Rushdoony was a head of his time. His "Random Notes" sections in the old Chalcedon Report were just that: random thoughts. We would call this "blogging." In addition, Rushdoony and a select few for years put out a regular audio tape, "The Easy Chair," in which they discussed a particular topic for about an hour. We call this "podcasting." He never ceases to amaze me. Especially since he was so contra-technology!
1. As a boy, born into an immigrant family, in 1916, the United States was to me the land of liberty. My most vivid memories are of new arrivals, and of people gathering from miles around to ask about their loved ones. Did they see them in the long march from Turkey and its massacres into Russia? Sometimes the answer was no, and, at other times, I saw their body on the roadside, or floating in a river, or I saw her seized during a raid and battle with Kurdish or Turkish cavalry. When I started school, lining up outside first of all, before going to class, to pledge allegiance to the flag, was a great and moving experience to me: we were in the land of liberty.
All the same, at times as a boy I wondered if Americans were not at times a bit crazy. One of the common beliefs and hygiene teachings of the day had to do with opening windows wide in the coldest weather, or better, sleeping in a sleeping porch. Going to bed, with windows shut, and a heated brick wrapped in a towel for my feet, made better sense to me! But, I was told, cold rooms and cold showers trained British youth to conquer an empire. I wondered if the empire had not been won by men seeking warmer air and waters which were never chilly!
Craziest of all to me was the universal American remedy of the day, enemas. Very clearly in my school days I realized this was the great terror of American youth. One day, when a boy next to me was obviously unwell, I asked him why he had not stayed home. "Are you crazy?" he asked; if he had not put on an act at breakfast of being as chipper as ever, his mom and pop would have grabbed him and rammed an enema into him! I realized that being a foreigner had its disadvantages, but being an American boy was not all Tom Sawyer fun and games! It included strange and grim things! Of course, we Armenians of those days had a universal remedy also, a happy one: a big bowl of home made yogurt (mahdzoon) every night. I was happy to be an American, but some things made me very happy to be an Armenian also!
2. The Washington Report (P.O. Box 10309, St. Petersburg, Florida 33733) always has some choice humor as well as interesting commentaries. In the February, 1992 number, these delighted me:
What can you say for a country that says GOD is dead and ELVIS is alive.
Overheard in divorce court: My wife converted me to religion. I never believed in hell until I married her.
Moses came down from Mt. Sinai and told his followers: "I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that God has reduced the commandments to ten. The bad news is that adultery is still in."
One dog to another dog: "Show me a home where the buffalo roam and I'll show you a smelly living room."
3. On October 20, 1991, the Los Angeles Solo Repertory Orchestra had, as its concluding number, Symphony no. 4, Opus 78, by Martin Selbrede. The program notes read in part:
The symphony, subtitled RECONSTRUCTION, evokes Mendelsohn's Reformation Symphony in denoting a religious programme, but follows John Adams in depicting a contemporary phenomenon.... Selbrede's literary/philosophical source is contemporary theologian R.J. Rushdoony. (THANK YOU, Martin!)
4. Some things never work out right. In 1987, the French decided to give safe driving awards to good motorists; the awards would be free petrol tickets. After several days, no motorist qualified, so it was quietly decided to award the tickets to any driver obeying the basic traffic laws. It worked out badly. The first driver the gendarmes tried to flag down assumed he was in trouble and raced off; the second driver ran through a red light to get away and got a ticket instead!
5. Critics have a poor record in history, but they still go on assuming that their judgments are valid. In 1877, the Odessa Courier's critic said of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina that it was "sentimental rubbish. . . . Show me one page that contains an idea." William Winstanley in 1687 said of John Milton: "His fame is gone out like a candle in a snuff and his memory will always stink." On October 24, 1878, the New York Times said of Bizet's Carmen, "As a work of art, it is naught." How would the world get along without critics?!
6. In A Medieval Book of Seasons by Marie Collins and Virginia Davis (Harper Collins, 1992) reference is made (p.68) to the gleaners, the poor who were allowed into the fields to glean. This Biblical custom has been practiced over the centuries and still prevails in some parts of the United States. Much more of Biblical law is still current practice than many people will either admit or recognize.
7. 1 recall as a boy reading of Americans whose motto was, "Death before dishonor." Our Congress has revived this in a revised form: "Dishonor before death."
8. Sometime back, I reviewed a very important book, graciously sent to me by a longtime friend, Marguerite Lane, whose father I well remember as a saintly gentleman of the old school. Now this same book is out in an expanded edition: Joel R. Beeke: Assurance of Faith, Calvin English Puritanism, and the Dutch Second Reformation; New York, N.Y.: Peter Lang, 1991 (available from Bible Truth Books, P.O. Box 2373, Kalamazoo, Michigan 49003; $28; Michigan customers add 407o sales tax). This is a serious study, a book for pastors, theologians, and informed laymen. It is a careful and very important work. Great advances in Christianity have been preceded by a revival of emphasis on the doctrine of the assurance of faith and all it implies and presupposes. As one historian has observed, without a faith in assurance of redemption and victory, the church has never thrived nor grown. This is why it is necessary to understand what assurance of faith has meant and means. If the church chooses, it can be greatly richer for Dr. Beeke's work.
9. Sandford Dody was for years a "ghost writer" for prominent actors and actresses. In his own autobiography, Giving Up the Ghost (1980), written to mark his abandonment of ghost writing, he makes a telling observation about one particularly famous actress: she was "her own religion." "One must accept her therefore on pure faith." Those are sad lines to write about anyone, but how much worse if they describe a clergyman? Someone who has a file a foot thick on one such man tells me that more is coming in. People who make themselves their own religion have a faith that soon perishes and is eternally damned.
10. Last November, Concord, California voted down a "gay rights" measure for the second time. A graffiti which appeared soon thereafter on a bridge read "Kill Christians. " The Christian community had defeated the measure.
11. One of my fond memories of almost twenty years ago at a bookstore in a Los Angeles suburb: Some non-selling books, slightly shelf-worn, were marked down to less than a fourth of their original price. I spotted one on Jewish history, The Dark Ages, 711-1096, published by Rutgers in 1966. Before I could get to it, a slender old gentleman picked it up lovingly and began to examine a volume in The World History of the Jewish People, vol. 2, The Dark Ages, 711-1096. His wife, whose accent was obviously Jewish, was annoyed and wanted to leave. He said, mildly but earnestly, "There is much valuable information in this book. "Put it down," she ordered, "you know too much already!" Thank God, Dorothy never says that! She helps me locate the important books with equal delight. I did get that book when the old gentleman reluctantly put it down!
12. A curious book I read recently was by Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, M.D. Witchdoctors and Psychiatry, The Common Roots of Psychotherapy and its Future (1986; a revision of a book published in 1972). He holds that "the techniques used by western psychiatrists are, with a few exceptions, on exactly the same scientific plane as the techniques used by witch-doctors" (p. 11). However, Dr. Fuller favors licensing and accreditation! One wonders, after reading his book, when all psychiatrists and witchdoctors gain their licenses, whether or not the Christian clergy will be allowed to carry on their ministry of the cure of souls. Already attempts have been made to control the clergy in this sphere.
13. Fidelity, December, 1991, p. 27, reported that a feminist magazine turned down an article by Diane Bartz on lesbians who batter their lovers because the writer was not herself a lesbian! So much for tolerance on the left.
In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four. ~ George Orwell, 1984
Such false equations are the best way to describe philosophical movements. This is especially true in the incessant debates over postmodernity. I remain unimpressed by the discussion, and it's particularly disturbing to see such strong Christian interest in its thesis. At root it is an issue of hermeneutics (i.e., method of interpretation). When the new hermeneutic is joined to deconstruction, we call that "postmodernism."
Deconstruction is the hermeneutical arm of postmodernity that deals more specifically with texts, language, and meaning. It's central criticism of modernity is that all communication is essentially a positivistic social construction, and therefore, disparages all subjective interpretations. In other words, modernism is no more "true" to the text than any other interpretive model because in the end, all meaning is subjective. The interpreter's background and social conditioning controls their thinking more so than any laws of logic or reason shared by all.
Deconstruction argues that "conditioning" is involved in language as well as texts. Therefore, all reality is dubious because the entire means of communication and understanding lose objectivity in the morass of the individual interpreter. It is a philosophical prison from which there is no escape.
If this is true, then deconstructionists are at liberty to remove words from their framework ("deconstruct") and "reconstruct" them in terms of the interpreter. Deconstructionists claim an interpretative advantage in that by removing the texts from their alleged framework they make room for innovative insights not possible under the tyranny of modernity. This leaves objective interpretation in shambles; and out of the remains rises the two-headed phoenix of plurality and relativism.
If the majority of mankind subscribes to the subjective hermeneutic (i.e., "truth is in the eyes of the beholder"), then one might say that we are living in a "post"-modern era. But, we cannot say we are in a truly postmodern era -- it's only when we need to make 2+2=5. However, we can say that the certainty of modernism is no longer the authoritative position. It sunk metaphorically like a philosophical Titanic.
In this skeptical climate any claims to reason as the basis for certainty are labeled as domineering or dogmatic -- an ignorant fundamentalism. Since all truth is subjective any appeal to objectivity is simply self-denial on the part of the claimant.
Lest I be misconstrued, I am no fan of the modernist system in that modernity had religion as its primary target for eradication. Modernism was to usher in a scientific utopia in which God is reduced to the level of opium -- He becomes the source for euphoria. However, the question of objectivity inherent in modernism is baseless without presupposing the Christian God of the Bible. Christianity and modernity shared a common assurance in objectivity though modernity had no philosophical basis for such certainty. Therefore, it is only proper that modernity be consumed by its incorrigible offspring, postmodernism.
The new hermeneutic espouses philosophical pluralism: the belief that no one philosophical claim is inherently correct, authoritative, or superior to others. How convenient. And although unsaid, the real target here is the authoritarianism of orthodox Christianity. Other authoritarian ideologies such as Islam are also disparaged; but, loosening the shackles of the Christ-centered narrative of Western civilization is the perpetual objective for the evasive pluralist.
The Side Effects
There have been more side effects to Christianity than simply a growing interest in postmodernism. The remaining evangelicals are quickly marginalized into relativism. They have all but forsaken the battlefield for the shelter of pietism -- the arena where no man may judge you. The heart religion of Christianity is the only safe place from philosophical criticism.
In this context it's easy to see how contemporary Christian preaching degenerates into the "self-help gospel" -- Christianity is a way to spiritual, mental, and emotional wholeness. The average Christian neglects serious, objective theological pursuits. This was made clear when on Larry King Live megachurch pastor Joel Osteen stated that he did not preach on sin because of it's negative emphasis. This is similar to Robert Schuller's version of the "Be-Happy Attitudes" of the Sermon on the Mount. If the intention of the gospel is to deal with sin, and you're determined to avoid the subject, how then can you call yourself a Christian minister in any way?
The new hermeneutic is the epistemic shift from objectivity to subjectivity. It's a break from the modern certainty that you can harvest objective truth from the world through rational and scientific means.
Postmodernity does not warrant theological respectability when it is man's evasive attempt to escape the convicting voice of God. Like Adam and Eve postmodern man scatters amongst the trees to avoid the "voice of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day" (Gen. 3:8). Postmodernity is a vain attempt at avoiding full Biblical compliance by hiding behind skepticism.
In the final analysis, postmoderns insist that two plus two can equal five. It's a valid interpretation for certain groups, and you should not condemn them. Do they say this with certainty? If so, then they practically operate as if two plus two equals four. There is no reason to assume that simply because there are a multiplicity of beliefs that this somehow justifies pluralism. It rather demonstrates man's sinful creativity to cover himself in diverse philosophical disguises.
It is only in the Orwellian society that the obvious is made questionable -- it's the Establishment's way of undermining the assurance of thought. Any and all attacks on meta-narratives like Christianity are not intended to replace such systems with pluralism and individual freedom. They are the philosophical scams of the scientific elite intended to replace Christianity with the creed of man and his statist system.
I cannot endorse the Christian "adoption" of postmodernism as helpful either. Christianity requires no modifiers. It is not modernistic. It is not postmodernistic. It validates the certainty of knowledge, but it also sets limitations upon man's knowledge. The Christian position is not to critique modernity and then run to the bosom of postmodernity. Christianity holds anything beyond itself in contempt -- postmodernism included.
I realize my position is unfriendly to being "relevant." Christianity doesn't need to be relevant to a society that seeks to evade the Almighty.
For a number years one of most celebrated portions of the Chalcedon Report were R. J. Rushdoony's "Random Notes" section at the back of the periodical. In it Rush would literally pen random thoughts and observations about anything and everything. They were often personal and portrayed yet another side to him not often seen by those who've read his academic work. I'd like to eventually publish in a book format, but they are basically "blog-like", so I thought you might enjoy to read them here. I'll have more in the weeks a head. Enjoy!
RANDOM NOTES, 15 By R.J. Rushdoony
1. In the April, 1972 Yankee Magazine, which I receive through the kindness of Mrs. Jean Earle, there is an important article by James Dodson on "The Ditch That Divided Nantucket." Nantucket Island has three ponds which, from Indian days, have been opened to the sea in the spring or fall. In the spring, striped bass, herring, and white perch enter into the ponds to spawn, and, in the fall, eels swim in for the winter. The ponds are thus scoured out, kept clean by the sea, and a variety of ocean life fills the ponds; these keep the mosquito population down. In 1981, Massachusetts banned the practice, citing state and federal environmental laws. Also, some of the new wealthy homeowners felt that erosion would result from the ponds being opened. One man, Steve Scannell, refused to go along with the ban on constitutional grounds. Prior to 1692, Nantucket belonged to New York State, which recognized the island's sovereignty and the right to manage the ponds. When New York ceded Nantucket to Massachusetts, the latter state not only recognized Nantucket's sovereignty but, as recently as 1954, recognized also that it had no right to require fishing licenses for the islanders to fish their ponds.
Scannell persisted in his efforts, only to be arrested again and again, fined, and imprisoned. On each occasion, the courts refused to admit the constitutional issue and ruled in favor of environmental regulations. What happened then was that the stagnant ponds began to stink, and the wealthy owners of million-dollar houses found it unbearable! Finally, a new "study" showed that the islanders and Scannell, a devout Catholic, had been right all along; opening the ponds to the sea was a good and necessary practice. Even then, "permission" to open up the ponds to the sea was not given until 1991, in the spring. The constitutional issue was to the last avoided by the courts and all state and federal agencies.
I cite this for benefit of people who think the law is "on their side" on a variety of issues, including taxation. Where God's law is abandoned, the state law is soon meaningless. When God's law is set aside, justice disappears from society.
2. I was handed something recently about the great financial receipts of a group that accomplishes very little but has an outpouring of gifts. The man who gave me the data sheet was angry and upset. I tried to explain to him that most people in the church and out of it do not want to learn and grow. They resent the challenge to do so. They love groups that tell them only what they want to hear, and so these groups prosper.
3. Peter Levi's The Frontiers of Paradise, A Study of Monks and Monasteries (London, England: Collins Harvill, 1988), is and interesting account of monastic movements. While in Crete, he chatted with one monk, the oldest in his monastery. "He explained his profound mistrust of Western Christianity, his chief objection being which shoulder they should touch first in the sign of the cross" (p. 16). This is the kind of superficial religion which is all to common in all the churches.
4. Outside my window, a bumblebee bee is busy with whatever it is that a bumblebee bee does around flowers. I am very fond of bumblebee bees, and have been since my early school days, when I read a scientist's description of them as "useless." I concluded that, because God made them, they must have a place in His plan. Ever since then, the sight of a bumblebee reminds me that everything must be seen from God's perspective, since he made all things - including us.
5. Recently, Susan Burns told me of a common method of Bible reading, "the flip and dip" system: flip through the Bible, open a page, put your finger on a spot, and then that is God's word for you today! I was amazed that this "system" is still around. When I was a boy, old-time pastors would either ridicule or rebuke those who "read" their Bible this way. I recall vividly one pastor who told of the "message" one "flip and dipper" received. On his first try, he hit Matthew 27:5, namely, that Judas "went and hanged himself." That did not please him, so he tried again with the New Testament, of course, being a "New Testament Christian." This time his finger landed on Luke 10: 37: "Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise."
6. 1 learned a few days ago that, in one English-speaking country, in one denomination the pastor's pay is set on an equality with the poorest member of the church. Such churches cannot be blessed. St. Paul tells us that the presbyters or elders who rule well must be counted "worthy of double honor" (I Tim. 15:17); the word translated as "honor" means at one and the same time pay and honor. To underpay Godly pastors is to sin against the Lord - a common sin. One very fine pastor, who labored especially well at almost no pay to get a church started asked for his proper reward when the young church grew and prospered. The board fought over the issue until 2 A.M., when one man blurted out, "If we pay the pastor that much, he'll be getting more than I do." Of such is not the Kingdom of Heaven.
7. A dear friend recently called attention to heresy and theft in a church. What was the response? At a special meeting, a pastor preached at her by name and declared that she had to emulate Abraham and kill her "Isaac," her "principles" as an act of faith! She should take her principles and plunge a knife into them! After the service, this insane preacher grabbed the young woman in a bear hug, loudly proclaiming he loved her, etc., etc. Is it any wonder that too often the church is a laughing stock before men - and an abomination before God.
Judge Gives Crucial Ruling Against Government Spying
"There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all 'inherent powers' must derive from that Constitution."
So writes U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, a 73 year-old Clinton-appointed federal judge in Detroit that leveled a solid 43-page reproof to the National Security Agency's surveillance program. This is a landmark decision in the war for civil liberties. For some time the ACLU has been awaiting Judge Taylor's decision on their request to strike down the controversial spy program.
There was nothing innovative said in Judge Taylor's judgement. This is because the issues are fundamental; and therefore carry grave implications. Taylor is therefore correct in framing her decision as a resistance to unchecked executive power:
"It was never the intent of the framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights..."
Ouch! Mr. Bush and the NSA are in blatant disregard of the Bill of Rights? Is that true? Aren't these intelligence gathering programs designed to protect U.S. citizens from the terrorists that lurk under the cover of our national shadows? Nobody can actually answer that question since the surveillance program is covered in layers of secrecy.
The foolishness of the administration's defense was demonstrated by the Justice Department who argued, as Washington Post columnist Dan Eggen writes, "that the program (warrantless surveillance) is well within Bush's authority as president, but said proving it would require revealing state secrets." This ostensible reason is used repeatedly by administration officials, and "National security" is the permanent alibi of the military/police state.
The ACLU rightly calls "unconstitutional" the NSA's intercepting of international phone calls and emails without first obtaining search warrants. According to the Detroit Free Press, "[T]he suit says the program has hampered journalists, scholars, lawyers and others trying to speak to sources overseas."
Unless Judge Taylor had ruled quickly, this case would have likely moved to Washington -- which was the desire of the Justice Department. It is a critical victory in the cause of freedom although Taylor will likely be slandered as radical left-wing judge in need of conservative replacement.
At the age of 73 Judge Taylor has made a courageous move. As a black female judge she is a source of shame to the anglo-conservative male judges that have dismissed moral rulers like Judge Moore and underwritten the administration's push for legislative control.
The world marvels at the sweep and power of our media: their ability to make and unmake celebrities, promote politicians and programs, alter traditions and usher innovations. journalists in many regions, harassed by their governments, hindered by strict laws of libel and accountability, censored and supervised, look at American journalists and commentators with awe.
Never, it seems, has any society been so lavishly served with information by so many free-wheeling vehicles, operated by so many facile, talented individuals. TV places Ted Koppel in position to interview, before an audience of multimillions, the prime minister of beleaguered South Africa and his tormentor Bishop Tutu alike. Our cameramen were in Beijing to film young Chinese imitating an American political demonstration; our sitcoms misrepresent the American people to the globe.
Visitors to the United States find the presence of our "communications" nearly inescapable. They hear echoes of the media in every conversation, the presence of TV and/or radio sets in every hotel room, newspapers under almost every hotel door, magazines and paperbacks in every hotel shop, airport, almost every store - all accompanied by a cacophony of sound at almost every turn, in almost every public and/or private setting.
Private and individual thought has been inundated, on almost every level, by our giant communications industry: our 1,675 daily newspapers, our nearly 1,000 general-purpose TV stations and 300 "educational" stations, our 90 million TV homes, our thousands of magazines with their millions of readers, the gargantuan advertising sums spent by our corporations, the huge salaries paid to our anchormen and women, the immense profits of the communications giants.
Yet hardly anyone outside the ranks of professional media managers and tax experts seems to realize that our immense - and immensely important - media are, at base, the result of a single favorable tax ruling by the U.S. Treasury. Our entire media giant rests upon a single, slender ruling. A stroke of a bureaucrat's pen could shrink the media overnight, alter its attitudes, change its positions, lower its voices and its presence - and restore media control to the American people.
The specific origins of this tax ruling appear to be lost in the mists of time. The Public Affairs division of the I.R.S. in Washington told me that at present, the Tax Code allows advertising to be expensed as a necessary cost of doing business under Section 162 as revised in 1954, and that an expensive legal search would be necessary to trace the specific origins of this decision.
My father, however, recalled that the Treasury decision was taken shortly after World War I, when American corporations which had been forced into war (in that war Washington did not wait for volunteers), and which resumed the peacetime manufacture of domestic products, complained that their brand names had been forgotten by the marketplace. Advertising, they argued, was an expense virtually forced upon them and which therefore should be free from taxation. Treasury agreed, and the entire great pyramid we know today, from CBS's Dan Rather to Woodward of the Washington Post - to go from the ridiculous to the ridiculous - is the result.
Without that ruling, Madison Avenue's advertising agencies would discover that diverting corporate advertising monies into anti-American, anti-business channels would be unwise, because most Americans favor this nation and its private sector.
Publications would no longer be able to sell newspapers and magazines at prices below their costs, while reaping large profits from advertisers. Both the print and electronic media would see advertising revenues plummet, for "image" advertising would hardly be worthwhile if it could not be expensed. Product advertising would, of course, continue - but at a smaller rate.
At present, newsletters exist only on the basis of revenues obtained from readers. Their subscription rates are based upon their production and mail costs, and are, correspondingly, much higher than magazines and newspapers that charge only fractions of their costs to readers because they can extract immense revenues from their advertisers. (Readers of this publication are among the most favored, since only voluntary donations are requested.)
The discrepancies between the immense numbers claimed by many national publications today and what their circulations would become if advertising were no longer expensed would mean that the cost of all publications would immediately soar. Many would be quickly seen as redundant. How many, for instance, would pay five or more dollars per copy to read what the editors of weekly "news" magazines considered worth summarizing from the daily press at each week's end?
If this is true regarding some of our larger publications, what would happen to some of our smaller, or in-between ones? Many would vanish, to the general improvement of the nation.
What would be true of the print media would become equally true for TV/radio stations. At present the networks deny advertisers the right to choose the programs in which their ads appear (with the exceptions of "specials"). They sell time slots. The advertiser can choose bands of time, at accompanying rates, but not programs. But if the advertisers are forced to spend moneys that directly reduce net profits, it is doubtful that they would continue to accept such arrogance. The networks, with diminished revenues, would no longer be able to afford to subsidize "independent" program productions (a smelly collection of interlocks and kickbacks that badly needs investigation), but would have to purchase programs, based on genuine audience appeal, competitively created.
In Britain and Europe, generally, advertising is ruled out of order on the public airwaves. Governments charge TV owners an annual license fee, and maintain governmentally funded channels. I can vouch for the fact that the absence of advertising provides blissful relief from incessant interruptions, but I can also attest that the governmental channels abroad, as at home, are almost exclusively managed by the liberal-left, with its bias in the name of anti-bias.
If the American media were stripped of their tax privilege - a privilege of which many writers, commentators, editors, program directors and even advertising executives seem blissfully ignorant, an entire cascade of changes would flow through this land.
The first changes would be economic. Dollars now controlled by left-leaning ad agencies would shrivel to a trickle, and thousands of artists, copywriters and account executives would have to find other jobs in other sectors. The advertising industry as we know it would not vanish, but would be greatly curtailed. Its practitioners would, like their distant predecessors, have to actually produce ads that brought traceable sales improvements to their clients, or close shop. Advertising would revert to a marketing arm of sales, instead of the support of a semi-propaganda sector.
Periodicals would find their audiences both diminished and much more cautious about subscribing. That would bring about an editorial revolution, because editors would have to pay attention to the opinions of their readers, and not rely upon Madison Avenue to keep them alive with captive corporate dollars, irrespective of anti-business, anti-American editorial positions.
The Christian community - largest in the land - would discover that its views would be aired, because no publication could afford to openly flout the views of the majority audience if it could no longer afford to inflate its circulation by virtual giveaways. Of course, as the Iliad says repeatedly, "The fool only believes what has happened." The economic consequences of changing the status of advertising from an accepted and necessary business expense to an ordinary investment in the marketplace would have an immediate, if short range, impact upon employment and advertising subsidiaries such as printing, distribution, retailing, paper, ink, electronics and the entire media pyramid. It might be argued that such a change in the Tax Code would be economically disruptive, retrograde and unnecessary. The very suggestion will undoubtedly shock those who have claimed authority over change - and who insist that only changes in liberal-left directions are to be allowed.
But at present the tax ruling, originally intended to help manufacturers overcome a disadvantage occurred as a result of wartime service, has opened the gates to an intellectual and political nightmare. It is not advertising that is at fault in this situation, but the fact that advertising has enabled the growth of a false media - a media that prospers while misleading and misrepresenting this nation and its people; a media that is against the presidents we elect; a media that is against the Christian community, which is the largest in the land; a media that supports our enemies abroad and at home; a media that is intellectually disloyal; a media that is feared and resented; that violates common decency and the right to privacy; a media that uses freedom of expression to keep secrets from the people while denying the right of the government to keep secrets from our enemies; a media that is an artificial creation that plays a very real and destructive role in our political process, that destroys people and institutions by rumor and misrepresentation, that orates about freedom of expression while denying it to the majority of Americans.
The communications monster sits, like a nightmarish inverted pyramid, atop a tiny, slender Treasury ruling. To remove that ruling would bring down a monster that has usurped the voice of the people and replaced it with its own, that has created an intellectual depression that shadows the land.
To fail to withdraw the privilege that has created this monster means that we shall, as a nation and a people, continue to be misrepresented to ourselves and the world, by a media elite that is dividing and destroying us. To say that they control thousands of outlets and millions of pages of arguments and that this represents our collective wishes and wisdom is to repeat the plea of the lemming that everybody is doing it.
Life is the arena of theology. The doctrines of our faith have been and are being made plainer for us by the testings of history. There is a telling sentence in a recent study by Dr. Joel R. Beeke: "Saving faith is rich because it is the pith of doing Christian theology." (Personal Assurances of Faith: English Puritanism and the Dutch "Nadere Reformatie": From Westminster to Alexander Comrie (1640-1710), p. 369, 1988.) Life is a matter of "doing Christian theology." In one era of church history after another, attacks on one or more doctrines compel Christians to think more seriously of them and to deepen their understanding of Scripture.
In this century, two areas of doctrine are under especial attack: the inspiration and authority of Scripture, and the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. As in the past, heresies cluster around neglected or under thought areas of the faith. Our concern here is the doctrine of the Spirit, not with respect to its formulation but rather its importance, and why errors here are so dangerous.
There have been recurring times and movements of error linked to this doctrine: Montanism in the early church; the many movements originating in the thinking of the Abbot Joachim of Fiora; Quakerism, and more. In part, the heresies have arisen because of the neglect of this doctrine, and, in part, to free man from God in the name of God the Spirit.
Our concern here is with the meaning of Biblical thinking with respect to the Holy Spirit. There are very important implications. Life cannot exist without patterns, direction and controls. Even those who are not Christian sneak in purpose in a disguised fashion. The believers in evolution do not allow the possibility of devolution. Is it not equally logical to affirm that all things are devolving as to say they are evolving? If you deny God's order, you must posit some other order rather than to admit universal disorder and chaos.
The question is this: what is the source of order in a universe of chance? Supposedly, that realm of chance has accidentally, by chance variations, produced our remarkable universe of apparent order. Will not change capriciously destroy that order? An answer to this, in print since 1936, is V. Gordon Childe's Man Makes Himself. Man can now supply purpose and control to a mindless evolution. Since this was written, we have seen efforts to control man's genes, to control "outer" space, and so on.
It was Karl Marx's keenest insight that he saw the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859 as the assurances of the triumph of socialism. If evolution and Darwin are correct, then there is no God in control. But control, planning (or predestination), and meaning are necessary. If there is no God to supply them, then man must. Practically, this means an all-powerful state; it means cradle-to-grave controls over all of life, and it means that the state must be free from all controls in order to control its realm totally. As against this, some posited man as the center of all controls. These thinkers, anarchists, were still moving in terms of 18th century premises. They believed that Nature represents an order, and, if let alone (laissez faire), would provide man and society with freedom and order. This was, however, simply a watered-down belief in the Biblical God. To affirm such an order without God, and, at the same time, to believe in evolution, meant that these thinkers were schizophrenic in their presuppositions.
The rise of evolution meant the rise of totalitarian statism. The modern state claims powers never imagined by the pagan tyrants of old. It is able also to achieve unprecedented kinds of control because of modern technology.
The choice is this: either we are controlled by the power of the Holy Spirit, or we are controlled by the modern pagan state. Either God's providence rules all things, or the state must do so to avert disorder and chaos. This is why the doctrine and the person of the Holy Spirit are so important to man in our time. At issue is the freedom of man. St. Paul states the issue very plainly: "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (II Cor. 3:17).
Where the Spirit of God is denied, then the modern state becomes a substitute spirit, and the goal then is to create out of the state the caring, providing spirit of man. It is not an accident of history that, as the leftist student movement of the 1960s collapsed, its advocates and leaders took two directions. First, many became functionaries and bureaucrats of the state, its schools and universities. They sought to keep alive the spirit of man in a statist network. Second, many others became leaders and shapers of the new charismatic movement of the 1970s on. Having lost faith in the spirit of man, they turned with intensity to the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. The spirit of man had been everything to them, the answer to all problems; now the Spirit of God was the answer. The mainline churches, to whom the Holy Spirit was mainly an article of the Apostles' Creed, were amazed and often shocked. Old-line Pentecostalism had become church-oriented more than Spirit governed, and while it gained from the new movement, was often very suspicious of it.
But something had happened: the doctrine of the Holy Spirit had become a matter of importance and of life. The Holy Spirit became a matter of more than an article in the creed to many evangelical churches.
This did not end the problems, it created new ones. To illustrate, someone arguing against a friend of ours on Biblical matters insisted that she was right because "the Spirit told me." The answer she received was, the Spirit and the Bible tell me differently. The Spirit cannot be separated from His written word. The modern age places its certainties in man, so that people say, "I think," or, "I believe," or, "I know," or, "I feel," and so on and on. The spirit of man replaces the Spirit of God. This is heretical: it frees man from God to himself! You and 1, apart from God's word and Spirit, can be as tyrannical as the enemies of God if we make idols of our spirit or our minds.
The Nicene Creed tells us: "And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; Who spake by the prophets." Since He is one with the Father and the Son, to neglect Him is to neglect God Himself. To separate Him from His word is false, and to identify our spirit with Him is idolatry. It is "where the Spirit of the Lord is, (that) there is liberty," and nowhere else.
There is no good future for man and society apart from Him who is "the Lord, and Giver of Life."
R. J. Rushdoony, Position Paper - Chalcedon Report, No. 289, August 1989
Two new articles are posted on the Chalcedon website:
Why Fallen Man Loves Lies by Mark R. Rushdoony There is always a direct correspondence between love and hate. We hate the opposite of, or what is antithetical to, what we love. Men will hate the truth of God because they embrace every lie that opposes that truth. They will make a moral choice to hold to any version of truth that gives their rebellion against God and His Word seeming credibility.... Read more>>
Why You Should Homeschool Your Christian Child (Part 1 - Introduction) by Lee Duigon God has commanded us to teach our children; but how many Christians are obeying that commandment? There is always some teaching going on that we can't control. Movies, television, and music videos teach. The daily news teaches. What does a child learn when he sees movie stars lionizing a convicted murderer? A disgraced public figure making a fortune on his tell-all book? Towns and cities holding parades to celebrate behavior that the Bible calls abomination? It's hard, if not impossible, to shield children from these "lessons."... Read more>>
There Are Two Types of the Doctrine of Separation of Church and State
By R. J. Rushdoony
An understanding of the Marxist doctrine of the separation of church and state is urgently necessary, because there is a growing confusion between the Marxist view and the earlier American position.
In the Marxist world, as in the Soviet Union, the separation of church and state means that the church must be totally separated from every area of life and thought. It cannot be allowed to educate or to influence education, let alone the state. Because children are seen as the property of the state, the church cannot influence or teach children. In all spheres, the church is isolated from the world and life of its times and is required to be irrelevant and impotent. In the Marxist view, the separation of church and state is a major legal handicap and penalty imposed upon the church. It is in effect a separation from relevance, the power to influence, and the freedom to function.
In the historical American view, the First Amendment places all the restrictions upon the federal government, which is barred from establishing, governing, controlling, or regulating the church. The Marxist view handcuffs the church; the American view handcuffs the state.
In recent years, the state, Congress, the courts, and the various presidents have in varying degrees manifested an adherence to the Marxist view. Even as the statist power has encroached on every other sphere of society, so now it is encroaching on the church. It is assured that the state has total jurisdiction over every sphere, and the courts in recent years have ruled on such absurdities as school dress codes, and the length of a boy's hair. No concern is too trifling to be overlooked by the courts in their zeal for totalitarian jurisdiction. Without being Marxist, they share in the Marxist belief in total state jurisdiction. Predictably, they are moving in the same direction.
This should not surprise us. Given the humanistic belief in man or the state as ultimate, any freedom or power claimed by the church is seen as irrelevant or wrong. The humanist is being faithful to his faith, to his presuppositions.
The sad fact is that too many churchmen share the Marxist view. For them, the separation of church and state means that the church must never involve itself with anything which is of political concern. I am regularly told by readers of pastors and church leaders who will not permit mention of abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, or any like subject from the pulpit or even on church premises. Such matters, they insist, are "political" and "violate" the separation of church and state. They claim the name of orthodoxy for their confusion, cowardice and heresy.
The prophets, God's preachers of old, were commanded by the Lord to proclaim God's law-word concerning all things and to correct and rebuke kings and governors. When our Lord promises His disciples that they shall be brought before governors and kings for His sake, and "for a testimony against them" (Matt. 10:18), He did not mean they were then to forswear the faith, wink at abortion and homosexuality, and be silent about the sins of the state! There are no limits to the area of God's government, law, and sovereign sway. There can then be no limits to the areas of the church's witness, its preaching, and its commanded concern.
Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" Acts 1:6
Beside our modern debates regarding the "end times," I know of no other period in church history where there was more confusion concerning eschatology than in the first century. This flies in the face of all "creedalists" and patriarchal theologians. Meaning: we tend to think that those closest to the time of Christ, and the early church, possess the best vantage point in theological interpretation. In short, Justin Martyr and Polycarp know better because they lived nearer to the times of the early church.
This argument is not tenable. The Acts passage cited above is proof of that. According to Acts 1:3 Jesus "presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." Despite this lengthy Bible study on the kingdom of God with the resurrected Christ the disciples were still preoccupied with a physical restoration of national Israel. In this way, even Christ Himself perpetually contended with the theology of Zionism.
This eschatological confusion would continue. Jewish nationalism became the primary stumbling block to the early church as those apostles who lived with our Lord struggled to comprehend the Holy Spirit's ceaseless efforts to bring in the Gentiles (c.f. Acts 10, 11:1-18, 15:1-31, 16:1-3, 21:17-27; Rom. 2:8-29, 3:1-31, 4:1-25, 9:30-31, 10:12, 11:11-12, 25, 15:8-16; Gal. 2:11-16, 3:6-8, 14, etc.).
Eschatological confusion also involved the repeated misunderstandings regarding resurrection and the coming of the Lord (i.e., the parousia). The church at Corinth sported an over-realized eschatology by engaging in an indulgence of tongue-speaking thinking they were using the language of angels (1 Cor. 13:1). In their mind the resurrection of Christ and the outpouring of the pentecostal Spirit defined the early church as the "resurrected" people of God. They denied, therefore, any further physical resurrections beyond Christ:
Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is in vain. 1 Cor. 15:12-14
The Corinthians did not deny the resurrection of Christ — they only rejected the idea of further resurrections "like unto" His. By doing so they were committing a gross error. Not the error of denying a physical resurrection so much as an error concerning the covenant. For to suggest that the fulness of the Kingdom had transpired prior to the destruction of Israel, and the absolving of the Old Covenant, these Corinthians were putting new wine into old wineskins. The New Covenant was not a patch on an old garment. The new Spirit was not new wine in old wineskin. Christ had to come to establish a new wineskin and a new garment.
A similar misconstruing was also rampant in Thessalonica. Only their confusion did not lead to the arrogance of the Corinthians. The Thessalonians were troubled by the idea that one had to be alive during the parousia in order to be resurrected:
But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 1 Thess. 4:13-14
Paul assures the Thessalonian church that those are asleep will "precede" those who are living (v. 15-16). Paul's eschatology was to be a source of encouragement ( v. 18), not a reason for sorrow. The sadness stemmed from a misunderstand of the Pauline eschatology.
This pervasive warping of the resurrection was prevalent in Ephesus as well. Paul's warning to Timothy regarding the teaching of Hymenaeus and Philetus highlights again the insidious heresy traversing throughout the early church:
And their word will eat as doth an canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some. 2 Tim. 2:17-18
Even the apostle Peter noted both the general confusion regarding eschatology as well as the specific theology of Paul. After his most detailed discussion regarding the perceived delay of the end times, Peter writes:
And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. 2 Peter 3:15-16
My essential point is that if the disciples could sit under the direct teaching of Christ for 3 1/2 years, and then receive specific instruction about the kingdom of God for forty days after His resurrection, and still misconstrue their eschatology, then I am not surprised by the confusion that besets the church today. If the early church could continually misunderstand the eschatological teaching of the apostle Paul, then I respectfully withhold authoritative credence to the pre-Nicene church fathers. Eschatology is not as readily understood as some assume. The divergent views represented today by orthodox branches of the universal church is further evidence of that. Louis Berkhof, the Calvinist theologian, was correct in saying:
At the same time it must be said that there has never been a period in the history of the Christian Church, in which eschatology was the center of Christian thought. The other loci of Dogmatics have each had their time of special development, but this cannot be said of eschatology.[1]
I am dissatisfied yet still with the interpretations thus far developed within the reformed community. Even amongst the postmillennialists there is divergence regard the last days as both Rushdoony and Gentry espouse an extensive understanding of the last days while Bahnsen, DeMar, North, Jordan, and Chilton pushed for a delimited last days isolated to A.D. 30-70. And now a good many reformed man is overtaken with puppy love for the neo-historical Jesus scholar, N.T. Wright, and his reconstruction of the interpretative framework. I, however, find no desirable taste for a thinker who writes:
The real problem, therefore, for historians and theologians alike, is not that Jesus expected the end of the world and it failed to happen; nor that the first generation of Christians expected the return of Jesus (the parousia) within a generation and it failed to happen. Those are parodies of the real problem, which is this: Jesus interpreted his coming death, and the vindication he expected after that death, as the defeat of evil; but on the first Easter Monday evil still stalked the earth from Jerusalem to Gibraltar and beyond, and it stalks it still. To postpone the effectiveness of his putative victory to an after-life, as has been done so often in the Christian tradition, or to transform it into the victory of true ideas over false ones, as has sometimes been done within the idealist tradition, is to de-Judaize Jesus' programme completely. It is to fail to take seriously his stark prayer for the kingdom to come, and God's will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven.[2]
There are other options, Dr. Wright, that do not reek of idealism. This is a false antithesis. With all of bibliographic references featured in Wright's larger works I'm surprised he doesn't interact with a broader range of ideas. All the same, the postmillennialists have not taken the time to truly engage Wright, and the silence is deafening. To my knowledge, it has only been the full-preterists who have addressed Wright's concern; but they are too much on the fringe for a noblemen like Wright to take seriously.
Also, this is not an adequate distancing from Schweitzer; nor is it a satisfactory remedy to contemporary thinking about Christian praxis in light of the kingdom of God. This is made apparent by the smaller devotional works by Wright where it reads more like Oswald Chambers meets Marcus Borg. This is the result of eschatological confusion. A confusion which is still not resolved. Therefore, their remains an unrestful confusion for the people of God concerning ethics. How can I answer questions about living in God's world if I don't know the exact framework of that world? Am I in a new kingdom? New Covenant? Partial-covenant? Already but not yet? Or are we just trying to figure things out after realizing both Jesus and His apostles were "incorrect" in their eschatological predictions?
"Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" This was the question offered to Christ after their brief season of discourse regarding the kingdom of God. These passages demonstrate to me that more revelation would have to be granted to the disciples via the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Christ is following divine order here and does not intrude into the Spirit's upcoming measure of rule. God would unfold His eternal plan by His own determination and in His own time. He would also allow confusion to enter in so as to becloud the teaching. As those reading these passages much later there is a clear sense in which God intends for us to glean something from this eschatological confusion. I feel it is similar in reason to that of the disciples awaiting further insight after Christ's departure.
God is forcing us into the text and encouraging a great reliance upon the Holy Spirit to aid in the hermeneutical enterprise. I don't find this kind of "spirituality" in the scholastic search for the historical Jesus. It is rank rationalism that tends to preside there. The disciples were told the times and seasons would not be given them. They were to wait for the Spirit. Their ministry and academics were to be framed by study and a great reliance -- or faith -- in the Holy Spirit. We also, as ministers of righteousness, must practice that same faith as we broach complicated subjects. But to question the foundational authority of Scripture is no demonstration of this faith. It is merely a transfer of infallibility to reason. This point is still one of Rushdoony's most significant contributions:
The doctrine of the infallibility of Scripture can be denied, but the concept of infallibility as such cannot be logically denied. Infallibility is an inescapable concept. If men refuse to ascribe infallibility to Scripture, it is because the concept has been transferred to something else.[3]
It is the assumption of the infallibility of man's reason that leads the historical Jesus scholar to demand eschatological texts bow to his demands. But the Word of God shall not be judged by man, for it is the infallible Word of the infallible God. Man is confused about his eschatology because he gives prominence to the "nature" of prophetic fulfillment. Man has a preconceived idea of "how" prophetic events are to unfold. If these preconceived ideas do not happen historically the theologian is driven to either question the veracity of the Biblical text or revise the meaning of time statements such as "at hand" or "soon." In other words, if prophecy is not fulfilled according to your liking you end up with either Albert Schweitzer or Hal Lindsey.
Confusion riddled the disciples that walked with Christ. Confusion befuddled the churches established by those same disciples. This, therefore, undermines any assurance that the patristic fathers are a reliable source for eschatological clarity. The creeds and councils, as noted by Berkhof, spent little time establishing an official statement regarding eschatology. We have much more work to do. As I mentioned, I am not satisfied with a good portion of what I've read. There are still significant questions to be answered. I have my opinions, but those are authoritative only to myself. I'd like to see more done by the reformed community concerning eschatology than merely correcting dispensationalists or running after Wright.
1. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1939), 662 2. N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), 659. 3. R. J. Rushdoony, Systematic Theology (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1994), 2.
Conformity stifles thought. That may seem obvious in the abstract, but it is not so obvious in the particular. This is especially true when regarding social patterns which are - as we all know - more than social, since they influence every area of life. Nowhere is this more evident than in education, which is not realizing its expectations in our land, and has been the subject of devastating reports, surveys, test results and disappointments.
Education is, obviously, essential to civilization. Teachers cannot be replaced and must be supported in any society. The American nation has been dedicated to education beyond the limits of any of its predecessors at any time in history. The sums spent on schools, administrators, teachers and pupils, their buildings and equipment, their grounds and comforts, their needs and systems, have been so immense that nobody (and no group) has dared to add them up.
If they did, they would discover that education in this nation is one of our greatest and most influential industries. It has interconnections with architecture; art; utilities; the paper, ink and publishing industries; electronics and vehicles; the slate, petroleum and coal industries; with rugs and metal and/or wooden desks and lockers; with sporting equipment; with manufacturers of musical instruments and stationery; with pension funds and stock exchanges and bond issues; with politicians and colleges; with sports and stadiums; with uniform makers and jewelers; with fashion in clothes and with films, tapes and cassettes; with the dance and the theater; with medicine and pharmaceuticals; with pens, pencils and copy machines; with fast food caterers; with computers and virtually every aspect and sector of American commercial life.
The material and commercial connections of this vast industry, however, far overshadow its attention to its fundamental purpose, which is, at root, to train the future leaders of the nation. Education has always been considered essential in the creation of an elite; a governing class.
Ever since the War of Independence, however, Americans have been encouraged to believe that this nation can function without a governing class. Eventually it was argued that schools would provide our leaders for each generation. That led to the idea that everyone had a right to get into school and, in fact, to achieve everything. A nation of all leaders.
This Utopian ideal, suitable only to philosophy and the library, is unsuitable in this uneven world. God does not distribute His gifts equally.
The task of education is not simply to inculcate, but also to cull. This was once well understood, but grades are now widely suspect. Some professors grade according to race, subservience and ethnic descent. (I hope, as a member of University Professors for Academic Order, [though I am not a university professor], that these statements will not lead to charges that I am anti-professors.)
The high purpose of education has been distorted. This is a serious matter. No society can exist without leaders, and if leaders are chosen by corrupt methods, it means that unqualified men rise to positions of authority. Once that occurs, dread consequences ensue.
Schools have expanded by lowering standards of admission. Berkeley and other famed institutions now openly admit unqualified students for political/social reasons. Inflation is at work in the education industry; diplomas have been cheapened and increased. That means that we now have a new problem: officially qualified incompetents in the professions. That is bad, but that is not all. It also means that a person such as Senator Biden, a public liar and a plagiarist, can rise to a position of national leadership.
It means that a man like Michael Dukakis, who remained a buck private in the U.S. Army and later claimed combat experience he did not possess, could attend post-graduate studies at the San Marcos University in Lima, Peru (a school on a par with the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow), a school only open to dedicated Marxists, without being exposed by a national "investigative" press. The Kansas Intelligencer, 5524 Andersen Avenue, Manhattan, Kansas 66502, Vol. 2, No. 10, Oct 88).
It is obvious, of course, that the education industry cannot be blamed for all the ills of the land. But when schools control virtually all upward mobility, they hold too much power. Young people today can seldom hope to advance without completing college. That situation never before existed in this nation; it has given the educational industry the awesome power to screen our leaders.
That such power was achieved at a time when educational standards have steadily declined is nearly irrational. There has been a blurring of the ideals and even the idea of leadership. No society can consist of nobody but chiefs, not long endure the dilution of real chiefs by the introduction of false chiefs.
Recently an elder in the International Presbyterian Church, London, described the results of such a situation to me with admirable succinctness.
"I was a missionary in Nigeria for thirteen years," he said, "and my observations there convinced me that much of history is unrecorded. For instance, the Mohammedan leaders in Nigeria did not send their sons to the schools that we provided, because they did not believe that true education can be obtained from books.
"The top men, therefore, told the men under them to send their sons - if they chose. They did not, because they agreed with their leaders, and the word passed down the line until, in the end, only the sons of slaves went to our schools.
"These sons of slaves," he continued, "graduated from our schools. And when the time came for England to leave Nigeria these were the men at the top, because they spoke in our terms and we had supported their demands for independence.
"But," he concluded, "all they had was book learning. They did not come from families accustomed to the obligations of leadership."
He did not need to add the rest. Nigeria - one of the richest and most advanced of all the black countries of Africa under the English - fell into corruption and tribal strife almost immediately. Its difficulties expanded into a huge civil war, in which a million people were killed, and many more injured. Even the discovery of oil did not help the unhappy nation. Lagos, its capital, is a city of walking nightmares. Its leaders are eloquent, learned, stately in appearance and inept. Schooling, in other words, did not achieve what the English had hoped in Nigeria.
They had hoped, through schools alone, to educate future leaders. They produced, instead, talkers and demagogues.
They had confused leadership with certain English schools and thought that schools produce leaders. But the great schools of England (when they were great) were not great because of what they taught, so much as great because of whom they taught. They taught boys from families already connected to authority. And alongside these aristocratic sprigs, they taught boys who had excelled in stern competition in towns and villages. That mixture, impure as people are always, produced many leaders.
But not all the leaders. The Scots, Welsh and Irish contributed a very high percentage - ranging from Adam Smith and Lloyd George to Wellington and others. Some leaders came from obscure schools and, in some instances, from virtually no schools.
Then English education changed. The public schools stopped allowing the boys to manage their own associations outside the classrooms and set up the controls of Dr. Thomas Arnold and other Victorian worthies.
This ceiling of super-control in a period of declining faith altered the nature of English leadership and, some say, led to the end of the Empire.
On a lesser but equally interesting scale, one might compare that changed treatment of English boys with the introduction of the Little League, which ended the freedom of American boys to choose and manage their own baseball games, free of adult supervision.
More examples could be cited, but the main point is that schooling has moved progressively farther and deeper into the lives of students, while the authority and influence of families has progressively receded.
One result is that our leadership cadres have been infiltrated by counterfeits. We have created a vast and highly commercialized educational industry that validates all professionals in all areas. This has led to an expanded mediocrity in the professions with a visible concomitant decline in professional ethics.
This decline is now visible in the quality of national leadership in Congress, the courts and the White House. We are, as a nation, in decline.
These are some of the reasons that Christian families are opting out of the educational industry, setting up small Christian schools and tutoring their children themselves. Because governmental statistics are dishonest, we have no means of knowing the actual number of Christian children being so educated. Estimates vary from the high to the modest, but when it comes to people, numbers are outranked by quality.
These Christian families are educating future leaders. They are, as yet, modest in numbers. But each child is emerging with a true, instead of a false, education. The Christian community is on the verge of creating new schools of higher education and, for that matter, post-graduate institutions for Christian adults confronted with the myriad challenges of modern society.
These are schools of leadership, though these dedicated families would not claim such a title. But it is inescapable that those knowledgeable in the Word of God from childhood onward will be able to use Biblical standards as a lens through which to review and assess behavior on all levels, to set goals and to devise methods, to endure and to advance.
There is, therefore, a quiet, nationwide, invisible race underway between the false and the true; the unprincipled and the dedicated. God will decide whether the Christians will develop enough new leaders in time to save this nation from the abyss, or whether these new leaders will emerge only after the debacle that (everyone agrees) lies ahead.
In either event, Christianity will not only endure, but will inherit the future, and real leaders with a true education will replace the credentialed frauds of today.
