Tag: r.j. rushdoony

Rushdoony on ‘Spare-Tire Religion’ (1994)

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A spare tire is a good thing to have in your trunk; but once it’s there, who gives it a second thought until it’s needed?

This “spare-tire religion,” R.J. Rushdoony wrote in 1994, is descriptive of all too many people’s Christianity.

https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/spare-tire-religion

It’s profession of Christianity over practice. Rushdoony marveled over how many Christians fight over doctrines to which they’ve given but little thought: “It seems that some cannot say what they really believe, but they know what they do not believe.”

But some ten years ago he found hope in the growing number of Christians who had stopped taking their faith for granted and were eager to explore its deeper meaning. “Spare-tire religion is doomed,” he wrote. “It will be replaced by Christianity.”

Sometimes it’s hard for us to see that. And sometimes that’s exactly how God works it.

Yesterday’s Paradise

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Light Educational Ministries

You won’t believe how on-target this book is.

I’m passing up transgender nooze today because I think we’ve all had enough of that for the time being.

Instead, we have a meaty and insightful review, by Martin Selbrede, of R.J. Rushdoony’s 1977 classic, Revolt Against Maturity. It’s a fairly long read, but well worth your time.

https://chalcedon.edu/magazine/rushdoonys-revolt-against-maturity

Let me share with you the crowning quote from Rushdoony’s book. Look sharp, don’t miss it–

“Yesterday’s paradise is today’s hell.”

Whooooo! He just covered the whole history of the Soviet Union in just five words!

Think, think, think about what Rushdoony says. Anything going on today that’s sold to us as the express route to Paradise… and will very likely by a one-way ride to hell? Do you think that maybe psychiatry might have the answers? Maybe we can get them from The Party… or from Science.

Amazing, how clearly this man saw the future.

Rushdoony, 1995: The Fallacy of Politics

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Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey

Rushdoony summed up his argument in just a single sentence:

“Politics takes credit for what others do.”

https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/the-fallacy-of-politics

His example is a telling one. Martin Luther King and President Lyndon Johnson take most of the credit for advancing civil rights in America–but there were two non-politicians whose work was much more important:

Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers who hired Robinson to be the first African-American to play in the major leagues (and did he play!). The day Robinson first took the field for the Dodgers was the day segregation and formal racial discrimination took a mortal wound. After Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey had done their work, things would never be the same. Baseball did what 100 years of politics couldn’t do.

Politics, Rushdoony said, works from the top down. But the real progress is made from the bottom up, by “ordinary people” who hold no public office. They work for what’s right–and that’s the lesson.

Work for the good.

Rushdoony: ‘The War Against the Family’

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R.J. Rushdoony (2 of 2) Christ's Victory Over Satan - YouTube

R.J. Rushdoony wrote this in 1996. Now, 27 years later, I’m old enough to see how right he was.

https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/the-war-against-the-family

Have you ever seen this sticker on a car? “We are spending our children’s inheritance!” All too often, that is literally true. There are all sorts of “elder care plans” that suck up every dollar of what parents might otherwise leave to their children. There are more of them now than there were in 1996.

And we’ve all seen this: parents retire, move hundreds or even thousands of miles away from their surviving family members, eventually their health begins to fail… and then they pine away for visitors, forgetting how difficult they’ve made it to visit them.

And offspring who move away from their parents. Again, hundreds of miles. Patty and I knew a sweet and benign woman whose adult children harshly rejected her and moved from New Jersey to California… with the grandchildren. “Y’know, Mom,” said the daughter, “there comes a time when the old coyote crawls off to die.” Comforting, isn’t it?

“Social decay begins with the family,” said Rushdoony.

Right on target.

We really do have to do better by our families. And there are many villains out there working against us, who’d like nothing better than to see the family broken up.

How Far Can We Go?

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Stream Rushdoony Radio | Listen to Revelation: Thy Kingdom Come playlist online for free on SoundCloud

Scanning the nooze in the course of my work, a question has occurred to me today.

How far can we distance ourselves from God before we can’t get back?

Canada promotes assisted suicide as an answer to life’s problems. American politicians promote “transgender” as if their lives depended on it. And abortion: they endorse it whole-heartedly. Stocking school libraries with “gay” pornography. Having the FBI spy on parents who think the schools should not “teach” racial paranoia. Etc., etc.–it’s a depressingly long list.

I’ve just read Martin Selbrede’s article at http://www.chalcedon.edu , “Rushdoony and the Book of Revelation (https://chalcedon.edu/magazine/rushdoony-and-the-book-of-revelation). It gives food for thought. I think I need quote one sentence from it: “There is total victory woven throughout the book of Revelation.” (Read more if you’re in a mood to do some thinking.)

The total victory is to Christ’s Kingdom on the earth.

Which suggests that some of our more insane public policies, “insane” in the sense of being diametrically opposed to God’s Word, are also insane in that those who stand for them stand against Christ’s total victory. Does that sound like a place where you want to stand?

We don’t need a Great Reset. We need repentance.

Rushdoony on ‘Education’ (Love of Life Podcast)

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R. J. Rushdoony: Champion of Faith and Liberty – Christ Rules

R.J. Rushdoony

Have you got a few minutes? Listen to R.J. Rushdoony introduce this Love of Life Podcast (interview with Chalcedon’s Andrea Schwartz). It doesn’t take him longer than that to make the case for a Christian education!

https://chalcedon.edu/resources/videos/the-love-of-life-podcast-interviews-chalcedons-christian-education-advocate

I’ve said it before: If we, the world’s people, were actually to do all the things that self-proclaimed saviors and experts of the Far Left Crazy say we ought to do–abortion, transgender, homosexuality, assisted suicide, etc.–the result would be the extinction of the human race. As King Solomon put it, the voice of God’s wisdom reminds us, “All they that hate me love death” (Proverbs 8:36).

If they can’t get to our children via public education, they can’t get ’em at all.

R.J. Rushdoony, ‘Capitalization and Decapitalization’

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Home - Rushdoony Radio

R.J. Rushdoony–he didn’t need a crystal ball to see the future.

I know the title is a little dry and the essay is a long one, but stay with it. R.J. Rushdoony wrote it back in 1967, and it’s still as true as ever. Maybe even more so.

https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/capitalization-and-decapitalization

“Capitalization is the product of work and thrift,” he said; and these are the product of character. Specifically Christian character. But “socialism is organized larceny,” and its result is decapitalization–more need, less money!–and not only inflation and want, but also a deterioration of character itself. “Things which were once intolerable and forbidden are now openly promoted and sponsored,” Rushdoony wrote. Can you say “transgender”? We go from secret, hidden vices to abominations openly performed.

As our culture, our character, deteriorates, so does our productivity. The inflation that we face today, the worst in 40 years, is exactly what Rushdoony would have predicted.

We can’t just let it all keep going as it’s going.

‘Social Justice’ (R.J. Rushdoony)

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Rousas Rushdoony.jpg

In just a very few words, all the way back in 1978, R.J. Rushdoony demolished the whole concept of “social justice”–so don’t bother to wonder why the Wokies don’t like him.

https://chalcedon.edu/blog/social-justice

“Social justice does not exist. It is a myth,” he wrote. Sinners define right and wrong, so that for them sin equals virtue and lawlessness is law.

But the thrust of God’s justice is restitution and restoration, and taking responsibility for one’s actions. Any reading of Exodus and Leviticus will clearly teach that.

In “social justice” you just decide whom to blame and sic the state on him–the same state for which God’s laws don’t exist.  And we can all see how that turns out, can’t we?

R.J. Rushdoony: ‘The Culture War’

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Fallout' Tells The Story Of The Journalist Who Exposed The 'Hiroshima Cover-Up' : NPR

Natural goodness, eh?

This little essay by Rushdoony, first published in 1999, packs a sharp punch.

https://chalcedon.edu/magazine/the-cultural-war

“Culture war” has been with us for most of my life. Rushdoony boiled it down to Original Sin vs. the “natural goodness” of man.

Let’s scratch our heads over this. The world has just finished fighting World War II, complete with the Holocaust and the atomic bomb. Then war springs up in Korea.

And the world’s intellectuals, and more than a few churchmen, want us to believe that man is naturally good? For that to be true, God’s word must be wrong. So they set themselves up as “God’s editor” and proceed to correct all the mistakes they say He made. Poor God. What would He do without us?

Original Sin vs. natural goodness: “This is the dividing line,” Rushdoony wrote. And we can forget about trying to merge good and evil. All you get out of that is good that used to be good but now is corrupted by evil.

‘The Smiling Face of Evil’

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How do you tell the Devil is evil when he doesn’t look evil?

R.J. Rushdoony wrote this essay back in 1986, but it has a very long shelf life.

https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/the-smiling-face-of-evil

Bad enough that Satan deceives us; but how many are there who want to be deceived? As Rushdoony put it, “people earn hell.” They work for it, sacrifice for it, they’re always reaching for it. They think it’ll be a God-free zone where they can do anything they want and it’ll all turn out just fine.

I think of the grins on the faces of certain politicians… and then I think I understand precisely what Rushdoony meant.