Systematic Theology – The State

Epilogue Part 2

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 37

Dictation Name: 37 Epilogue Part 2

Year: 1970’s

In the modern world, the central institution is the state, so much so that people identify government with the state. As we saw some time back, the word “government” involves far more than civil government. It includes, you remember, the self-government of the Christian man. It includes the family, the church, the school, your job, the society you live in, and civil government, one form of government among many.

Very often in history, the civil government, or the state, has been only a minor area of government, and society is usually the stronger for it. In Ancient China, the family system ruled everything, for better or for worse. During the early Middle Ages, and for some time thereafter, the medieval monastery governed more and better then kings and lords. Each little monastery was a small state, from 100-200 monks being there. The serfs were on the estates and they were regarded as a part of the family and preferred to be serfs on monastic lands. Small landowners and villages would place themselves under the monastery, which would provide a hospital, hospitality for all travelers, charity, would lend money, and would provide for a variety of things. This is why there were no beggars, for example, in England, until Henry VIII seized the monasteries. In fact, William Cabot said of Henry VIII’s seizure that it was one of the greatest disasters for the common people of England in their history. The destruction was so savage that Henry VIII’s wreckers even destroyed Hyde Abbey, which was founded by King Alfred, which gives you an idea of how old it was, and smashed the very tomb of King Alfred, because they wanted to destroy the monastic culture.

The state was determined, over the centuries, to be man’s only and essential government. It has been a long battle. The state now is very near gaining its power in one country after another. Last month, when I testified in one trial where two sets of parents were being tried for educating their children at home, in my testimony I called attention to one fact. By state-ordered testing, the children were obviously years ahead. The children also, in areas which were beyond the test, were exceptional, because grade school children of six and eight, as these four were, do not normally learn German and Spanish, and all four were learning both languages, as well as taking violin lessons. All this is a part of their home training, and I called attention to the fact that if the state did have, as it claimed, a legitimate interest in the education of children, it should be content. These children were better educated than most, but their concern was not over education, but control, power over children.

This is the problem, but as a result of this attempt at power, we are seeing a counter-movement. People increasingly restless with this. Certainly they are at present, as they face income tax time. Hardly anyone is happy, the accountant told me today, because it is bad news for everyone, but what we are witnessing thus is a battle in which power is the goal.

The historian, Ozment, says that the Middle Ages was not an area of church domination, but of a defensive battle by the church, which had to fight first against Rome, and then against the medieval monarchs and emperors. It sometimes won the battles, but lost the war, Ozment said. With the Reformation, there was a theological advance, but by and large, in one are after another, there were losses. Calvinism alone, for any length of time, fought against the power of statism. Meanwhile, as a result of the rise of the modern state, many things that had been vital to Christian action began to disappear. Tithing, which was once normal, for a time, was almost unknown. Charitable work also was severely curtailed for some generations. Moreover, because of the drift away from the faith, both the Catholic and Protestant clergies became increasingly impoverished.

Puritanism revived the confrontation within a limited sphere, England in the main. It produced a far more dramatic, moral reformation than people realize. Richard Baxter, who was not entirely in line with the main body of Puritans, nevertheless wrote, in his old age, that during fifty-six years of close contact with the Puritans, he knew of only one case of fornication in any of the Puritan congregations. The offender was disciplined, but years later, he had not yet been restored to full fellowship. American Puritanism was never as strong as English Puritanism. There were a number of reasons for this, but one was the fact that American Puritanism was diluted every year by the flood of new migrants coming from Great Britain to join the Colonists, and after the early years, these men were coming over more for economic motivations than for religious reasons.

As a result, the Puritan movement in this country had to face very serious roadblocks. On top of that, they were trying also to identify citizenship and church membership, as well as to require compulsory church attendance. As a result, they had, within the ranks of the church, great numbers of people who had virtually no interest in it, and when the opportunity came, turned Unitarian and took all the congregations away from the Puritans.

With the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment, there was freedom. There was a great deal of dropping away from the church by these people who had no real interest in the faith, but the beginning of an aggressive missionary activity to convert the unconverted within the American community. There has been, of course, in this century, a major conflict that has developed as a result of the rise of fundamentalism, and the rise of modernism. Fundamentalism, which began about the beginning of this century, or the 1890’s, but actually took wings after 1910, by which time the series of books, The Fundamentals, had been published. Up until about 1950, you have large numbers of fundamentalist churches established throughout the country. After World War 2, these churches began to branch out into a variety of activities. They began to establish Christian schools and other institutions.

Meanwhile also, the intellectual foundations of the faith were being laid down by some men, such as Van Til, and such as the work we are doing here. The modern state, all the while, was gaining in power but decreasing in its power to govern. We have less government in the country today than we had fifty years ago, but more power and control. The ordinary aspects of government, providing law and order, are collapsing, providing a good education, something they no longer can do, but their ability to control has increased. The state today is less and less a governing power, and more and more a taxing power. In fact, it exists primarily to tax, and to use the taxation as a means of control the world over. We have the irony today of the fact that nations are borrowing from us and refusing to repay, and we are giving them the interest money to repay us, and taxing our people, at the same time foreclosing on our farmers. If you’re a foreign country, you can refuse to pay, but not if you’re an American citizen. The modern state is sick and dying, but meanwhile, it continues to tax and to grow in its control.

But this should not surprise us, because, as Bozenket{?} wrote, early in the century and in the last years of the last century, “The nation state as an ethical idea is a faith of a purpose, or a purpose, we might say a mission were not the word too narrow and too aggressive. The modern nation is a history and a religion rather than a clear-cut idea.” Now, that states it very clearly. The modern state feels that it is the missionary organization in the world. Hence, the massive foreign aid program that we embark on, and that Britain does, and that the Soviet Union does, and all countries. Moreover, it sees itself as a religion, the religion.

Another scholar, Henry A. Mess{?} has said, “It is the distinguishing mark of a state that there is no authority external and superior to itself.” Now, consider the implications of this. When you have the state saying there is no greater power than ourselves, no God above us, and the state is the educator in the modern world, the net result is that those whom the state educates, even though they may say they believe in the God and think that they do, and may in some fashion, nonetheless, they are so schooled that in their every day practical thinking, they see no power above and beyond themselves. They have imbibed the thinking that the state embodies, that it is its own god, and therefore, most people never bother, as they face the decisions in their private life, in their business life, what does God say about this? What am I required to do in this situation? Can I legitimately do that which I have started to do? Only after they get into trouble do they reflect upon some of the moral aspects of what they have done. This is a product of a new religion of humanism, or statism.

The result is the world is in a serious crisis. This crisis will only increase, because until there is a restoration of man in Christ, you’re going to deal with men who are fallen, and who can only help create a state that reflects their own sin and their depravity. Meanwhile, the church involves itself so much in futility, in absurdities, and trifles. We forget that a year ago, the major controversy on the religious scene was over the fact that Reagan had appointed a personal representative to the Vatican, as a kind of unofficial ambassador. For about five or six months, Protestant periodicals were filled with articles and editorials opposing this and Catholics just as vigorously defending it. None of them bothered to deal with the real issue. First of all, it was an election year. It was a step made for political reasons. Reagan wanted the Catholic vote, which normally tends to be Democratic.

One writer, Dr. Kliney Hall, writing in the fundamentalist journal said, “Why should the government give preferential treatment to any one religious group? Whether it be the Roman Catholic Church, Russian Orthodox Church, Southern Baptist Convention, National Council of Churches, or the temple of Hari Krishna in West Virginia?” Now, this seems like a very logical question. But stop and think for a moment. What can an ambassador to the Vatican do? Or what if President Reagan appointed an ambassador to the Southern Baptist Convention, would it do? It can only work harm to either group. For that matter, the White house in effect has a personal representative to the churches. In particular, the fundamentalist churches. There is an unofficial fundamentalist cabinet that meets periodically in the White House, especially near election time. These are prominent churchmen who are called in as though their counsel is sought. The main thing is to flatter them. The main thing in the representative in the Vatican is to make the Vatican feel happy and flattered, but as far as a two-way street, no. The traffic is one way. The flattery is to encourage the idea that this is to exchange ideas and come to a common meeting of minds, but this is hardly the case.

In any association between two powers, the greater power will always exploit the weaker power. It’s been that way from the dawn of time. Has the federal government suddenly become amazingly altruistic that it’s going to listen to the pope, or the cabinet of fundamentalist ministers who are called in occasionally and flattered? Not at all. The idea’s a public relations ploy, a means of controlling people. We had a whole series of presidents from the fifties, well into the seventies, who had Billy Graham into the White House regularly. Did any of them ever listen to him? Assuming that Billy Graham has something to say. Did any of them ever become more moral because of his presence? Hardly. We saw some of the greatest corruption in all American history during those years. What was the purpose of his coming there? Public relations. The greater power always exploits the weaker, and hence, all this attempt by so many presidents to establish relations with the churches. Humanly speaking, the United States is the far greater power than the churches, and it will concede nothing to the Christian churches unless it is forced to do so. The fact is since about 1860, we have seen a steady encroachment by the federal government into the domain of religious freedom.

Abraham Lincoln, in order to control the border states, in particular, Kentucky and Tennessee, had the Supreme Court rule that the property of a church belonged to the denomination. Now, this was not the law previously. As a matter of fact, it had not been allowed even for Catholic churches where, by law, Catholic law, that churches are the property of the bishop. He holds them as a corporation sole. Up until that time, it meant that any Catholic church who disliked the bishop’s rulings could break away and be independent, and some are doing so. However, after Lincoln’s measure, it became a matter of law, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, that the denomination controlled the local church, even though the denomination may not have put a nickel into it. Even though the local congregation built the church out of their own giving, and that has been the law ever since.

In recent years, the only way exemption from that has been gained has been for a denomination to write into its constitution the fact that title to local churches will belong to local churches. That was just the beginning. Step by step, Supreme Court decisions and acts of Congress have whittled away at the freedom of the church. Especially since World War 2, this has been increasingly the case.

Moreover, the internal corruption of the churches in recent years has aided this. We saw, last year, the scandal associated with the Vatican bank, one of the most fearful banking scandals in world’s history and one which toppled a few banks in this country as well, big banks. We see modernism rampant in all churches, and a growing indifference to the requirements of the faith.

At the same time, however, we see the reviving strength of many churches, the growth of Christian schools, the growth of all kinds of Christian agencies ministering to delinquency, to the elderly, to the needy, and so on. We see arbitration courts dealing with civil matters between Christians, a growing Christian awareness of the responsibility of governing.

As a result, there is a tremendous strength appearing in the Christian community, a revival of the Christian family, and for the first time in two or three centuries, really, a great measure of hope that Christianity will again become strong and dominant, and create its own culture. This will not come without a major battle. We are in the midst of that battle, but the issues now are becoming increasingly apparent. One of the things that’s obvious in these trials is that new people are arising on all sides to resist and to say, “My children belong to God, not to the state.” They take a great deal of opposition.

The trial that I was in a couple weeks or so ago, one of the parents was an ophthalmologist, an eye surgeon. He had spent some years building up a very successful practice, but he made it clear that if he were convicted, he would not surrender. He would move into another state and start again from scratch rather than to allow the state to control what he did with his children. This is not an isolated case. There are great numbers of such cases all over the country.

Moreover, we are seeing now the growth of a network of peoples. There will be, some time this month, in the Midwest or South, a major convention of homeschoolers. When you realize that two years ago, when the California Superintendent of Public Instruction attempted to control homeschools, he found out almost overnight that there were apparently over 100,000 such schools, which meant over 200,000 parents who would be voting against him come next election. He changed his tune very quickly and blamed the action on one of his subordinates, and said he had known nothing about it. Their number is growing. The significance of this is enormous, because what it means is that it is the people themselves who are now becoming bearers of the faith, Christophers, to use the terminology of the Catholic Church with regard to a mythical saint. St. Christopher was a Christ-bearer, and these parents, these families, are becoming Christ-bearers. This creates a problem for the state. It’s one thing to control an institution, but when there are millions of families out there, what can you do? It’s hard to deal with them because you’re not dealing with something you can control.

During World War 2, as I indicated, the dictatorships pushed for the control of all churches by requiring them to unite. All the Protestants in one church, the Catholics then in one church, so there would be two buttons to push to control all churches, but what are you going to do with so many parents? In Washington D.C., about five weeks ago, in a discussion, one lawyer said with regard to homeschools in the country that because it was so disorganized, nobody in Washington knew how many there were, and all kinds of numbers were bandied about, from three million to ten million, and the figures were distressing to them. The fact that they did not know what it was was even more distressing, because you like to know how many people there are shooting at you, but this is a significant fact. It is no longer a battle in which a handful of bishops, as in some times in the past, or a handful of reformers, as sometimes in the past, or a few theologians, as sometimes in the past, are standing up and saying, “Thus saith the Lord,” or “Here I stand and I can do no other.” It is millions of men and women, and this presents a problem.

It also is upsetting to judges. They find it very much easier to convict a minister than a mother. It makes them look like a villain. We are in a battle. The significant part is that the front is no longer localized. It is spreading like wildfire, all over the country, and all over the world. We live in great and exciting times, not easy times, but exciting times, because we are now coming to grips with issues that didn’t exist in our parents’ time, because they did not see them, but now these issues are being seen, and the results are marvelous. The battle is the Lord’s, and the victory shall be the Lord’s.

Are there any questions now? Yes?

[Audience] During the days of Watergate with Nixon, when Graham would go to the White House, he was like a puppet. He never went there with issues. He was for appearance sake, and I think today, when Falwell and Kennedy go there, in fact, I think it’s backbite on the government, they go with real issues, and thank God, this brings attention to the people, and I think this helps a lot.

[Rushdoony] Yes, a very good point. Very good. You’re absolutely right. Graham never went there on issues, but the men who are going there are going on issues. They’re being flattered. They’re being told, “We’re giving serious consideration,” although they’re not given serious consideration, but at least the issues are being raised, and some very real muscles are being flexed. All the recent studies have indicated that the victory was due to the evangelicals far more than people were ready to say in the month or so after last November’s election. They’ve chosen to disregard us since then. After all, it’s awhile till the next election, so they are forgetting about us.

[Audience] It encourages Christians.

[Rushdoony] Well, what is happening is that Christians are mobilizing now for the next election, and they’re not going to allow themselves to be taken as they have been. They mean business. Yes?

[Audience] You made a statement earlier that British Puritanism was stronger than American Puritanism. Now, do you mean in terms of the congregation or the theologians, or, I’m not quite sure I understand?

[Rushdoony] The churches of the British Puritans represented moral strength and purity such as the history of the church has rarely seen. I cited the witness of Richard Baxter to the moral character of the church. The American churches didn’t have that, because they were flooded with people who had to come to church because of the rules and the colonies, but had only come to this country for commercial reasons. This diluted their strength quite a bit. Now, the American Puritans had some remarkable leaders. So had all things been equal they could have been as strong and stronger than the English Puritans, but they did have this problem in their midst.

[Audience] Do you have an idea of what percentage of English population was Puritan at that time?

[Rushdoony] Very good question. I believe it was about 4%. The 4% who practiced their faith without any equivocation were able to take the country. Most people are followers, and where there is a dominant force working, they’ll go along with it. Yes?

[Audience] On the homeschool movement, I understand that that is not strictly a Christian movement, and that there are many parents who are not Christians who are involved in it, who are simply fed up with the government education. So, if that’s true, I’d be curious to know what the percentage is, and secondarily, if it is true, it would seem that we have aligned ourselves, maybe inadvertently, with strange bedfellows, to our benefit.

[Rushdoony] There are some of the homeschoolers who are not Christian. They’re simply disgusted with public education. As a rough guess, which I think has a reasonable resemblance to the truth, I would say as of two years ago, here in California, a good 100,000 were Christian homeschools, Catholic and Protestant, and maybe 10,000 besides that were non-Christian. Yes?

[Audience] I was wondering, from a Christian perspective, is the homeschool simply an answer to public education, which is failing, or for instance, in a Christian society you’re going back to when there were Christians schools in this country. Were there Christians who preferred to educate their children at home. Is this a truly outlook?

[Rushdoony] Yes, it is, and Samuel Blumenfeld, one of our staff members, in his most recent book, has called attention to how many of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution were products of homeschools, a very large number. So, it is a thoroughly Christian thing, because the parents are the basic teachers, even if they go to a Christian school, they’re still the basic teachers, and the home sets the patterns for the child. So that the child reproduces the patterns when he leaves the home to go to another school. The best teaching is done at home. Yes, David?

[Audience] Yes, along with these 3 to 10 million homeschools in America, that’s not counting the Christian schools that not home schools.

[Rushdoony] No, it does not count them.

[Audience] So the number of being having a Christian education is even in excess of that?

[Rushdoony] Any? John?

[Audience] In some of the historical overviews that I’ve done, I’ve noticed that ages of reformation, reconstruction, restoration, things of that nature, are usually initiated by men who seek to go back and define the basic categories of thought. Like we talk about the seven branches of government. One of the things I haven’t seen in a lot of recent Christian thought outside of Chalcedon and a couple others is people actually sitting down and dealing with the biblical definition of the nature and purpose of civil government. I don’t think there are too many Christians around who can give you in one sentence or less what the biblical definition of the nature and purpose of civil government is, and I think that’s one of the reasons why they don’t recognize the excesses of the present system of civil government, because they don’t know what it’s supposed to be, as the Bible says so.

[Rushdoony] You have to know what you’re fighting for to be able to fight well. Dorothy and I, some years ago, and our time is almost over, had the privilege of knowing a very remarkable man, whom I had the privilege of baptizing. He was a retired Army colonel who went into the Army at the age of 14, he was large for his age, in order to help support his widowed mother, and younger brothers and sisters, and rose up, in those days you could, from the ranks to become an officer, was involved in the Spanish American War in the Philippines, fought against Poncho Villa in Mexico, fought in World War 1 and trained troops in World War 2. So he had a remarkable experience, and he said about the purpose of Army drill. He said in the old days when we had a smaller Army and the officers were closer to the men, the whole point of drill was to drill men endlessly, endlessly, so that they could do everything they had to do in any situation without a second thought. Automatically it would come to them, and they would know how to act in any battle situation, instinctively, because it had all been drilled into them so much, they didn’t have to stop to think. They reacted automatically, and he said, “Then, you have a good soldier.” Well, you have a good Christian who doesn’t have to stop and think, “Now, what does the Bible say? Where am I going to find my instructions, or guidelines for this?” They know the rulebook, the Bible. Everything they do comes automatically to them, because it’s a part of them. Then, they’re strong.

Well, our time is up. Let us bow our heads now in prayer.

Our Lord and our God, it has been good for us to be here. We give thanks unto thee that thou art on the throne, that thy purpose shall prevail, and that thou art in our time working a great work to confound the powers of humanistic statism. Give us patience with thy timing. Make us mindful that thy ways are not our ways, and thy thoughts not our thoughts, but thy ways is the perfect way. Give us traveling mercies now as we journey homeward. Bless us in our activities on the morrow, and make us strong and joyful in thee.

And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this night and always. Amen.

End of tape