spigot. It sort of like in this man or another man or a certain place at a time of a visitation or something that the Lord was restoring. And what Rush was saying about these phone calls, I think it is worth making a very, very clear point on. It seems to me that the concept of Reconstruction and the ... the authority of Christ in every realm of life is not coming through a spigot right now, but rather it is coming like rain. It is like the rain of the Holy Spirit. Every nation, every place where I have been, every situation. I went to a group of ministers which I no more expected to hear any of these things and I ... I... I honestly went with some reluctance, because is thought, oh, well, you know, sometimes you feel like you would be better off if you stayed home.

And so I went with reluctance and the first speaker stood up and ... and opened his concept of what the Lord had showed him about his city and he laid out one, two, three, four, five, the most marvelous insight of what the ... what the Holy Spirit had been showing him. Now I am confident that he had been touched and influenced by many things, but there is a rain, there is a rain of the Holy Spirit that is coming over the whole body of Christ, speaking to us about the triumph of Jesus Christ in the time space world.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, I believe that the next couple of decades are going to be the most dramatic in the world history for two reasons. One, we are going to see the fearful, the ugly, the horrifying collapse of the present world order. It isn’t going to be pleasant to live through. But at the same time we are going to see the emergence of Christ’s people as a force as never before in history.

[ Peacock ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] And I think the Humanists are already fearful. A year or two ago I recall the hope expressed by one writer when he was surveying the evangelical reawakening and its impact on the political scene. And he commented that even as the hippies had come and gone, so, too, would this evangelical resurgence come and go.

[ Peacock ] He wishes.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Peacock ] He wishes.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes, he wishes. I think he is going to be surprised at what is developing.

[ Peacock ] He ain't seen nothing yet.

[ Rushdoony ] No. Not if you have anything to do about it, nor I, nor Bob.

[ Peacock ] I was in a convention in... in a... another country here a couple of years ago and just picking up on that. And it was closed with a song that a brother had written called, “We are going to win.” And we sang that song probably half a dozen times. It was a rather large convention and the faith that swept through that people. People began to weep as they were being healed of their own pessimism and unbelief. And about the fourth time we sang we are going to win, I mean, you could feel a release in God in those people and that is what we are seeing everywhere.

Rush, you and I were at a meeting here not too long ago in Canada.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Peacock ] Where we saw people with standing ovations and shouting and clapping because as Bob pointed out their expectations are being challenged and they are being hit by faith. They are beginning to actually believe that Christ is the victor.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Peacock ] And that Christ has all power on heaven and on earth. And we... we... we have said that in our sermons. We have said it in our creeds. But now our hearts are beginning to resonate with that sound.

[ Mumford ] The note of ... of victory must never turn to triumphalism.

[ Peacock ] Yes.

[ Mumford ] There is a triumphalism which is neither biblical nor is it right. And I am always cautious to, you know, for our listener and others who hear us that while we are trying to compensate for the tremendous negativism and the whole teaching on apostasy and you can’t polish brass on the Titanic and all such things. And I was raised on them. Presently my own heart reaches out to men who are trying to find their way out of that by saying to them very clearly, as ... as Rush said just a moment ago. There is coming a fearful and I think a most cataclysmic implosion of a humanistic society. So when we talk of ... of a victorious eschatology, I think it is important for everyone to hear that there is not some emotional or even some triumiphalistic kind of mentality at this table nor is there among the Reconstructionist that I know, that there is a very sober measured, calculating putting myself into the ... the events and the philosophy and the history of what is happening by virtue of the fact that my confidence is not in me and who I am or in this, you know, in some immediacy, but in a long term triumph of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[ Rushdoony ] We have about four minutes left. Is there something you would like to say briefly, Dennis and Bob? Let’s start with you, Dennis.

[ Peacock ] Well I would just like to encourage those that have listened to us here in this conversation to really pray because prayer is what really is going to release and break loose the faith in God’s people. We have to, using your phrase, we have to a have a new way to read the Bible. We need a new set of eyes by which we understand Scripture and that comes by faith. And I would just like to encourage all of us—and I know that the Lord is encouraging me to pray more and pray more diligently for the release of faith in God’s Word, in God’s people.

[ Mumford ] Well, my summary would simply be that ... that we would seek the Lord for a new expectancy. I see a difference between expectancy and faith. I can believe a thing and not expect it.

[ Peacock ] Yes.

[ Mumford ] I would like for us to begin to expect God to give us answers in political and economic realms.

[ Peacock ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] I... I... I am very grateful to you for your stress on expectancy. When I was a boy on the farm the old expression—I can’t remember it exactly—but the gist of it was this. It was wrong to go to a prayer meeting praying for rain, unless you carried an umbrella with you.

[ Peacock ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] Expectancy. And farmers—and it was a farming community—knew what that meant. They didn't just pray and... as a wish. You prayed to a God who hears and answers. And so you went to the prayer meeting with an umbrella.

Well, I think we had better have that kind of praying... praying...

[ Peacock ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] ... with expectancy. Our time is up. We are very happy to have been able to share our thinking with you. And we pray that you, day by day, will live in terms of this expectancy that Christ is the victory and we share in his victory as well as in the work that he has set out for the Church to do.

God bless you all.

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