Conspiracies

Name: Chalcedon
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By R. J. Rushdoony
October 01, 1998

Perhaps throughout all of history there have been large numbers of people dedicated to the faith that history is dominated by secret conspiracies and groups. It is not that I doubt the existence of many such groups but that I question their relevance. Man's basic problem is not a group of insiders but himself and his revolt against God and God's law. Every attempt to localize the problem into some class, race, or other conspiracy confuses the issue. Man is the problem: he is a sinner in revolt against God and God's law. He knows in his heart the consequences of breaking it, but break it he does, and then he blames someone or something else for the results. He sees himself as the victim of a conspiracy, and he blames often some group, class, race, or interest as the source of all his problems.

Now evil groups are real and plentiful enough, but there is more to the story than that. For example, recently a black woman judge was up for nomination to the federal bench. Testimony showed that in one case she had wept after a jury found guilty a defendant who had raped a 10-year-old child, saying "It's not that I think the rape did not occur. But five years is a lot of time," referring to the prison term (World, March 28, 1998, p. 9). Under fire, this judge withdrew her name from the nomination process.

Her character was known before her nomination by the President. Was her nomination a conspiracy, or was it a sin? True, behind her nomination were racial motives (she was black), feminist hopes, and more, but basic to it all was a lack of moral standards, a contempt for God's law.

Any revolt against God's law is a sin and a form of rebellion against the king of creation and his kingdom. We trivialize sin and therefore life when we fail to see the true dimension of law-breaking, a war against God.

We also trivialize God when we fail to see that all sin is a form of war against God. Because we do not want God to rule over us, we find every reason to limit the responsibility for the world's fallen estate. If we can limit it to a class, race, or faction, we have placed ourselves in the camp of the saints merely by re-classification. It is an interesting fact that in a war internal mental problems, suicides, and ills decrease because we localize sin and the world's evils in a foreign enemy.

By denying that all men are sinners without exception, save Jesus Christ, and that all men equally need his redemption, we falsify the human problem. We can localize sin in a conspiracy rather than the whole human race. We then wage war against a group rather than seeking to become a new creation in Jesus Christ. We try to end the problem by redefinition.

Topics: Biblical Law, Conspiracy, R. J. Rushdoony

R. J. Rushdoony

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

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