Easy Chair Series

Interview with Rev. John Weaver

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 88-91

Genre:

Track:

Dictation Name: EC396

Year: 1986

This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 396, October the eighth, 1997.

This evening Andrew Sandlin and Douglas Murray cannot be with us, but Mark Rushdoony and I will be chatting with John Weaver. Pastor John Weaver has a very interesting background, a Georgian. He has been in work at the ... on the staff of a Christian college as a pastor, as an evangelist, as a Christian educator having done some remarkable work with Christian schools and is a man with a varied background and experience, a dyed in the wool southerner, but with remarkable energy so that if you associate being southern with being easy going and slow talking, that is not John Weaver. He is a powerhouse.

John, it is a pleasure to have you with us.

[Weaver] Thank you. It is a joy to be here.

[Rushdoony] You have had in recent years a great many trips back and forth across country in all parts of the United States in churches great and small I think it will be interesting to hear from you about what is happening in the Church.

Now, most people, if I may make a few remarks to begin with, look at the past with rose colored glasses and they assume that all was well because things were quieter, say, before World War II, which is true. But that did not mean we had strong churches. It meant that we were coasting on our Christian past.

[Weaver] Yes.

[Rushdoony] And we lived off our Christian capital for two or three generations and after the war very quickly it became apparent that we had exhausted that Christian caliber and character and capital.

Well, the important question now is: Is there awakening? Are we moving towards the greatest awakening or are we headed straight down into hell?

John, what is your general reaction to that?

[Weaver] Well, I believe, my brother, that first of all there is awakening across the country. I am encouraged greatly by it simply because there is not only an awareness of the multitudinous problems that we have, but people are, indeed, crying for answers and once they see that the Word of God has the answer, they are greatly encouraged and certainly it gives them a great deal of hope and I could give illustration after illustration of people just being ... just literally overwhelmed with the fact that God’s Word is, indeed, the answer. And we have been away from it for so long and now there are a number of pastors that are really returning to the Word and being real expositors and beginning to show the connection between the true faith and action. And it is creating quite a stir across the country.

[Rushdoony] Don’t hesitate to take as long as you want to answer any question.

Now, you have been doing something that I think could not have been done some years earlier, when I was young, for example. You have been preaching on God’s law at church after church, conference after conference across country. What is the response?

[Weaver] Well the response has been very positive. In fact, to give you a couple of illustrations, I was preaching in Indiana on God’s law and showing the abiding validity of the law, then dealing with restitution and there was an elderly gentleman in the congregation and he got so excited he raised his hand in his fist toward heaven and you could hear him say, “Yes,” over the entire congregation, because he realized that he was now hearing something that he had not heard since he was a boy.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] And he was agreeing wholeheartedly with it. And the amazing thing that I am finding is that in all kinds of churches, you are still getting this response, not only from the older generation, but even from the younger generation as well. There are a number of young people who have been so absolutely fed up with the line that they have received and so dissatisfied with what they have been taught and once they hear the Word of God especially the teaching concerning biblical law, they just simply understand that is the answer to today’s ills and society’s problems.

[Rushdoony] How about the clergy?

[Weaver] Well, I find that there are several things going on amongst the clergy. One of them, I find that there is a separating of the wheat and the chaff. On the one hand you have a lot of preachers falling all over the country and it doesn't really upset me in that sense of the word, because my attitude is in one sense of the word God really knows how to quell them. In other words, I believe the ... the ones who are not God’s true preachers are being exposed and... and ... and are falling and the people are seeing that the problems in their lives stem from the fact that they are either not converted or they certainly do not know the law of God and do not apply it.

But on the other hand, there have been a multitude of young pastors that have seen the truth of God’s Word and the truth of God’s law and they are just literally devouring it and... and assimilating it into their lives. It is coming out in their preaching left and right.

There is a young pastor down on Ocala, Florida that just recently was telling me how that God was just opening his eyes to truth after truth regarding his walk and he is teaching this truth to a small congregation, but yet it is a very dedicated congregation. And you can multiply that all across the country.

And so on the one hand you can see some preachers who are falling, but you need not be discouraged, because God still has his remnant. God still has his men and they are, indeed, declaring the truth of his Word.

[Rushdoony] I am going to tell the little illustration so that we can discuss very specifically what is happening in the South. A good many years ago I went to this city, the capital of a state in the deep South and the other speakers and I were invited to this old mansion where our hostess whom I had met previously in the Washington, DC area had us over for dinner.

Now hers was an interesting story. Well, before the war she had married a doctor. I believe his... the man was in the air force and been stationed at different parts of the country. Then after the war her husband had been at the Pentagon and after close to 20 years of marriage dumped her for a younger woman and was able to bribe the children by offering them new cars and this sort of thing as he had money.

Well, she returned to her home town, went back to what she had been doing more than 20 years earlier, working in the emergency room of a major hospital. And I asked her what was the difference that she saw there after being absent over 20 years? And she said, “I can tell you best that while everything seems to be the same, it is different. When before the war I worked in this hospital in the emergency room, whenever someone came in injured for emergency treatment, they would immediately ask when they were ushered in, brought in on a stretcher if I would call pastor so and so and let them know that they were in the hospital.”

That was the first thing they thought of. And very often they would be praying as they were put on the table for emergency surgery. And she said, “Now, since I have been back, have been working a couple of years and only once have I heard anyone when they are put on the table say anything about God or prayer. And then I am not sure it was a prayer. The man was saying, ‘Oh God.’ And he said I think it was not a particularly reverent statement.”

The next day they will say, “Oh, by the way. Would you call pastor so and so? Tell him I am here in the hospital and to call on me.”

So she said, “That is the difference. It has past from the center of their lives to the margin of their lives.” She said, “Everybody is still going to church. But it doesn’t mean as much to them.”

Now, that was in the immediate post war years. What would you say has happened since?

[Weaver] Well, I would say, first of all, that what she enunciated for a while has gotten worse. I think that it went further and further, but then I believe there was a turning point that is happening now in the fact that there are the elect or the remnant that are seen that true faith is in every area of our life and that there is no separation and can be no separation. And slowly, but surely, this truth is being inculcated in people all over. And... and those who are, indeed, being taught the Word of God, who are assimilating the Word of God, it is coming back out into the forefront.

An illustration of this is I know a gentleman that I mentioned to you earlier who is a probation and a parole officer who was asked to speak to his colleagues and he did so on the subject that prisons were unbiblical in what God demanded was restitution. And so here was a man literally, although he worked in that department, was putting his job at risk because he realized the truth of God was to be applied even in that area where he was working.

So slowly but surely, now, there are pockets all across this country where the truth is awakening, so to speak, and people are seeing the primacy of the Word of God. And they are applying it to every area of their lives.

[Rushdoony] I think the work you have done is evidence of that. I know when I have visited you—and I won’t mention places—twice in this particular city in your state there was a church there which was like a small college campus. It was such an enormous facility, beautiful. And here you had started a small work and a Christian school from the ground up on the edge of town on what was it? Fifteen acres?

[Weaver] Yes, sir.

[Rushdoony] And you had a Christian school, a congregation and a {?}. Well the editor of the local paper told me, he said, “The big church with most of the people in town as members,” he said, “That is a country club church,” but he said, “What John Weaver has is the real Christian Church.”

And I suspect more like that are coming forth all over the South.

[Weaver] Yes. In fact, there were a number of young men that I trained there and they are now in the ministry. And some of them are now, well, like even in Tennessee and around, not just in Georgia. And God is just moving in their lives and it is ... it has just been phenomenal to watch how ... how they have grown and progressed and... and God is using them as well.

[Rushdoony] Are they in independent churches?

[Weaver] Yes.

[Rushdoony] That is the interesting thing. The main line churches for the most part are not forging ahead the way the independent churches are. I know I mentioned to you that Dorothy and I were in one state in Cajun country where we spoke at this church which had grown up almost out of nowhere at a sizeable membership, two schools going all the way through high school with hundreds of students. And the work was phenomenal. It had arisen out of nowhere in just a few years. So it is a very encouraging sign.

I think, John, we see a polarization in this country. Mainline churches, with exceptions, heading in one direction.

[Weaver] Yes.

[Rushdoony] And new independent works moving in another direction and creating a new community, a truly Christian community and fellowship.

[Weaver] Yes. I agree with that wholeheartedly. In fact, as some of the smaller churches are even tackling the social issues. They are dealing with economics. They are dealing with usury. They are dealing with education. They are dealing with the law and they are endeavoring to enlighten themselves as to what God’s Word says in every area of their lives. And so it is very exciting to see how that they are growing in... in the faith and applying the Word of God.

[Rushdoony] One interesting area to me is precisely that economics. I recall getting a telephone call from the South a few years back and I heard first from the pastor and then one of the members. The pastor called me and he said, “I have been accused of being one of your group.”

And I said, “I have never heard of you.”

So I inquired and found out who you were, where you lived and so I am calling you to get on your mailing list and to know more about what you are doing, because studying the Bible we were suddenly under conviction by the Holy Spirit that we had to obey the whole Word of God and the law was certainly a part of God’s Word and a very sizable section.

And he said, “We were promptly accused of being one of those terrible Christian Reconstructionist.”

Well, later a member called, a young man, a newlywed who said he wanted prayer because he was going through a hellish time. His in-laws decided he was crazy and had persuaded is wife to agree with him, because he would not go into debt. And they feel that I should go into debt and immediately get a big house instead of renting until I could afford to buy, buy all kinds of luxury items. And he said, “I was under conviction to avoid that sort of thing. And they were spreading the word around that I was absolutely crazy, that I had joined some weird cult.” So he said, “That is the pressure we are under,” but he said, “And I am standing firm.”

[Weaver] Well, excellent. Well, one of the things most people forget is that most of our grandparents were debt free.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] They usually saved for what they wanted and if they had the money they bought it. If they didn’t, they just simply did without. The problem today is we don’t have the discipline nor the character nor the teaching to inculcate that in our lives.

[Rushdoony] I know that before the war if you borrowed money to buy a farm or build a house it was a five year note instead of six years in the biblical pattern. For bookkeeping reasons they felt five years was easier. So you had to pay one fourth down and the balance in five years.

Now that was true whether in California or in the southern states. And people don’t know that. It was after the war that they brought in first the 10 year mortgage, then the 20 and 25 and for a while there were a few places where they were offering 30 and 35 year mortgages so that at the time if you bought a house for 20,000, you wound up paying about 130 or 40,000 before it was over in principle and interest.

[Weaver] Well and all of that has come about because we have basically what I refer to as a slave mentality.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] And Scripture says that the borrower is indeed servant or slave to the lender.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] And unhappily today, many people think they cannot function or live without debt. And it is based upon that slave mentality.

[Rushdoony] Well, I have often commented on the fact which I find very sad as well as offensive that colleges and universities have gone in for price setting to set the prices higher and higher up to 35,000 a year for some of the best universities, or so-called best. And beginning at about 5000 for the poorest or that is in terms of the official ratings, which doesn’t mean they are true.

Which means, then, a student has to get a federal loan and go into debt for the rest of his life. He is a debtor, a slave in order to get an education. And that is a monstrous evil and I think it is deliberate.

[Weaver] Yes.

[Rushdoony] It is the enslavement of the youth of America, the gutting of their future.

[Weaver] The sad thing is that most everyone falls for it, however.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] And we need to go back to the old log college.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] And do without some of the fancier things and really get down to the teaching like it should be.

[Rushdoony] Exactly, exactly.

Well, we are in for some troubled times, because we have disobeyed God’s law. And God doesn’t take kindly to it. No where in the Bible do you find that he ever does. And he says, “I am the same yesterday, today and forever.” So we are going to see some real troubles.

[Weaver] Yes.

[Rushdoony] Some punishment.

Dorothy was reminding me before the meeting and earlier today of a book written by Sir Henry Spellman in the 1600s, late 1600s. And he studied there all the families who participated in the seizure of search properties. And his thesis was: Whatever the Church was, the properties belonged to God. The money had been given to the Lord. If they felt the churches were wrong, they should have taken the properties and given them to another group so they would still be serving the Lord.

And he studied all the families who bought those properties from Henry VIII’s administration and they all ended up in disasters and death and were wiped out for the most part. And he said, “Lest someone think it was because the times were difficult, let us look at the noble families that did to purchase these properties.” And he said, “They are still with us. They were not under the judgment of the Lord.”

[Weaver] Well, there is a verse in the Bible that certainly teaches that especially when you remember Hosea four and verse six where he said, “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God.”

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] “... I will also forget thy children.”

[Rushdoony] Yes. Give the citation again so people can look it up.

[Weaver] Hosea four and verse six.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] When you begin to think, though, that law is an expression of God’s will and children are an expression of our will, this is a sample of the lex talionis, or the law of retribution.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] So if we forget God’s laws, then God may justly forget our children and forget us.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] For we have forgotten the expression of his will, he will also forget the expression of our will.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] That would not only relate to physical children, but children of productivity or plans or purposes. So he could certainly frustrate and confuse and destroy those things.

[Rushdoony] And we have to remember in times of judgment the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous all together.

[Weaver] Yes.

[Rushdoony] They are to correct us. And if we will take the correction, then he will bless us.

[Weaver] And, of course, Hebrews 12 he says this chastening is always for our good.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] And it is always for our profit that we should be partakers of his holiness.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, we live in exciting times, because a great many things are going to happen in our lifetime. At 81, I may not live to see all these marvelous judgments of the Lord, but I know they are coming and I know they are going to do a great work cleansing the world and cleansing this nation. And after that, we can look forward to a greater opportunity. And, of course, that is why we established Chalcedon to prepare people for that eventuality.

[Weaver] Yes.

[Rushdoony] The people of God have to be ready to stand and witness a good witness in the times of crisis, to turn this country and the whole world around. That is why we have the ministries we do as in Zambia and elsewhere all over the world and we hope by the goodness of God’s people to extend the work further, because we have to be ready for the time of crisis, the time of judgment.

I believe the Chinese ideograph for crisis is made up of two symbols and it means dangerous opportunity. So we have an opportunity ahead, a time of danger, but a very important opportunity.

[Weaver] The apostle Paul said something like that in 1 Corinthians chapter 16 when he asked them to pray for him. He said there was a great door and an effectual door open unto him.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] And then he said, “And there are many adversaries.”

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] So you could say that the doors of opportunity swing on the hinges of opposition.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] And the more the opposition, the more the opportunity. And it is very exciting in that sense and especially when you think about in the book of Hosea and God told his people there that I have given thee the valley of Achor for a door of hope. And the valley of Achor was the valley of judgment. It is where Achan was judged.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[M. Rushdoony] John, you mentioned that you ... you were surprised at the number of churches who were actually receptive to your teaching on... on biblical law. Normally Dispensationalist churches would not be receptive to such teaching. Are... are these churches in the Dispensational mold and to what extent or is that breaking down?

[Weaver] Well, to answer that, I think that there is a breaking down of Dispensationalism or at least, let me put it like this. Those who are Dispensationalists are not consistent Dispensationalists, because they are aware of the problems not only that are happening in the country, but are happening in their community and in their church and they need the answers as well and there have been several pastors that I know who were dispensational themselves and yet they have asked me to deal with the subject of biblical law in their churches. And not only were those pastors, but the churches receptive as well.

I have... I have dealt as high as five days in a row with the subject of biblical law. And in one... one church I dealt with biblical law three hours a night for five nights. And so these were not what you and I would call churches that would normally openly embrace biblical law, but yet here they were not only asking for it, but embracing it and seeing the reality and the truth of it.

So you could say that God is, indeed, opening the eyes of even some... some men who would normally deny the validity of biblical law and yet it is by their own presuppositions and yet those presuppositions are fading and they are saying there must be a law. There must be a standard. There must be an absolute.

And so yes some of that has been in those churches and it has been widely received and embraced.

[M. Rushdoony] Do you think ... so they are really approaching biblical law from the perspective of we have problems in society. This is what the Bible says about it. The Bible’s opinion about this must be valid and they are kind of coming in the back door to Christian reconstruction because... out of necessity?

[Weaver] That is exactly right. And, you know, the ... the... the amazing thing is this. I know pastors across this country that would never admit or confess in Christian Reconstruction or Dominion as we would call it and yet they do everything in their power to bring their communities into subjection to the Word of God and to the Lordship of Christ.

I know one pastor who has even written against dominion and yet he has done everything he can to run the sodomites out of his city and control that city and bring it under Christian principles and biblical truth. And so on the one hand there is a denial of that truth and yet practically speaking they are doing the very thing that they are denying with their mouth. And so it is... it is really impossible, I believe, for a man to be consistent and deny the truth of God’s law, because inevitably he has got to practice it somehow and someway just to make his ministry effectual.

[M. Rushdoony] Real Dispensationalism is actually very complex and... and very difficult to understand, much less to ... to defend. But a... a lot of Dispensationalists have had the effect on the Church at least of law versus grace, Old Testament versus, New Testament, because that... the most people in the pew can understand that concept. Do you have a problem with people saying, “I agree with everything you say and I think it is wonderful and I agree with your opinion on is and that, but I thought we weren’t supposed to obey the law. What about law versus grace? Isn't this anti grace”?

[Weaver] Well, the very first message that I always preach is the abiding validity of the law of God. And I take and show how that every negative passage in the New Testament concerning the law of God can be explained in three ways. Either, number one, those passages which denounce the law as a means of justification or, number two, those passages which deal with the death, deed and nature of sin in relationship to the law or, number three, those passages which would refer to the ceremonial law which now we have the substance or the reality in Christ. And I will take them to a number of those contexts and show them in context that is exactly what the apostle Paul is doing.

And yet when you come back to Romans three and verse 31, when Paul is teaching justification by faith, he says, “Do we through faith disestablish the law? God forbid. Yea, we establish the law.”

So any real preaching of justification by faith has to establish the law of God. Moreover, if you do away with the law of God there is no sin, for sin is by the knowledge of the law of God. That is what he said in Romans {?} 20, Romans chapter seven, 1 John chapter five or chapter three and verse four when he said, “Sin is the transgression of the law. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth the law.”

So when you deny law, in essence, you have to deny sin. Secondly, if you deny biblical law, you have to deny in reality salvation, for the law was our school master to bring us unto Jesus Christ. So it is almost impossible then for someone to consistently deny the law of God. It is just impossible. So many of the men who would deny the truth verbally do not practice it. It is like saying that there are no Calvinists when it... there are no Arminians when it comes to prayer. Everybody is a Calvinist. No one comes up to God and say, “Now, Lord, we know that you have done everything that you can do. Now it is left up to my son or daughter.” No, we say, “God save my son. God, save my daughter.” And so in theology and prayer you... everybody is a Calvinist.

[Rushdoony] The South has had quite an influx into the major cities and many minor cities of northerners. President Johnson moved a great deal of aerospace work into the South. I know at the time I was in southern California and our group was over a period of time virtually cut in two because we had a great many aerospace engineers and scientists who were transferred to the very southern states.

How has that invasion of northerners, so to speak, affected the South?

[Weaver] Well, that is a good question. There are bumper stickers down South, of course, a lot of them put out in fun, but one of them says, “Welcome to the South, no go home.” Well, there is another bumper sticker says, “Help keep the South clean. Buy a Yankee a bus ticket home,” you know, but all of that is done basically in fun, but to answer the question, of course, some of the churches, I think, at first, I am not going to say that they were weakened, but in the sense that you had the different cultures, the different backgrounds. They were at least in a state of confusion there for a little bit. But I find by and large most of the northerners that have come to the South to live in the South and have made the South their home have embraced the ideology and they principle of southerners and most of them now although they were not native southerners, politically, socially, religiously they would embrace the southern principles. And I found another amazing truth and that is this. Any of the northern brethren who have studied the history and the heritage of the South have come to embrace the same principles although they are still in the North. And many of them tell me, well, I am a northern by birth, but I am southern in my heart and in my attitude.

[Rushdoony] I know one man in the South who came there on business, married a southern girl whose family has a deep and rich heredity in things southern. And he has fallen in love with the South and southern history and his wife is indifferent to her southern heritage, to the men who fought for the South, but he has been busy collecting books, documents, mementos, uniforms, everything connected with his wife’s heritage.

So he is more southern than anyone else in that small community.

[Weaver] Yes. It makes a tremendous difference once you see the heritage, once you see the history. And then I think once you get there and you see the people that they are real, they are genuine, they are warm and it makes... I had an aunt who lived for years in a northern city and she could not get over it when she came back home that everyone spoke to you, every one waved. And she said, “You know, where we lived for the last 30 years if someone spoke to you and especially who was dark, you ran as fast as you could run. But the South was totally different.”

[Rushdoony] Well, in the case I mentioned that was the thing he appreciated, coming from a northern city to a small southern town where you knew everyone within a week or two and everybody greeted you, was interested in you. It was a new life for him. He wasn’t used to that and he loved it. His wife took it for granted. He never did.

[Weaver] If we could just get some of the northerners to really begin enjoying southern ice cream, that is... grits down South. We call that Georgia ice cream.

[Rushdoony] Yes, I know the first time I went into the South I found they were offended when I went through the line at breakfast that I didn’t take grits. I didn’t know what they were and they told me I had to take them.

Well, now another question. One of the thins that has marked the South has been a very great interest in the past not only of the South and of the United States, but of the faith. I think the pioneer there was Lloyd Sprinkle...

[Weaver] Yes.

[Rushdoony] ...in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Lloyd has a very remarkable library of reformed classics. And he has been for years reprinting some of the great Christian classics from Britain and from the United States. His books have circulated all over the country. Do you feel they have contributed a great deal to the new awakening in the South?

[Weaver] And the answer to that is yes, because just about everywhere I go I see Sprinkle Publication books. And whether it is on the life of Stonewall Jackson or the great revival in the confederate armies or ... or any of these books that he has given on the reformed faith, they are literally just everywhere and people consume that literature and he does an excellent job. And I must confess that even the conferences that he has there at his church has really done a great deal to stimulate the people not only in the faith, but in studying their own history and their heritage of the faith.

[Rushdoony] Well, at our own conference this past Saturday in Sacramento, it was interesting to see how many Sprinkle books there were on the book tables. He has done a great deal and someone ought to do a story on his contribution to the reformed faith in the United States.

[Weaver] I just came from a Christian history conference, a little south of here and, once again, his books were there again all on the book tables. So his literature is getting all... out all across the country.

[Rushdoony] Now there has been one major exception to the decline of the main line churches and that is the Southern Baptist Church.

[Weaver] Yes.

[Rushdoony] What do you have to report on that?

[Weaver] Well, I would say probably the biggest impetus is being put out by the independent churches, but the Southern Baptist has made one giant step or one giant turn and that there are many of those men now that are returning to the Calvinistic faith, embracing the doctrines of grace, preaching and teaching that truth, not only one of the major seminaries, but also many men in those churches. And each one of those Southern Baptist Churches is supposed to be an independent autonomous church. And those men are just turning to the faith left and right. And it is a real open door that they have there.

[Rushdoony] I think the turn around is not only significant in that it restores perhaps the largest single denomination to the Bible believing camp, but it was also done with an amazing amount of grace.

[Weaver] Yes.

[Rushdoony] Instead of a rage against the Modernists who had taken over the church, the leaders who were responsible for the turn around did it with grace and kindliness and a desire to rock the boat as little as possible. And I think that is one reason why they accomplished it so quickly.

It isn’t over yet, but there is no question the direction in which the Southern Baptist Church is moving now.

They were not for a head on battle, but for a recognition that however underhanded the takeover was, they had to restore it to the status quo of the past to the faith with grace. And nobody has commented on that. They did the entire turn around by stressing grace.

[Weaver] Well, very clearly the history and the heritage of the Southern Baptists was one of embracing the Calvinistic faith. When you listen to and read John Broadus and some of those other men.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] Very clearly they taught that truth.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] And so once, again, it... it... it is pointing people back to the roots, to their heritage, to their faith.

[Rushdoony] Well, it is a very important thing that has happened because when you realize that one Southern Baptist seminary alone, the Louisville one, is the largest single seminary in the world. So the fact that it now is teaching the historic faith is a most significant fact, because its impact is world wide.

Most seminaries have a small student body. It is big one that has four or 500, very large. And here is Louisville seminary with what is it, 2000, 2500 students. Well, that is a tremendous fact.

[Weaver] Yes, yes. And, you know, there are other smaller seminaries as well that are ... have embraced and are teaching...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] ...the doctrines of grace. So it is... it is astounding. It is encouraging as well.

[Rushdoony] Yes, it is.

What area of the South do you feel is the most significant in this turn around?

[Weaver] Well, I would certainly love to say Georgia, since that is where I am from, but there... there are just so many areas I... I... I can think of South Carolina. I can think of Tennessee. I can think of North Carolina, of individuals and... and churches that ... that I know that are having great influence and... and with ...with the people in their areas. And Louisiana is another tremendous state.

[Rushdoony] Oh, that is interesting.

[Weaver] And you have Steve Wilkins out there...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] ...and a number of other men like that. And it is ... it just seemingly is... is blossoming all over the South. And you will have a lot of the major conferences and practically every state in the South at one time or the other. There is Alabama with Ron {?} there.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Weaver] And Charles Baker and some of those other fellows that are doing an exceptional job and ... and Dr. Baker is one of those men who has a large inventory of books that he puts out and, you know, it just seems like it is happening all over.

[Rushdoony] The Christian school movement got its slowest start in the South and New England. It has been making up for lost ground. Is it continuing to flourish and increase?

[Weaver] Yes, yes. And I believe although they started out slow, they are coming on very strong in the South.

[Rushdoony] How about home schooling?

[Weaver] Home schooling is definitely on the increase. Pastor McCurry has an excellent Christian school there in Sharpsburg and everywhere I go there are home schoolers. The are home schoolers associations and the people are getting back to really teaching their children the faith.

[Rushdoony] Good. That is an interesting phenomenon. Ian Hodge who was here and we taped him about a week and a half ago said that public educator in Australia, Queensland, told him that the fastest growing movement in the world in the sphere of education was the home school movement. Even in out of the way places all over the world. It is proliferating. I have mentioned before and I am delighted to have the opportunity to mention again, but this year I have spoken at three California home school conventions. Mark and I went down to the one in Anaheim and for that alone, I don’t know what the final count was, but when Mark checked they told him it was not over yet, that is the registration, it was over 8000 in they expected maybe 10,000. That was one of the three at which I spoke and I don’t know how many more there were. I know there was a fourth one in Modesto and the newspaper said there were over 2000 there. So it is a phenomenally growing movement.

[Weaver] Well, it is really strong in Georgia as well and so I am not sure about the other southern states. I know they are just from going around there, but living in Georgia, there are home schoolers everywhere.

[Rushdoony] Well, that is important because it means whether it is a home school there is really a really a revival in the family.

[Weaver] Yes.

[Rushdoony] And it is interesting how many home schooling families that have been unable to find a good church in the area have started home churches. So obviously it is a movement by men and women who take their faith very, very seriously and are going to follow it to whatever it leads.

[Weaver] Well, it certainly demonstrate there is a strengthening of the family as well and that they want to impart their faith and their knowledge to their children.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

Well, our time is almost up, John. Is there anything you would like to say by way of conclusion?

[Weaver] Well, I just want to encourage everyone, of course, to trust in the Lord and... and understand that certainly we need to apply the faith on a daily basis in every area of our lives and every sphere of our lives and that as brother McCurry always said, “No need to really worry, because God has this thing fixed.” And he is on the throne and ... and it is very encouraging and it is... although there may be times of persecution, times of oppression, there is no reason to give in, to give up or give under or to quit.

[M. Rushdoony] That is right.

[Weaver] ...because God is sovereign and he is on the throne.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Mark, is there anything you would like to say by way of conclusion?

[M. Rushdoony] No.

[Rushdoony] Well, thank you all for listening and God bless you. We are very pleased that John was able to be with us. And, John, don’t wait as long as you have before you come here again.

[Weaver] Thank you.

[Rushdoony] You are a very dear friend and we have had some good times together in the past and the Lord willing we will have some more in the future.

[Weaver] Amen, amen.

[Rushdoony] Well, God bless you all and good night.