Rousas John Rushdoony: Quotes about the world

“Now the Soviet Union has been faced with one disaster after another that they will not admit to the world that these have happened nor to themselves. They will not face up to their growing internal collapse realistically. And if it were not for us propping them up, they would collapse.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

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

World

“But a sincere idealist, implicitly pan-Deist in faith, deeply concerned with the problems of the world and of time, can be a Ghibelline pope, and Dante's Ghibellines have at last triumphed.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Source: Writings, ‘’The One and the Many‘’ (1971), Ch. VIII-7, p. 143.

World , Faith , Problem , Time

“A [further] aspect [of homosexuality] is the hatred of God’s reality, an insistence on wars against reality, in living in a world of make believe. As a result, the theater is the natural element of these people. Some scholars, again not Christian, have pointed out there has been by-and-large a strong homosexual control of the theater, in varying degrees in different times, from the days of the Romans. But part and parcel of this homosexual control of the theater has been the delight in prostituting women, in using them and abusing them for the sheer delight of showing their contempt for them. Now this is homosexual culture, described by people who are not hostile to it, and in fact sometimes have some good things to say for it.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, Homosexuality (n. d.)

Women , God , Hostility , War

“We as Christians have a mandate. We have not been called to retire from the world when we are saved but to go out and conquer.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, Dominion (n. d.)

World

“The threat of the Christians in the early days of Rome and subsequently was enormous; they were a bare handful and they were shaking up the entire Roman empire, to the point that Rome was concerned for about three centuries with this problem of the Christians. How in the world were they to deal with these people? Because they were threatening to take over the empire simply by their governmental ways. They were creating a higher obedience. Just as the apostles had said at the beginning "we must obey God rather than men" so again and again men in one area of Roman life after another were exercising dominion. Asserting the priority of their Allegiance to God.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, Dominion (n. d.)

Life , Men , God , People

“Well, if you create your own reality, you no longer live in a real world. It used to be a joke when we were young about the insane and I am told that there were a fair number in institutions who thought of themselves as Napoleon. And that was a departure from reality, creating their own reality. That is what our world is doing today.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

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

World , Departure , Reality

“The ruthless destruction of wild animals and the abuse of domestic animals is contrary to God’s purpose. Our relationship with the animal world is not one of warfare, but one of dominion. Wild and domestic in terms of God’s purpose. Finally we must say in terms of this text that man was created to live in a perfect world, in a good world, very good God commanded. To till and to keep it, man was formed out of the substance of the dust of the ground we are told in Genesis 2:7. Man is therefore earthbound, psychological and physically, dust thou art and unto dust thou returnest.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

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

God , World , Art , Animals

“Christ called an army up to go forth and conquer in his name. In the book of Acts we are told of the Christians that these people are turning the world upside down. It would be wonderful if that were said of us again.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, Dominion (n. d.)

People , Books , World , Christ

“Men remain feeling guilty, for a false sense of guilt has no cure save the truth, and this is not forthcoming. Since the citizens are now guilt-ridden because of their education and political indoctrination, they are more amenable to robbery, and even murder. If the white man feels guilty towards the Negro, he is less capable of defending himself against the Negroes who turn into a revolutionary rabble, bent on theft and murder. The state finds it easier to rob men when men feel guilty for what they are and have, and the state drones on and on about the needs of the poor of the nation and of the world.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Source: Writings, Politics of Guilt and Pity (1978), p. 46

Men , Truth , World , Education

“…the white man is being systematically indoctrinated into believing that he is guilty of enslaving and abusing the Negro. Granted that some Negroes were mistreated as slaves, the fact still remains that nowhere in all history or in the world today has the Negro been better off. The life expectancy of the Negro increased when he was transported to America. He was not taken from freedom into slavery, but from a vicious slavery to degenerate chiefs to a generally benevolent slavery in the United States. There is not the slightest evidence that any American Negro had ever lived in a "free society" in Africa; even the idea did not exist in Africa. The move from Africa to America was a vast increase of freedom for the Negro, materially and spiritually as well as personally. The Negroes were sold from a harsh slavery into a milder one. Slavery was basic to the African way of life, to the point that slaves were the actual money of the African economy. Elsewhere, gold and silver served as money; in Africa, it was slaves…”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Source: Writings, Politics of Guilt and Pity (1978), pp. 3-4

Life , Money , World , Way

“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

“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

“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

“One of the things that characterize my schooling from the early grades on up to university and apparently is still with us because I heard it on the radio this morning, was the idea that all bacteria are bad and that the scientific ideal is a germ free, bacteria free world. Of course, such a world would mean death. And yet, we are actually told now that by 1990 we will have such a sterile world that milk itself being rendered totally sterile, will sit on a table and will never spoil. In such a world not only bacteria will be gone, but man also. Such a world and such a science represents a travesty on God’s creative purpose.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

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

Death , God , World , School

“The goal is the developed Kingdom of god, the New Jerusalem, a world order under god's law.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Source: Writings, The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), p. 357

God , World , Law

“The homosexual culture as we have said is at war with God, and there are no negotiations possible in this world. That modernists and atheists would be in the enemy camp should not surprise us. But we know how far gone it is when periodical like Christianity Today carry articles stating that ‘the individual homosexual would appear to be more sinned against than sinning. because his condition is either genetic or environmental in nature, and therefore not his fault.’ Thus we should not be surprised at what is happening today.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, Homosexuality (n. d.)

God , War , World , Nature

“Peace with God means warfare with the enemies of God. Christ made clear that allegiance to Him meant a sword of division (Matt. 10:34-36). In a sinful world, some warfare is inescapable. A man must therefore pick his enemies: God or sinful man? If a man is at peace with sinful men, he is at war with God. Peace in one sector means warfare in another. God alone, however, can give inner peace now, and, finally, world peace through His sovereign law”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Micah 4:2
Source: Writings, The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), p. 781

Men , God , War , World

“Whenever men began to talk about too many people, they are paving the way for their destruction. It represents a suicidal element in man. For children are the aspects of man’s dominion. Moreover another aspect of that dominion is dominion over every living thing. Over the animal world. Man is thus created with a relationship towards animals established as normative with healthy psychology.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

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

Men , Children , People , World

“… homosexual culture is bitterly hostile to the family and to small town culture, the stability. Today it controls very largely, this is recognized by many writers, the world of fashions and the world of publishing. And it uses these two media, communications and styles, to war against the family and small town culture against the law and against standards. The canons of homosexual culture today are the standards of the Jet-set, very emphatically, and more and more of all society. The homosexual culture today is infecting the world at large.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

Audio lectures, Homosexuality (n. d.)

Hostility , War , World , Family