Miscellaneous

A Day to Remember (part 1)

 

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels, and Sermons

Lesson: 1-2

Genre: Talk

Track: 1

Dictation Name: Tape 01

Location/Venue:

Year:

[Audience Leader] Thank you all for coming and joining us in this conference of Christian Reconstruction being held here in San Hosea, and the 80th Birthday party for Mr. R.J., Reverend R.J. Rushdoony. I recognize and realize, as does Andrea and the other people who helped put this together, that for many of you coming here was a tremendous effort; it meant organizing your schedules around this event months and months in advance, having this being your vacation period; it meant a substantial investment in terms of funds just to fly here or in some cases drive here from another country, Canada. It is a tremendous honor to be able to stand in front of all of you and to host this, a tremendous honor. Welcome to you all.

I would like to start by asking Reverend Mark Rushdoony to come up and lead us in prayer.

[Mark Rushdoony] Let us pray. Our most good and gracious heavenly Father, it is so good for you to bring us all here together, and we thank you first of all for all those who have done so much to aid the ministry of my father and the work of Chalcedon, and the work of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. As they have been mindful of the needs of Thy kingdom, we pray that you would be mindful of them. As we have received of the benefit of their generosity, we pray that they would receive the benefit of Thy goodness. We thank you for the purpose and meaning that your Son Jesus Christ gives to our life, the direction that it provides us in time and in history, and in all of eternity. We pray that you would enrich us with this assembly, we pray that it would encourage us and instruct us; we pray that we would be filled with a renewed sense of faithfulness to your word, we pray that you would teach us to love your commandments and to hold fast to your promises. We pray that you would expand the laborers in your kingdom; we pray most of all for Thy grace so that we might do the will of our master and our heavenly Father Jesus Christ. In His name we pray, amen.

[Audience Leader] Well now I have the pleasure of introducing somebody who is probably the reason most of you are here. Of course I am speaking of Reverend Rushdoony. He has been called the father of the homeschool movement, he is certainly the father of Christian Reconstruction, along with being the founder and president of the Chalcedon foundation. Probably each one of you in this room, if only through his books if that is the only way you have known him, or other publications, or having heard some of his tape ministry; have your own personal anecdotes or reasons, or the way in which he has touched your lives. Over the last 11 years, the way he has touched my family’s life is something that is impossible to fully convey or even begin to convey except to say that he has touched my life, he has given me legs to my faith; shortly after my conversion I was having a conversation- my wife and I were with someone who was a little more savvy than we were, and we were attempting to instruct this person in the faith and the fellow looked at us and in the most direct possible way said: “You are a couple of idiots, the only chance you have if you want to do this at all seriously is to get some instruction from somebody who knows something.” (laughter)

Now mind you, we had invited him to our house for dinner. He gave me a little book list for people to read, this guy, Calvin- I am sure somebody in here has heard of him- was on it, there was another name, and then there was a fellow named Rushdoony and Institutes of Biblical Law. Well, we searched to try to find this guy Rushdoony and these Institutes of Biblical Law and along with reading the other people on the list we read him, my wife who if any of you know her is not exactly reticent to pick up a telephone and call people, suddenly had us directly in touch with this fellow who I was sure was living somewhere in the clouds and couldn’t possibly be a real human being, well he turned out he was a very real human being, and over the years, has spent hours, and believe me I needed them, hours and hours of time of his own personal time answering my questions, theological questions, guiding me as somebody who was trying to get my act together; and guiding me in terms of what it would be to be a father in a society that was a barbaric society, attempting to live by Biblical principles, guiding me in terms of situations that would come up in my work, in my profession, and guiding my family. So there is no way on earth, and I sincerely mean that, to in anyway convey my gratitude to this man.

Now adding to that, I have the honor of saying for all of you, some of you who came to him and weren’t idiots, came to him and did know something and were still instructed, it is a tremendous honor to be able to at this time and to this group introduce Reverend R.J. Rushdoony.

[Applause]

[Rushdoony] A few minutes ago some friends of many years standing, the (Duscans?) from Indiana, handed me a present, I haven’t opened it, but the wrapping was a delight. It reads: “Happy Birthday, Ancient One.” Well, at 80 the thing that comes to mind is a line from Fiddler on the Roof. If you saw it you remember when Tevye turned to his wife at the wedding of their daughter and said: “I don’t remember growing older.” But I realize that at 80, and my memory goes back to World War 1; I have a good memory about almost everything except what my wife told me 5 minutes ago. But it is a sobering thought to realize that over half the population of the world has been born since 1950, and if you go back to 1940, the overwhelming majority of the present world was not yet born.

Well, it’s a very, very different world. In the world of those days most people even in cities did not lock their doors. Crime was very limited. Even in Chicago with the Capone mob, the killings in a whole year, regarded as sensational the world over, sometimes are surpassed there in a single month without much notice. It was a much safer world. In those days, daily papers reported on the front page each Monday a sermon preached in one of the churches the day before. This year, the Los Angeles Times pulled the B.C. comic strip because it spoke about the atonement. The world has changed. Well, by God’s grace, we are going to change it to something better than it has ever been. (applause)

Over the years, I have been very often interviewed by reporters and magazine writers and the results have been uniformly bad. I am going to begin in a minute by telling you what I tell each of them when I begin- and no one has ever reported it. In fact, a major American newspaper called me about ten days ago, and I corrected them on what their opinion of Christian Reconstruction was, and I explained what I am about to tell you, and the reporter exclaimed: “That’s very radical, it is too far out!” He still did not include it. Maybe he thought he was being kindly to me. What was it I told him? Something I have told writer after writer, and they refused to begin with that as my starting point. It is simply this: That in our culture today, in this century in particular, the word government has changed its meaning drastically. When you say government today you mean the state, and that is altogether wrong. Throughout much of American history when you spoke of the state you said “civil government,” one form of government among many.

If you go back to the early years of the Republic and to the Colonial Period, and on well into the last century, you find that they regarded the basic government as the self government of the Christian man. You are the government, under God. It is you who will face the judge on judgement day, as an individual. You are the basic government.

After the individual the basic government is the family. In the Bible, treason is against the family, not against the state; and that was true in Western Europe and in Christendom until fairly recently. For example, if you go back to the time of Louis the 14th, you find that Prince Eugene, one of the Generals for Louis the 14th in one of the campaigns switched sides more than once, and nobody thought anything of it- if he felt the one side was off base, it was his prerogative to say: “I will fight against you for the other side.” It was not treason. Treason was against the family and against God.

Thus the first and basic government, the self government of the Christian man, has as its corollary the basic institution, the family, as a government. It is in the family that you first encounter worship, government, economics, and law; one thing after another, your first encounter with it is in the family, and it continues on throughout the rest of your life.

Then third, the church is a government. Fourth, the school is a government. Fifth, your vocation, your job is a government; it governs you, tells you when you have to wake up, what you have to do, and a great deal more. Then, society is a government. You are governed by what the community you live in does and thinks, it has an impact on you. And finally, one form of government among many, Civil Government. Those of you who have read De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America will recognize that this is what de Tocqueville was talking about. He said that America was essentially governed by associations, personal and cooperative. That various groups came together and formed organizations to take care of needs. At every seaport town there were innumerable groups that met every immigrant boat at the docks. They were ready to help the immigrants- and they did this as a Christian duty- to find housing, to learn English, to find a job or to get job training. Cooking classes for the women on the foods that were common to America that they probably didn’t know about in their home land. Schools for their children, Christian schools; and so on and on. Do you know that most of the Irish in this country are protestant because they were met by such groups at the boats? That was government. Government in action. People not leaving it to the state, but taking over themselves, and this is why we were a free people.

Coming from an immigrant family, I know how the vision of America as a place of freedom where people governed themselves, governed their families, created agencies whereby they could implement their faith and apply it to various spheres of life was like a vision to people overseas; that is what brought one group of immigrants after another here.

As a matter of fact, in those days you did not do what immigrants do now- and I am thinking of some specific examples- arrive here in California in the morning from Europe, and apply for food stamps and welfare in the afternoon. When one of my uncles arrived in the 20’s about 23 or 24, he had been under horrible conditions through the Russian famine with inadequate housing, barely able to make ends meet, working hard to put food on the table for his wife and children, all of whom died but one, a cousin, a boy I grew up with; and he paid a price for that, he had TB. He was held at LS Island until my father and uncle went to a Federal office and said in a sworn statement that he would never be a charge on the United States, never receive any free help; that the two of them would take care of him.

Now that is the way this country was in my lifetime. It has changed, hasn’t it? It has changed because Christians have changed. When I was young, one of the feared groups on the west coast, especially in the North West was the IWW, the Wobblies, Marxist workers in the lumber fields. And my uncle worked in the lumber industry for a while in the winters to save money to buy a farm. It was a rough environment, and the Wobblies were a very feared group- but they were smart, they were beginning to realize that the church, the agency for change for generations, had changed itself; and they ridiculed one of the hymns by setting new words to it: “Pies in the sky by and by.”

They were right in ridiculing the Christian community. It had changed. It only wanted to wait for the end in grim pessimism if they were au-mill, and if they were pre-mill to be raptured out of this world- not to do anything about it. The trouble with this country begins in the churches. You’ve always had a strata at the bottom level. I recall reading more than once, and in fact in some reading I was doing last night for a little while, that even the Puritans had problems; why? Well, within a generation they had become very successful. As a matter of fact, within 20 years they had created a shipping industry that was trading with the Indies and ultimately with China, so that American enterprise when there were not many people within the United States or in America, in the colonies, was the wonder of the world. They were competing with the East India Company, and other subsidized powerful, very rich corporations given a monopoly by the British Crown and by Parliament.

In fact, legislation against American enterprise restricting their ability to trade here, there, and everywhere, and imposing taxes requiring the colonies to buy only East India Tea, not the tea of Boston Merchant mariners, created the conflict; plus the attempt to impose Bishops and a state church on the colonies.

But even in those days, because by 1640-45 the colonies were becoming so prosperous, people began to pour in. In no time at all, then and after our independence, the worst element in Europe and in England was shipped to the Colonies and to young America. You have often read about the fact that in those days there were well over 200 penalties, death penalties, for as much as stealing a loaf of bread; for a crime where a shilling in effect in value had been taken.

Now the purpose of those penalties was a very simple one, it was to get rid of these people. So the judge would say: “You are sentenced to hang, unless of course you choose to go to New York or Massachusetts or the Carolinas, in which case you will be put on board and shipped.” Later, the European countries, the Continental European countries, caught onto that. So when you read about the kind of crimes that existed in the days of the Puritans, and books are written about it regularly: “Those Puritans, they had crimes like homosexuality, bestiality and so on. Look at their court records.” They did indeed, because they had the worst element shipped over regularly; and what did they do? They converted them. They converted them, and they developed the habit of meeting boats at the docks in the name of Jesus Christ. They did everything possible to take those people and make them strong, Christian Americans.

Well, I am glad that this vision has been revived by one of us, Steve Schlissel, Messiahs Congregation in Brookland. They are now working with the millions of immigrants in New York City. Do you know there are more daily papers in New York City in foreign languages than in English? By a vast number, there are more of them; more weekly publications, in many, many foreign languages. [tape skips]

The greatest mission field today that Americans need to deal with is right here in this country, and most churches give it no thought. In fact, Steve could come up here and tell you at some length the hostility he has faced for what he is doing from Christian and non-Christian sources. You would think he was doing evil by reaching these peoples.

We are surrounded by a tremendous mission field. It is a great opportunity, and Steve is troubling the conscience of many peoples. They threw him out of one church you know, one major, supposedly Reformed, actually a very Liberal Leftwing church now. They couldn’t take having him on their conscience. Well, what Steve has started, others in great and small ways, here and around the world, are all doing. In fact, we could have a conference here just on what is being done all over the world today by Christian Reconstructionists. Brian Abshire could give a major report on what Peter Hammond is doing, and he has been a part of it; in fact, Monty Wilson who was here is going to go over there to Zambia this summer to see what he can do to help and give us a report on what needs to be done.

I think God is at work in our time through these men. Of the early apostles it was said: “These are the men who are turning the world upside down.” Well, I hope it can be said of our men before too long: “They are turning the world upside down.” Because they are changing things. If we had a press that was as alive to what’s happening as the press was 100, 150 years ago really, Peter Hammond and Aaron (Kaiaion?) would be as well known right now as Livingston was in his day, because their work is even more important, more far reaching in its dimensions. Today, Zambia has a Christian Reconstructionist as president and also as Vice President, Peter Hammonds converts. Of course, the powers that be in the western world hope that that regime will be replaced by the end of this year, they want to go back to the good old Marxist days. In fact the former dictator is in Washington D.C. right now.

Well, the state department is powerful, and so is the Whitehouse, but not as powerful as the Lord God of host’s. So whatever happens in the short term in Zambia and elsewhere, they had better watch out; because we are told in Psalm 2 that the heathen nations take council together, they conspire together against the Lord and against His anointed, but He that sitteth on the circle of the heavens, the Lord God almighty, shall laugh. He will hold them in derision, and His word to the nations and the powers that be is: “Kiss the Son. Fall down and kiss His feet, lest He be angry and ye perish in your way.”

They have thrown Peter Hammond into prison, but he came out, and his impact grows up and down the length and breadth of Africa. And Aaron (Kaiaions?) work, and he was to have been here but his work took him abroad, is growing by leaps and bounds. He is broadcasting every day, or every week, in French to the entire French speaking world and having a major impact in Africa; and now he is broadcasting in Armenian to Armenia. And this is just a corner of all that is going on; God is at work.

In 1980, every day, three hundred Christians were killed, martyred for their faith, somewhere in the world. But 600 were converted every day. Before the end of the year the figures for 1990 will come out, and the indications are that more are being killed right now, but more are being converted. And that’s only part of the story. I speak very often at meetings of Christian school and homeschool people, in a civic auditorium less than a month ago in Oakland I spoke to the Northern California home convention, I imagine there were 12-1,300 there. It is a delight to talk to these people and ask about their families, and to see how many children they have; we are outnumbering them! Isn’t that true Howard?

As a matter of fact, the national attorney for the homeschoolers is Mike Ferris. And Mike is a wonderful person, if you ever have an opportunity to hear him or meet him, please grab ahold of that opportunity. Well, Mike started off life with a handicap, he was born in Arkansas. (laughter) And to add insult to injury, he moved to the northeast and went to the University of Washington, and got thoroughly brainwashed by the leftism there. He actually won a prize in an essay he wrote there on the evils of over-population. Mike has changed since then… (laughter) he has nine children.

We are going to out number them. We are on the winning side; we can’t lose. We may lose a lot of battles, but we are going to win the war. We have been called to a particularly remarkable task, the task of reconstructing the world after the patter laid down by our God. The task of making all things new through Christ.

Well, this gives us a marvelous assurance, because as Saint Paul says, “we know” not that we think, we know that our labor is not in vain in the Lord. It is effectual. All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.

One of the kindest writers about Christian reconstruction, he may have been the only kind one, wrote a book about 2-3 years ago about our work, and he spoke of Chalcedon’s vision as a very idealistic one. He was ready to call it even noble; but hopelessly unrealistic. Hopelessly so. Well, I am sure there are those who say that about what some of you are doing, such as what Howard Philips is doing. Well, it is because we are not practical men. As Disraeli once observed in a sentence that I read as a student and I have never forgotten- it leaped out of the page and I glommed onto it, and I have treasured that sentence ever since- he said: “Practical men are men who practice the blunders of their predecessors.”

Now that is what the Republicans and the Democrats are doing, that is what all your mainline churches and a lot of your evangelical churches are doing, they are practicing the blunders of their predecessors.

Well, it hasn’t been easy trying to promote Chalcedon’s vision, but it has been good. It has meant at times some discouragements; from time to time over the years I had one or another very wealthy men who could have started us off with enough to keep us going for a couple of generations, ask me to come and see them, and they have talked to me, and they’ve been gracious but dismissive: “rather visionary” “not realistic.” And for years it was this: “Well it’s a great idea, but you are too young a man to head up such a thing.” And then suddenly I was getting something else: “You are too old.”

Well, I hope, just out of sheer cussedness, that I live long enough to attend the funerals of some of those who said that. (laughter, applause)

It isn’t easy to serve God, but it is very wonderful. It isn’t easy to go against the crowd, but when God requires it you do it, and you find that it can be done. Well, last night you heard from Brian Abshire, you heard from Steve Schlissel, you heard from Colonel Doner, and you saw something of the vision for the future, and you saw the men who are going to implement that vision and carry it out. I think it is exciting. I hope I am around to see some of it done, but if not I am still going to be happy about it. Thank you. (applause)

[Audience Leader] Thank you very much Rush. Something I would like to do at this point is read a testimonial from somebody that couldn’t be here- one of the things that we experienced when we put the invitation out there is that not everybody could come, but many, many people wanted to say happy birthday and thanks to Rush. This is from a fellow named Walter C. Hibbard, that name may mean something to some of you.

“I suppose only eternity will reveal the number of God’s elect people who have been enormously blessed through the writings of R.J. Rushdoony. For many of us, whose early Christian experience was rooted in fundamentalism or broad evangelicalism, reading Rushdoony was like having the lights turned on in our spiritual journeys. Some Christians had indeed suspected that the Christian faith might relate to every aspect of culture; but how could such a concept be systematized? It remained for R.J. Rushdoony, with gifted and scholarly insight to put it all together in as many books and lectures, so that some of us without the benefit of formal theological education could grasp the whole picture. Happy 80th Birthday Dr. Rushdoony! May our sovereign Lord be pleased in His grace to grant you many more years of fruitful service.”

And again, that was from Walter C. Hibbard, who is the chairman of Great Christian Books. I am because of time skipping other testimonial letters and words of thanks and greetings to you Rush, I just wanted to let you know that you have an enormous number of friends out there. You know about some of those who aren’t so friendly. (laughter)