Ancient History and Christianity, I

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Ancient History and Christianity, I

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*This is an unedited and unoffical print version of R.J. Rushdoony’s lecture.

Speaker 1: 00:07 [inaudible 00:00:07] something [inaudible 00:00:12]. There was a Scottish recipe. I think it would be amazing to hear about, I am not saying this to poke fun at the Scots as you will see when I am finished because after all being married to a Scottish girl it would hardly be very wise for me to to ridicule the Scots and besides I think they’re a pretty wonderful and remarkable people but there’s a point to this with regards to history. This is the recipe for the very taciturn Scotch dish which has been often called the national dish, haggis. Haggis is something that you never heard about. After you hear about you may be glad that you never did.

Speaker 1: 01:05 Now this recipe is in an English encyclopedia of gastronomy, written by a Frenchman in England so you can see there are not going to be particularly congenial to something from up north in Scotland. So that’s the haggis, popular Scot dish named by Burns great chef of the race. It’s made of the heart, lungs and liver of the sheep, hashed or finely mince about a quarter of the liver being grated, with suet onions, oatmeal, salt and pepper. Then it is usually sewn up in either the large stomach bag or a smaller one called a [inaudible 00:01:53] or a sheep [inaudible 00:01:54]. As a rule one does not ascent to make a haggis, one just buys a haggis and does not inquire too closely as to how it was made. A best haggis must be simmered in all but boiling water long enough to thoroughly [inaudible 00:02:14] and steamed and it’s [inaudible 00:02:14] made in the punch for a large tablespoon full, a table spoon previously dipped in boiling water to be inserted and the haggis [inaudible 00:02:23].

Speaker 1: 02:23 It is usually served wrapped up in a stiffly starched napkin to cover the none too appetizing bare look of the sheep’s stomach. Neat whiskey is the orthodox liquid accompaniment of the haggis, and it should be drunk from a plate, a kind of shallow wooden drinking top with two wide handles. Edward Spencer [inaudible 00:02:52] haggis was introduced into Scotland by the Romans, who made it by filing a pig’s boiled stomach with rye and grains, raw eggs and pulped pineapple, seasoned with a disgusting concoction called [inaudible 00:03:06]. Based on [inaudible 00:03:08] intestines of fish, mixed with rice and rye. But the Scots who hated any form of pigs, and let me add parenthetically because they took the Old Testament kosher laws very strictly. Scots therefore would have nothing to do with anything that wasn’t kosher.

Speaker 1: 03:27 And this being so it was rather surprising that old English classical authors such as [inaudible 00:03:35] modify their Scotch haggis by the use of [inaudible 00:03:40]. Here however is the official recipe taught in the schools of Edinburgh, [inaudible 00:03:46] which appears to embody most of the principles necessary for success of the age old Scottish fable, haggis.

Speaker 1: 03:53 A sheep’s [inaudible 00:03:56] liver and heart, a half pound of mint to it, a half pound of oatmeal, half a teaspoon powdered herb, one half ditto pepper, one ditto salt, four medium sized onions. Wash the bag in cold water, scrape and clean it well. Let it lie all night in cold water with a little salt, wash the bag, put it into a pot of boiling water with a teaspoon of salt. Boil for two hours with the windpipe hanging out. When cold cut off the windpipe. Weigh half the liver, the other half of which is not used, mince the heart, light suet and onions, add the oatmeal which is toasted until a golden color. The pepper and salt and herbs, and one pint of the water the [inaudible 00:04:44] was boiled in. You don’t throw away the water you boiled it in.

Speaker 1: 04:51 Place the, mix well, fill the bag more than half full the mixer fill it up. Place the haggis in a pot of boiling water and boil for three hours. Poking it occasionally to keep it from bursting. Serve very hot with mashed potatoes and turnips in a [inaudible 00:05:08]. That’s the whole recipe.

Speaker 1: 05:13 It has been recently stated that this feature can be used whole or uncut. So for all with a thick vegetable water stew, making a nutritious soup. It can then be cut open and then either eaten as a vegetable or as a meat [inaudible 00:05:27]. Cut the slices and fried and then eaten for breakfast. And the remains [inaudible 00:05:34] and pastry cases may be used for savory. The piece which hold its tripe, so every bit but the string is edible.

Speaker 1: 05:46 That is the national dish. And, I read about it at some length because I think it has a great deal of relevance to the study of history. You can go up past the base of the earth and find that in by-gone years when food was scarce and times were difficult, other people had similar dishes. But they forgot about them the minute they [inaudible 00:06:13]. But it’s still the national dish of Scotland. And it has something to do of course with the character. There’s and nothing waster you see of the sheep when they butcher it. Everything is used, except the string, with which the thing is did up.

Speaker 1: 06:13 Now of course [inaudible 00:06:14] character. After all a Scotch proverb is, “If you need [inaudible 00:06:51]”. In other words you don’t put sugar in your porridge, that’s horrible it makes it [inaudible 00:07:00]. You put [inaudible 00:07:02] in your porridge. So adversity is something they like and luxury like the sugar is something they dislike. Quite another thing which perhaps might not strike some of you int he best of taste but I think it’s very revealing about the Scottish. In the Islands of Scotland to this day they regard it as a mark of being soft and effeminate, a weak English type character if you have a [inaudible 00:07:34] in back of the cottage. A [inaudible 00:07:39]. Any vigorous Scot takes a few miles walk out into the heather.

Speaker 1: 07:45 And this is their way of life, of course the saying is that during World War I the reason why the Scottish [inaudible 00:07:53] were such a terror with the Germans was that they were always looking for that few miles open country when they charged over the top. I have taken a little time to go into this Scottish stuff because what does it all reveal? They’re a people who today are prosperous but they still have the same national dish. They still have ways that mark them all over the world, advertisers will tell that the two people who’ve gone to all areas of the world carrying civilization are the Scots and the Jews.

Speaker 1: 08:35 There is no point in the world where you travel where you don’t find the Scots and the Jews have gone in and contributed to civilization. In the outpost of civilization. And in fact if you go back in history of America you find that most of your schools and colleges were started by Scotchmen. Very interesting fact.

Speaker 1: 08:49 Now, other people have had dishes like haggis. [inaudible 00:09:04]. But why have the Scotch had it any kind of time. It goes back to something in the national character which was there very early when Christianity came in and became gradually reinforced when they became Calvinistic. In other words, history is not just [inaudible 00:09:33]. Many people had difficult environments. You’re not alone. It was often terrible, and defined the character is their faith. Now we’re going to begin with a people who had a bad character in history. [inaudible 00:10:00]

Speaker 2: 10:05 [inaudible 00:10:05] they were never numerically strong, they were strong. And yet they dominated the world for centuries, they first rose to power about a couple of centuries before David and Solomon. There was a period there during the reigns of David and Solomon when their power more or less waned for a brief time but then it arose again immediately after Solomon’s time. And it continued for several centuries back. They were a terrifying people, warlike to the nth degree. Given to terrorizing people. And [inaudible 00:11:04]. You can go through the inscriptions that the Assyrian monarchs left. And also the records of other people you find why they were a terror to the world back then. If the people would not submit immediately when they would tell em, “Submit to our power and become a tributary people, or else,” they would go in and raze their cities to the ground, they would behead the men one after another and leave a mountain of skulls.

Speaker 2: 11:40 Thousands and tens of thousands of skulls. They would take the leaders, the king and his counselors, and skin them alive before they executed them. No wonder that they became a byword for terror. Since their reign it was an aspect of their national character. Now there are two [inaudible 00:12:05]. [inaudible 00:12:05] a hundred thousand. They carried it now for centuries. They were a very proud [inaudible 00:12:22]. Their previous state made them a particularly warlike and ugly people. Now they are particularly kindly. There are a few colonies of them in California. They have a church or two down in the valley, I believe there is or used to be a Syrian church of the patriarch. And one or two keep there.

Speaker 2: 12:59 The Assyrians were a very powerful people. But numerically very strong. Dominated the world for a long time both because of their character and also because of their terror. But their character, their discipline was enough and their military discipline made them something to reckon with wherever they went. Because it took only a very limited number of Assyrians to get to the enemies of [inaudible 00:13:33].

Speaker 2: 13:35 Let’s turn now to the religious side of the Assyrians. Trying to read their ancient inscriptions from the Ancient Near Eastern texts, we have a statement of one of their monarchs. From Shalmaneser the third, the dates are 858 to 824. “I made am Shalmaneser the legitimate king. The king of the world. A king without rival, the great dragon, the only power within the four winds of the earth, the overlord of all the princes that smashed all his enemies as if they be earthenware. The strong man, unsparing who showed no mercy in battle.” Now that’s how he identified. That is a merciless God. But also the king of the world, the king without rival. Great dragon. Footnote makes it clear that the meaning of this as [inaudible 00:14:37] means giant snake. Very interesting thing.

Speaker 2: 14:36 And of course it doesn’t take more than a moment’s reflection to understand, after all what is Satan called [inaudible 00:15:14]? And even in Revelations, Revelation 12:5 we have a translation at the very end of scripture. “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan which deceiveth the whole world.” Very clearly. The Assyrian monarch calling themselves the great dragon called themselves as the incarnation as it were in the presence of the world of Satan. But not Satan as we see him as the enemy, but as the great liberator of mankind. Let’s turn over to another inscription from ancient Syria.

Speaker 2: 16:06 This is from Adad-Nirari the third, 810 to 783. “Adad-Nirari, Great King, legitimate king, king of the world, king of [inaudible 00:16:23], king of Asher, king of the Euphrate,” that is Syria itself. Had chosen already when he was a youngster entrusting him the position of a prince without rival. Whose shepherding they made agreeable to the people of Assyria, as is [inaudible 00:16:47]. A king whose throne they established. Called himself the Shepherd of the people. Now the word Shepherd in ancient times, meant God. God is a shepherd of men. This is why God speaks of himself as the Shepherd of Israel in the Old Testament. Our Lord says “I am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep.” He was saying “I am God.”

Speaker 2: 17:24 Why [inaudible 00:17:25] thinks he’s God. Why did Adad-Nirari call himself the Great God. [inaudible 00:17:30] or the Tree of Life. Now you see something of the same time in Assyria. The bringer of life to mankind, the liberator of man, Satan. The kings of Assyria as the Great Dragon, the liberator, the bringer of life and freedom to man. Like the Tree of Life or the plant of life. In other words pagan religions were satanic imitations of true religions. The design was to lead to the city or kingdom of man as against the kingdom of God. To regain Eden by means of [inaudible 00:18:25]. And change and chaos were seen as the ways to prosperous and freedom. Kings therefore as the representatives of the Great Serpent who are waging a revolution against God [inaudible 00:18:46] and using chaos as a way of order against God.

Speaker 2: 18:49 I pointed out in the text how they saw the world as the evolving world order. And the kings or rulers at the top at any one point, would need for the time the representation, the manifestation of the power of the universe, of the Great Dragon. And for this purpose everything was to be brought under him as the liberator of mankind. This is why the Assyrians who had the dream of one world without God would take people forcibly out of their own lands and scatter them throughout their empire, so that they would break down all mankind.

Speaker 2: 19:27 This is what they did to the king of Israel. They took them and they scattered them throughout the empire, hoping that they would forget their language, they would forget where they came from, they would intermarry with other people and would be lost. And of course many of the nations disappeared under this policy which ruled Assyrian and in Babylon. Fact. I mentioned the serpent. He appears very often in ancient religion. As a matter of fact you can see him today, he has a revival. After all what is the emblem used by doctors? Anyone knows what it means, a staff with serpents round about it. The Tree of Life with the serpents around it. What does it mean, well it has reference to the healing god supposedly, but why are the snakes the healing god, because the snakes deliver us, the serpents deliver us man from God. And the Greek word for that god is Asclepius, which means the inducting snake. And the Latin form of it is Aculapius, or the man-instructing snake. That’s the original and older form, the man-instructing snake.

Speaker 2: 21:05 He who instructed mankind in the way of health, in the way of freedom, the way of deliberation. Now going on next to Babylon, Babylon had a similar policy as Assyria, forcibly moving people, trying to create a one world order. But their policy was not quite as ruthless as the Assyrian. If you believe as the Assyrians and the Babylonians did, that everything was originally chaos then the world must continually change and be regenerated by chaos. Chaos is a way to regenerate or revolution. Acts of chaos or perversion and so on as the way to get in charge as it were. That means that there’s no certainty in the world. Because, to get ahead you have to have chaos. Now if you’re trying to build something that doesn’t give you too much security.

Speaker 2: 22:13 And this is why I included in the text a very interesting prayer on page 25 of Nebuchadrezzar. Now the name Nebuchadrezzar is the Babylonian form, the Hebrew form is Nebuchadnezzer. The different is an n and an r, [inaudible 00:22:37]. Now Nebuachadnezzar prayer, page 25 of the first quotation. “Oh mighty my lord, do remember my deeds, they [inaudible 00:22:50]. May these my good deeds be always before your mind so that my walking in effigy I may be there, which I love may last to old age, may I remain always your legitimate governor. May I pull your yoke till I am slated with progeny and children. May my name be remembered in future days in a good sense. May my offspring rule forever over the [inaudible 00:23:15].” Well when he wrote this there was not a hint of any country having any chance of standing to Babylon. And yet the spirit [inaudible 00:23:25]. For this is the way they all fell, terrible in uncertainty. God [inaudible 00:23:34] continual revolution. Chaos. What hope is there for [inaudible 00:23:52].

Speaker 2: 23:52 [inaudible 00:23:52] the revolution at the end. And of course this is the position of our modern revolutionary, perpetual chaos, perpetual revolution. [inaudible 00:24:01] son in law, [inaudible 00:24:03] defeated him, the father Belchazzar, later on down the page, page 25 he describes the enormous power when he is made king. “They carried me into the towns and prostrated themselves to my knees. They kissed my knees, greeting me again and again as king. But I was elevated to rule the country by the order of my lord Marduk and therefore I shall claim whatever I desire. There shall be no rivalry.” And of course [inaudible 00:24:43] the basic fate of the people is revolution. How are you going to scatter the revolution? You can’t. You will be fighting as it were against yourself, because what you believe in is chaos. And it is a revolution against you. You’re a revolution, how are you going to stand? And as a result there was always this uncertainty.

Speaker 2: 25:22 Now continuing with our analysis of Assyrian. Their thesis was that the whole universe, let’s see the Babylonians like the Assyrians believed that gods in the other world they are higher grade men as it were, and they are evolving like the world is, and they have a state of governance and the whole universe is a government which goes through revolutions, changes some man one set of gods takes over and one set of men takes over on earth. But the only kind of life is in the sea. In this was the philosophy by Frankfurt and Wolfson and Jacobson. They comment on the function of sea, I quote. “The [inaudible 00:26:04] of the Mesopotamian universe was conceived of as a city. The gods who owned and ruled various city states were bound together a higher unity, the assembly of the gods which possessed an executive organ for exerting powerful pressure as well as for enforcing law and order internally. And far reaching consequences for Mesopotamian history, and was a way in which historically events were viewed and interpreted. It vastly strained the tendency towards political unification of the country by sanctioning even the most violent of means used toward that end.

Speaker 2: 26:43 For any convert if he was successful would recognize that the agent of envy of the gods. If [inaudible 00:26:53]. It also provided even at times when national unity was at a low ebb and the many city states were for all practical purposes, given the background on which international [inaudible 00:27:08].

Speaker 2: 27:15 Now, to develop that point a little bit. How did the Babylonian monarch become king, what marked him as king? Well he seized power and he went to the great temple of Babylon where there was a great picture of Marduk or Bel with his hand outstretched as if to shake your hand. The one who gained power went up there and shook Bel or Marduk’s hand. Said “I am now come at the top. I have beaten everybody else so I am now on your level, I am one of the gods. All the power in the universe is listening. I am the chaos that put me here.” Or he could be someone who gained it by defeating the other brothers and taking a father position. And of course what was to prevent someone from overthrowing him, triumphantly grabbing Bel or El or Marduk’s hand and saying “I am the one.” [inaudible 00:29:21] and triumph.

Speaker 2: 29:21 Well then men could not live except in the state or without political [inaudible 00:29:21]. A world in which all is revolution or chaos in the way it is set. We are going to be pessimistic because what you instill. The very fact that it has endured for a while is a sign that it’s a really trivial and it’s going to be over soon. And so in the so-called Gilgamesh epic which they tell us, some of these … frauds who talk about the bibles of other religions, this is the bible of these people the Mesopotamians. Everything that the book tells is Gilgamesh [inaudible 00:29:21]. That [inaudible 00:29:21] or the way to heaven, for eternal life, for peace in this world, it’s hopeless. Listen to this passage form the Gilgamesh epic.

Speaker 2: 29:32 “Gilgamesh, whither are you wondering, why would you look for, you will never find for when the gods created man they let them be a share lined with hell in their own hand. Gilgamesh fill your belly day and night, make merry [inaudible 00:29:48] joy, dance and make music day and night and wear clothes and wash your heads and bathe. Look at the child who is holding your hand and let your wife to lighten your [inaudible 00:29:59]. These things alone are the concern of men.” In other words, enjoy yourself, you’re gonna be dead soon. Life doesn’t mean anything.

Speaker 2: 30:07 Thus it was a rising pessimistic [inaudible 00:30:19]. And so it is that someone has said that if the Egyptians returned with their [inaudible 00:30:29] they’d be satisfied because they will be [inaudible 00:30:33]. The Assyrians, the Babylonians would say [inaudible 00:30:40] everything is change. Life is perpetual revolution, perpetual frustration.

Speaker 2: 30:45 To continue now with Persia, and again to understand its history by understanding its religion. The ancient religion of Persia was … does anybody know what is was? Zoroastrianism, yes. And all the subsequent faiths were developments of that until Islam took over. Zoroastrianism. Now the word Zoroaster is again a very interesting word. Originally it was Zuro-Ashter, a Chaldean name an ancient Chaldean name and it means, it can mean seed. Seed of a woman or seed of the fire. Why they had the same word for woman and fire I don’t know. Well maybe some of you men can figure it out.

Speaker 2: 31:57 But this again is very very interesting to us Christians because who is the deliverer according to the [inaudible 00:32:04]? She is a woman. Until Zoroaster came as the seed of a woman claiming to be the messiah [inaudible 00:32:18]. Now the name was subsequently changed a little bit in the Zend Avesta writing. The religious writings of Zoroastrianism, to Zarathustra which is the way Nietzsche used it. Zarathustra means the delivering seed or the emancipator, so the women was dropped but fire remains as the symbol of their religion. Zarathustra. Or, Zoroaster or Zura-Ashter, claiming to be the messiah. Claiming to be the fulfillment of the promise made to Adam and Eve concerning the one who would come as the deliverer of mankind.

Speaker 2: 33:14 What was this deliverer, this Zoroaster, what was his religion? Well Zoroaster’s teaching was very simple. There are two ultimate powers in the universe, which you can call God and Satan. They are equal and powerful. One didn’t make the other, they were both there from the beginning. So that good and evil are ultimate, good and matter, evil and goodness, light and darkness. Both therefore are equally true, just take your pick. Either one is the way of holiness. Which is why in India today where there are traces of this kind of thing surviving in Hinduism, you find ascetics who will have nothing to do with women because they are matter whereas man is spirit, or that’s they’re version of it, I don’t think it’s a very sound one.

Speaker 2: 34:24 And therefore they have nothing to do with women representing the material, the sensual. They will have almost nothing to do with food, just barely enough to stay alive. They will withdraw, contemplate things of the spirit. There are others who are equally holy who have nothing to do with anything of the spirit, who will give themselves over day after day and they will have monasteries and convents for these people, Buddhism has them also, where all the do is practice various sexual rites and perversions day after day after day, it’s been called by one scholar games of musical chairs only with sex. This is the way of holy for them. Because you can serve either one. They’re both equally true. What does this lead to? Well, you’re basically tolerant then of both [inaudible 00:35:30]. If neither one is truer than the other or more ultimate than the other you can take your pick or you can live and say “Well I’m not going to go the way of all-out sex or all out asceticism, all-out good or all-out evil, I’m gonna live tolerant of both.

Speaker 2: 35:57 Now’s my chance to point out the Persians who are tolerant of different religions. It was the Persians when they overthrew Babylon, that permitted Ezra and Nehemiah to go back to Jerusalem and to rebuild it. They were very kindly about their religion. Why? It’s a matter of religious policies. If everything is equally true, you can be tolerant of everything. So the Persians followed this kind of way. And they were in a sense far more successful than the Assyrians and Babylonians, in blending all the different peoples into one empire. As a matter of fact the Greeks themselves who were under Persian rule were not happy when Alexander the Great overthrew Persian rule in their area because the Persians were so tolerant of everything. And of course this tolerance led in most of these religions to syncretism. Syncretism means merging things, a smorgasbord kind of religion. Go through and take your pick, whatever you want. A little bit of this and a dab of that, whatever looks good in all these things.

Speaker 2: 37:33 And of course we have a great deal of that kind of mentality today because again today the attitude is very much like that of the Zoroastrians, that “Well there’s good and evil in the world, and they’re a part of life and you tolerate all of it.” So you have a total toleration of everything, the fact is that you should not tolerate. As a result Persia was a powerful and stable empire for a long long time. It was incidentally, as I point out in the text, a western country. They were a definitely western people. A good deal of Asia in those days was western territory. Right up until the Middle Ages you find that Englishmen thought nothing of taking a trip clear across Asia and Europe to China. There were a number of travelers in those days who did it.

Speaker 2: 38:47 To continue now with Greece, to analyze a religious motif that undergirds Greek culture so that we can understand the direction of their history. Their great writers that are considered classic were religious writers, humanistic to the core, their religion was a form of humanism. Homer was of course their greatest poet. And in Homer what you have is a picture of the hero. Now the hero is a very special kind of person. We talk about heroism and we mean by it somebody who is brave and courageous but a hero is something more than that strictly, a hero is a kind of superman who is more than half god because he does such great things so that the spirit of the universe is incarnate in him and therefore he is above the law, he is an exception to the law because he represents something that is unusual in history. Law and morality are for the ordinary crowd, the cattle. But the hero is above these. We have a concept of heroism and the hero with us again. It was revived a couple of centuries ago by humanism, we had it in the renaissance when it was revived again in the enlightenment and it has become a very important aspect of modern political thinking.

Speaker 2: 40:45 In German it’s the fuhrer so you immediately know what it means there. We have the same concept of the hero in America when they speak about a leader having charisma. C-H-A-R-I-S-M-A. Roosevelt had charisma, so did Kennedy. And who is the man with charisma who had command of the stage politically. And we are told that [inaudible 00:41:15] has charismatic quality. And of course the word charisma, christening, it has a messianic connotation, it has a connotation of power from above. A kind of supernatural power, superman. So that Homer portraying the hero for us is portraying religious figure. And today as people again very much Hellenic in their thinking, very much influenced by Greek culture the great homeland of humanism as it were.

Speaker 2: 41:58 Again voting for the charismatic leader, for the fuhrer. For the great dictator like Stalin or a person who would stand out and be above law. Therefore who will lead the people into the new garden of Eden. Now to latch onto some of the other great writers of Greece so that we can understand Greece through them. They’re three great dramatists were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. And of course what they wrote basically was tragedy. Tragedy is a non-Christian, and we might say very very definitely an anti-Christian form of art. Why? Because the essence of tragedy is that man is a pawn in a perverse universe. Where the unrelenting fury of the gods await all who offend the gods. So, they may do us all unknowingly. The deck is stacked. Things are hopeless no matter what you do, you’re guilty and the gods are gonna take it out of you in the power of the universe.

Speaker 2: 43:26 In other words, it’s a perverse universe. However I brought the tragedies of Sophocles with me, to give you an idea of this. Sophocles was perhaps the greatest of the three. And his greatest works are those that deal with the Oedipus story. You all know the Oedipus Complex that Freud popularized, being in love with your mother. Of course it isn’t the Greek story. The Greek story is a very interesting one, this young prince and his young wife have a baby, they bring the soothsayer to prophesy concerning his glorious reign and so on. What’s going to happen with this beautiful baby. And he says “This baby is going to kill his father and marry his mother.” Well, immediately the young king is very upset. So he calls in one of the servants and he says “Take the baby out and kill him. We can’t have that happen.” So the servant takes the baby out but he’s such a beautiful child his heart melts with pity, and so when he’s [inaudible 00:44:42] he takes him into another country and there he gives him to a shepherd. He gives him to take care of this poor baby. They bring him the long way from home.

Speaker 2: 44:55 So the boy grows up and becomes quite a powerful, capable brilliant young warrior. His name is Oedipus.

Rev. R.J. Rushdoony (1916–2001), was a leading theologian, church/state expert, and author of numerous works on the application of Biblical law to society. He started the Chalcedon Foundation in 1965. His Institutes of Biblical Law (1973) began the contemporary theonomy movement which posits the validity of Biblical law as God’s standard of obedience for all. He therefore saw God’s law as the basis of the modern Christian response to the cultural decline, one he attributed to the church’s false view of God’s law being opposed to His grace. This broad Christian response he described as “Christian Reconstruction.” He is credited with igniting the modern Christian school and homeschooling movements in the mid to late 20th century. He also traveled extensively lecturing and serving as an expert witness in numerous court cases regarding religious liberty. Many ministry and educational efforts that continue today, took their philosophical and Biblical roots from his lectures and books.

Learn more about R.J. Rushdoony by visiting: https://chalcedon.edu/founder

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