Miscellaneous

Understanding Our Crisis (part 1)

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels, and Sermons

Lesson: 1-2

Genre: Talk

Track: 1

Dictation Name: RR331A1

Location/Venue:

Year: 1985

[Audience Leader] American for Christian self government, and he has been that (?) for a few years, and it has been really exciting to see the Christian community first warm up and then change. When Marshall first started, a lot of people thought that it was utterly ridiculous that you could combine being a Christian and being a citizen. I know when I first heard Marshall I was sort of skeptical also. But the principles that Marshall teaches which are from God’s word are true, and it has really come alive in my life in the last couple of weeks, and I am really excited today, and I know you will be too after hearing Marshall Foster. Marshall?

[Marshall Foster] I chose Scott to do that because no one argues with Scott, and when he says somebody is good then you know he must be good, and if he is not you just kind of quietly move away- (laughter)

I too want to greet you in the name of the Lord, and I hope that you come with an expectant spirit, believing that God is going to teach you and I something very specific and applicable in our lives as we face the crisis of a world aflame. And I know I come with this burden, this sense of urgency, and I hope that we will leave with more than just a burden, we will leave with specific strategies that we can employ to once again turn our nation back to the Lord Jesus Christ.

I would like to spend just a few minutes explaining what our foundation is and what is the purpose of the seminar before I introduce Dr. Rushdoony. Our foundation, The Foundation for Christian Self Government, that is the title that I gave to it three years ago when I started the foundation, and most of my friends shook their head and scratched their head, and called me on the phone and said: “Foundation for what? What is your purpose? When did you leave the ministry?” One of my friends asked me: “We knew you used to love the Lord and witness, but now you are into government, what do you do? Do you give Bibles to Congressmen or what do you do?”

Now I have had to explain what the term ‘foundation for Christian self government means’ and I might just share that with you briefly. America was founded upon a Biblically based form of government. That form of government was Christian self government, which resulted in the Federal Republic which has allowed the greatest amount of freedom and the spread of the gospel that the world has ever known; and it is based upon the premise that men could be dependent upon God and not need a dictator or a king to rule over them, which was God’s initial purpose from the beginning of creation and even after the fall, He desired men to be self governing under His authority, and for government to have external government, to have limited authority, simply to punish evil doers and to promote righteousness. But because men fell away, and you will learn more about this today as we study history, Christian self government went on the wane, and state totalitarianism began to rule the world, and as men became less self governing by the power of God in their lives they desired, and God, more external government controlling every aspect of their life.

But in America, we see a reversal of that, or we did see a reversal of that 300 years ago, where the American people chose to bow to the sovereignty of God, in general and in mass, and as a result there was no need to have a dictator to rule over them and there was a limited government, and it allowed the freedom and the equality and the opportunity to spread the gospel, the opportunity to spread Christ’s dominion and Lordship to the entire world.

So the term ‘Foundation for Christian Self Government’ is there because we desire to spread the truth of Christ’s Lordship and His kingdom throughout this entire world, and we desire for this form of self government to be restored to our nation. If America is to turn back, it’s not going to happen through a giant program or a group of Christians who get together to say: “Let’s all go out and fight abortion and that is going to be the answer.” It is not going to be just the external issue oriented movement that are going to change our land, it’s going to have to happen as Russ Walton says in his book it is going to have to be an inside job, it has to start with we as individual Christians as we turn back and become self governing before God, know what to do and then move out and do it.

So the purpose of this seminar specifically today is perhaps three fold: first, our purpose is to restore, begin to restore our nation to its Christians moorings. This is not an attempt to Americanize Christianity. I got that too when I first went into this work, I had people practically offering me flags and saying: “Why don’t you wrap yourself in the flag, aren’t you just involved in a hyper conservative movement to kill all the Communists, isn’t that your goal?” and of course I said: “No that is not my goal. Our goal is to turn America back to God.” and when I deal with the issue of America and American Christians, you will always notice that I say ‘American Christian’ not ‘Christian American’. I think it is a mistake many time that many Christian Conservatives make when they use the term ‘Christian American’ because then they are using an adjective, ‘Christian’ to describe American, it should be the other way around; we are Americans, but we are American Christians, and Christ is predominate. We have two citizenships, but Christ’s rule is predominant in our lives.

Secondly, we want to lay a foundation of principles that will lead you to further study. The booklet that you have there is a self study guide that can be used in Bible study, it can be used in Sunday School classes, it can be used specifically in your own personal study, and I would encourage you that today you are going to be receiving material and foundational principles that will, if you are willing to take the time and study, will give you a foundation for really rediscovering not only our history, but our future in America, and what we can do about it.

This is not- we are not going to use the Pavlovian teaching method which stimulates a response, we are not going to give you the answers to all the issues and tell you as you march out of here that: “If you will just stand for these five things and kill these people that America will be changed.” Now that is stating it in extreme, but this is again what many people in America today want, they want someone to dictate to them, to tell them exactly how they should respond to every issue, whereas in reality if we know the basic principles of God’s word that underlie our nation and the foundations for our nation, then it is up to the individual to believe and obey God based on those principles, and when the issues come you will be able to respond to them in the right way. So we will be using more of a principled approach to education, which I believe is much more Biblical, researching the scriptures first, and then relating that research and the historical research to the specific issues of the day, and then will make the applications. You see the difference?

Have you ever gotten into a religious discussion with people about, oh Communism or free enterprise, or anything else; and if you get off on the issue specifically of inflation or some other issue, and if the issue comes first no one will ever agree to anything, everybody just throws out their off-the-cuff opinions, and nobody comes to a Biblical consensus. So to avoid that we will deal with principles first.

Third, we will leave here with a strategy. Wayne Johnson will be here a little bit later, and Wayne will be sharing with us in the afternoon a specific political strategy; in this critical hour in which we live we need to be zeroing in on this very important area of how Christians can influence and be involved in their government. And then we will be closing the afternoon specifically with a panel discussion where we can get involved in interaction as to how we can change our land.

Let me give you a couple other preview items: one, David Gray is over here on my left, a fellow that I went to school with fourteen years ago when we both had just become Christians and hadn’t seen each other in all that time, he calls me on the phone a couple weeks ago and says: “Marshall Foster, you’re kidding me! I have been taping with Reverend Rushdoony for 7-8 years, been involved in this movement, when did you come alive?” and so we talk, and he has got a tape ministry of his own, and each of you will receive- if you haven’t you can pick one up here at the front- a tape, a preview of the various tapes you can receive of the seven lectures today, I think they are three dollars apiece or 18 dollars for the entire series, and you pick them up right after each lecture. So I think that is a good deal and I encourage you to take advantage of that.

Also, there is a book table with Reverend Rushdoony’s books and materials there at the first table, and then another book table with some further Reformational books that we have from the bookstore I would encourage you not to mix, please do not mix the two tables up, because the bookstore is expecting so many books back, and if we mix them up we will be in trouble so... buy from one or the other. Okay.

Well, without further ado then let me introduce Reverend Rushdoony, who is going to present the first lecture of our time together, specifically dealing with the crisis that we face in our country. I might say this as I am introducing him, he is a gentlemen that I greatly admire and respect, who has been writing, studying, working and praying in the area of Christian Reconstruction for many years, certainly more years than I have been a Christian, and I believe is the finest living scholar in America on this specific subject of how God’s sovereignty in all of life can be established. And I believe that it is without hesitation that Reverend Rushdoony in many ways takes off where Francis Schaeffer leaves off, in specifically relating Christianity to our life and existence here on earth today. He has a tremendous educational background which you have already read about in your brochure, many of you are already familiar with Reverend Rushdoony as author of at least 23 books, lectures and speeches throughout the country in favor of the Christian school movement and Christian law and society. So without further ado let men just introduce Reverend Rushdoony for our first lecture. (applause)

[Rushdoony] During the past year the Internal Revenue Service has launched an attack on Christian schools and churches. The most recent expression of that was issued in May, May 14th an IRS publication, 557. In effect what this publication does is not only to strike at every Christian school, but even more, every Christian church which is a non National Council and Independent Protestant group. In effect, all such churches now are illegal. This does not mean that tomorrow they will be abolished; what it does mean is that progressively, one by one, the IRS proposes to pick off these groups and declare them illegal. An independent church will not qualify in terms of the 14 points in the new directory; it will not have a religious history going back generations, it will not have a seminary, it will not have a distinct literature of its own because it is newly come into existence, it will be an illegal organization.

Even more, all the Catholic, National Council and Jewish groups will be implicitly potentially illegal, because the IRS having said it will grant them on certain grounds a legal status, can on its own initiative withdraw that status. The situation is so serious that in the June 1979 Cornerstone publication of the Foundation of Law and Society in Washington D.C. we are told that a number of Christians within the IRS are seriously coming to the conclusion that they must in the very near future resign and leave the service, because they cannot engage in a war against Jesus Christ. And this war is carried on as the Cornerstone publication says, by the Carter administration. The first sentence of the article New Attack on Churches reads: “The Carter administration has intensified its attack on Independent Christian churches, once again using its tax collector as the vanguard.

We see today anti Christianity taking over the country under the pretext of having been born again, and using the Christian voter.

But now to go on to another aspect of our crisis. This Wednesday I received a letter which said in part, after describing the fact that we have a very serious recession which is here and will be visible this fall, and I quote: “Carter has run out of tricks. Any rabbit he pulls out of the hat will be assumed to be dead by the public. The military situation is deteriorating very fast. The contacts I have in Washington in the area of military strategy uniformly agree that by 1983 the U.S.S.R. will either become willing to launch a first strike against our missiles, or else threaten it to test our will to resist. We don’t have that will any more. The result of an attack will be the instant imposition of the emergency banking regulation and executive order, 11.9.2.1. The total strangulation of the economy. The attack would give the regulators the excuse they’ve needed to take full control over production, and the public would go along with it, including the conservatives.”

The problems associated with full controls are obvious. The government could then make it very difficult for opposition, religious and educational movements to survive. The public will be rationed their own money back to them, just enough to allow them to get by, but not enough to finance charities. I can see a period in which Christian charities are very hard pressed, except the local ones that are performing vital services, both spiritual and charitable. Localism is very important for continuing income, if an attack should occur.

At the same time I have received from the publisher a copy of General Lewis W. Walt’s newly published book, The Eleventh Hour. Let me just read from the blurb, a portion of the blurb: “The U.S. has fallen so far behind in strategic power that we are inviting a surprise nuclear attack from the Soviets, writes four star Marine General Lewis W. Walt. “We are in imminent peril,” he argues. “now, not in the future. The Soviets are far ahead in virtual every arms category as well as civil defense, and can launch a first strike that will kill half our population while they suffer fewer casualties than they did in WW2.” General Walt pleads for immediate and determined renewal of our strategic power, so that we can restore the credibility of our deterrents. Credibility now being lost, as our leaders reject on after another program.”

Are these overstatements? I talked by phone with a very important public figure who in the past few years has come to a very strong Christian faith, who knows men in high places in civil government, as well as in corporations, and asked for his comment on these two things, the letter and the book. And his comment was: “I have no doubt as to the truth of those statements. My one question would be whether or not any such ultimatum from the U.S.S.R. would be made public, rather it would be kept from us and we would be moved into a virtual one world order, total control progressively over every aspect of life, and merged into world socialism without ever knowing that we faced an ultimatum.” “However,” he said, “There is one way this can be forestalled, and only one.” and he said: “It will come through a Christian reawakening. To a strong commitment to God’s lordship, His sovereignty. And he said: “It calls for a miracle, but I believe it is entirely possible.”

Of course this man has seen such a miracle in his own life of late. And then there is the fact that the Marxists know well it does not take a majority to change the direction of a country. The communists know that all you need to take over and dominate any organization, any institution, or any country, is 1% who are dedicated leaders, and another 9% who will be followers. If another 1% and 9% are at the opposite end of the spectrum, then the takeover cannot take place. We have in this country according to polls 55 million adults who profess to be born again, adults. This does not count children and youth. Now something is wrong, seriously wrong. How can you have 55 million adults out of not much more than 200 million Americans, and the church and Christians so impotent? The least effectual group in the United States. Something is seriously wrong, and I believe for one that we cannot call them born again Christians any more than we can call Carter that, there is simply no way of reconciling being born again with being impotent. It’s a contradiction. To be a Christian is to be born of the Spirit, to be born into power, to be more than conquerors through Him that loves us. So we have a task, to go out to these who are dead and asleep, and to summon them to be awake in Jesus Christ, and to stand only in terms of His word.

But what we face today among professing Christians is a loss of the authority of God’s word. A loss of the authority of Jesus Christ over them. On our way here this morning we saw a car in front of us with a bumper sticker, I don’t recall the exact wording, but it said: “For the best life insurance, Jesus Christ.” Well, now, I don’t believe that is Christian. If you are going to Jesus Christ for life insurance and fire insurance, you’ve gone to the wrong person, because He doesn’t sell insurance. He demands your total surrender to Him, your readiness to say: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”

Do you know that for a time the Puritans in this country had a test question of people who professed to be born again? Now they knew that no one could give the right answer to the question, but they asked it to jar them; these were the followers of Jonathan Edwards after the Great Awakening, and they would ask the prospective church member, the one who had been reached through the Great Awakening, through the various revival services, and it was this: “Are you willing to be damned for the glory of God?”

Now they knew that no one could say: “Yes.” But the point of the question was to jar them, to make them see that they were not coming to the Lord for life insurance or fire insurance, but that Jesus Christ was taking over their lives, and they no longer had any control over their future. Jesus Christ had to have that control.

But do you know, a pastor told me, one of the finest pastors I know, very recently, that he was going to speak on authority, the authority of the word of God. The authority of Jesus Christ. And do you know what was done when he turned in his subject for the next few services to be put in the bulletin? They changed it from ‘authority’ to ‘leadership’. They didn’t like the word ‘authority’. In another part of the country a minister had a similar experience, he wanted to talk about the authority of the Lord over them, and they told him they didn’t like that word, he should talk about fellowship with God and with Christ.

Well, the Bible tells us we have fellowship with the Father through Jesus Christ, but only when we accept His Lordship, only when we bow before Him as absolute Lord; and His word as absolutely and totally binding over us.

In every area of our lives we see a collapse of faith. In prayer for example. When Paul was saved, what was his prayer? “Lord, what wouldst Thou have me to do?” And what is the prayer of most Christians nowadays? “Lord, do something for me, quick!” Quite a difference, isn’t there. Is it any wonder that nothing happens today?

Now I do not mean to say that the Lord does not give to those, and does not ask us to come to Him with all our petitions. But the first thing in prayer must be: “Lord, what wouldst Thou have me to do?” To go to the Lord to be commanded, to go to the Lord’s word to be commanded. You see what we have today is humanism in the church, in the state, in the school, in every area of our lives.

What is humanism? Well, there are two humanist manifestos that have been written here in the United States which are good statements of the case; both of them I believe you can find in Ohio’s Trojan Horse by Allen Grover which is on the book table. However, the first and the basic humanist manifesto you can read in the Bible, Genesis 3:1-5, especially verse 5, where the tempter says: “Ye shall be as Gods, every man his own God, knowing, that is determining for yourself, what constitutes good and evil.” This is the basic humanist manifesto.

Humanism is very much with us in every area of life.

There is another thing, Polytheism; Polytheism is all to present in the churches. Now what is Polytheism? Polytheism is the belief in many Gods, one God for war, another God for justice, another God for love, wherever you go you have a different God. [tape ends, continued in part 2]