Rousas John Rushdoony: Trending quotes (page 3)

“Since World War II there has been a growing heedlessness. You dated it, in the case of Britain, from about 1910 and I think quite rightly so. And the developments that led to War World I were a part of the decadence of the time, because very few when they went to war in that war had any recognition of what they were doing to civilization. And we came out of it. We went into it under the illusion that we were going to make the world safe for democracy. Our president Woodrow Wilson with his diplomacy was going to be the world messiah. And that term was applied to him. Well, we have only increased in our departure from a realistic assessment of things, from having any vision. And, of course, Proverbs tells us where there is no vision the people perish. And by vision it means a knowledge of what God’s reality is. And more literally the second part is the people perish, the people run naked. They are crazy. They are wild. So, lacking that vision, the people have been running wild. They have been running naked all over the world”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, Decadence and the New Age (March 10, 1989)

God , War , People , World

“The world was created by God and we are always to remember as we deal with the world, what was God’s purpose here, in creating this? But at the same time, while the world was created essentially good, it is fallen and not normative. Thus, perfectionism with regard to nature is anti Christian. Everything has a purpose in creation, but God created man and set him in the garden of Eden with a purpose to use and to develop nature. Thus, while hybridization is forbidden, the improvement of various species is definitely a part of our responsibility. Thus, we do not look back to Eden, we look forward to the kingdom of God. Those who hold to a perfectionism with regard to nature are anti Christian. The logic of this perfectionism with regard to nature, holding nature as normative is to eat raw foods only because you can’t improve on nature, it is to be a nudist because you can’t improve on nature, it is to deny housing because housing is an improvement on nature. This is all very very definitely hostile to scripture because while creation is essentially good, from the biblical perspective, it is to be developed by man. There is to be an improvement in terms of the guidelines laid down by God. Thus, hybridization is not Christian, but improvement is definitely the Christian responsibility. Hybridization and unequal yoking involve a fundamental disrespect for God’s handiwork, and it leads to futile experimentation. But for us as creationists, the fertility and the potentiality of the world rests in his law, in it’s pattern, in it’s fixity.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, Hybridization and the Law (n. d.)

God , Hostility , World , Law

“The sad fact is that not only is the youth exposed to rock, but rock is coming into the church. So called Christian rock; and it’s being sung by the choir. You actually hear now and then about a rock mass or a rock service. I spoke a few years ago at a church which was…I’ll never be asked about. A very large church with a plant that was equal to a small college campus, and I don’t mean too small of a college, a fair sized one. They had a number of choirs; they had one man in charge of all the music in the church, overall music director, a very brilliant, very intelligent man, but as wrongheaded as I’ve ever seen. Because he told me that his belief was that the only kind of music that should be played or sung or used in a church or any place was throw away music; that was his term. Music that was hip, so up to the moment, that it would capture the mood of the youth who were listening to the latest on television or radio. Music which six months down the line would be out of date because it would be throw away music, music of the moment, in order to speak to the youth. And I tried to get through this point to him, that speaking to them in terms of what’s of the moment is not what it’s all about it, it’s speaking from the Lord with eternal truths.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, Dangers Inherent in Public Education (March 24, 1986)

Truth , Youth , Sadness , Music

“The significance of Jesus Christ as the "faithful and true witness" is that He not only witnesses against those who are at war against God, but He also executes them.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Source: Writings, The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), p. 574

God , War , Faith , Christ

“I often meet people who are very, very staunch Southerners, some of whom feel that the Yankees are out to do the South in. But believe me, there is not, and never has been anyone, including General Sherman, who does more damage to the South then their own schools heading by their own people. They need to wake up and every part of the country needs to recognize what is being done to it by these educators, this systemic destruction of everything that people treasure and believe in.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, Dangers Inherent in Public Education (March 24, 1986)

People , Education , School , Feeling

“We now face the culmination of a long campaign in the courts and in the halls of various governmental bodies, and in the press, to remove the laws against homosexuality from the statute books, and to permit any such relationship between consenting adults. Part of this is a new, anti-Biblical interpretation of this perversion. The facts are read in evolutionary framework, and so we are told it is a form of immaturity. Again, others read it as environmentally determined, so that the pervert is simply reflecting his environmental conditioning. Again there are others who say it is simply a fight for masculinity in a difficult world. All these and the other variations on the modern interpretation, share in common an environmental and an evolutionary approach. There are those in fact who claim that it is a basic component of all people, so that all of us have some aspect of every perversion in us.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, Homosexuality (n. d.)

People , Books , World , Law

“If men are not regenerated by Christ, and if they will not submit to His calling, to the cultural mandate, they will be crushed by His power.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Source: Writings, The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), p. 730

Men , Christ

“That's the offence of the Christian schools; they are exercising government. That's the offence of every Christian who moves out and applies the word of God to anything; he's exercising government. And this the Romans would not tolerate nor will the modern state.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, Dominion (n. d.)

God , School , Exercises

“To the humanistic mind these penalties seem severe and unnecessary. In actuality, the penalties, together with the Biblical faith which motivated them, worked to reduce crime. Thus, when New England passed laws requiring the death penalty for incorrigible delinquents and for children who struck their parents, no executions were necessary: the law kept the children in line.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Source: Writings, The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), p. 236

Death , Children , Faith , Law

“And our responsibility is to exercise dominion which means to declare where sovereignty resides and to declare God's sovereign world; the word of dominion, to every area of life and thought. And we are promised that when we go forth in terms of that word the commission tells us, the commission to Joshua, which our Lord summarizes then later, that if we go in the power of this word and faithfulness to it wherever the soul of your feet shall tread that shall be your ground. Let's plant our feet on the face of all the earth and claim it for Jesus Christ.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, Dominion (n. d.)

Life , God , World , Faith

“Very clearly according to scripture, man’s nature is not an open question but a given fact from God. Then next and of central importance in all that you’re going to be saying in the next few months is this: Man was created in Genesis not as a child, Adam was not born a baby, but a mature man. This is a fact of central importance. Man was created into maturity. As a result, the key command is not child psychology, or animal psychology. Evolution cites that man must be understood in terms of the child, the child in terms of an animal ancestry, and the animal ancestry as an emergent out of chaos!”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, Creationism and Psychology (n. d.)

God , Question , Nature , Animals

“Well, we have a major crisis because Welfarism is failing. The Christian community must begin to reestablish Christian charity. I think every church could begin as a number of black churches have done, with the people in their area or their own members relatives, friends, who are in desperate need. If every church in this country, it has been said by a statistician, could take care of three families the problem would disappear. Well, there are big churches that could take care of more than three families. And those that can take care of only one or half a family, those churches could come together and accomplish a great deal.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, Christian Charity vs Welfarism (September 4, 1996)

People , Family , Communication , Problem

“So that while we speak of the fallen man as the natural man, as against the supernatural man, who is a redeemed man in a very real sense we should say that sin is unnatural. With man, who was created into perfect knowledge, and his destiny is hell or salvation. Moreover man was created to exercise dominion and to rule the earth. This is man’s calling and it is basic to man’s nature.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, Creationism and Psychology (n. d.)

Exercises , Hell , Nature , Knowledge

“The question is, in case some of you did not hear it, “Supposing there is a mixed marriage with respect to race; and assuming that both are of the same faith, what is there in scripture that might be against that?” Well, the answer is that there is not a law against it, but there is basically a principle that militates against such marriages, so that you might say they are just barely legal, but in principle scripture is opposed to them. Because the whole point of marriage is that the wife be a help-meet to her husband, and the term help meet means in effect a mirror, an image, one who reflects him spiritually, that is in terms of faith, in terms of a common background, in terms of a common purpose. Now, marriage between persons of very different races generally doesn’t fulfill that requirement, you see. So that it can be technically a marriage, but it isn’t one in which the wife can be a help meet. So that, while it can legally qualify, theologically you could say there are factors that normally in almost 99 cases out of a 100 hundred would militate against it.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, The Law of Divorce (n.d.)

Marriage , Faith , Law , Question

“… at this point the Catholic church and the various other churches, and there are a number of them, that take the stand of no divorce are definitely not in terms of scripture, at this point they are trying to be holier than God, which I believe is a fearful offense. Now their point is that for these grounds separation is permissible, but this is not in terms of scripture, because scripture clearly permits remarriage.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, The Law of Divorce (n.d.)

God , Fear

“The Western mind and culture, in all its advances, is a product of biblical religion. It is a religious, not a racial, product.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Writings, The New Racism (1980)

Religion

“The creation mandate was precisely the requirement that man subdue the earth and exercise dominion over it. There is not one word of Scripture to indicate or imply that this mandate ever was revoked. There is every word of Scripture to declare that this mandate must and shall be fulfilled. Those who attempt to break it shall themselves be broken.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Source: Writings, The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), p. 14

Exercises

“The matriarchal society is thus the decadent and broken. The strongly matriarchal character of Negro life is due to the moral failure of Negro men, their failure to be responsible, to support the family, or to provide authority. The same is true of American Indian tribes which are also matriarchal today.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Source: Writings, The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), p. 203

Life , Men , Family , Failure

“If you and I have our histories abstracted from us, and our heredities as well, along with all our cultural conditioning and responses, we are no longer men, no longer human beings, but an abstract and theoretical concept of man. No real history of us can then be written.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Source: Writings, The Biblical Philosophy of History (1969), p. 89

Men , History

“… when there are marriages between races, very often it is not the best of either. And this is another factor that commonly militates against the success of such marriages, in that it is the lower levels that tend to unite in most cases.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, The Law of Divorce (n.d.)

Marriage , Success