Magazine Article
Random Notes, 73
A major source of knowledge since the Reformation has been the writings of colonial agents, missionaries, merchants and travelers. Perhaps someone has written about this, but I am not aware of it.
- R. J. Rushdoony
- A major source of knowledge since the Reformation has been the writings of colonial agents, missionaries, merchants and travelers. Perhaps someone has written about this, but I am not aware of it. Anthropologists, historians and others used such written and oral sources. When I was young, I heard remarkable stories from such men. My father usually invited people he met to lunch or to dine with us, so I heard remarkable table talk. Very often, such people urged others to get acquainted with Y. K. Rushdoony, so we had a steady stream of people whose tales of strange places with now forgotten names still echo in my memory.
- One of the most amazing things of our century has been the rewriting of history. Take, for example, Hitler and National Socialism. The only major item of truth remaining in popular conception with respect to its philosophy was that it was racist. It was a Leftist movement, and the left has a long history of racism, traceable to its Darwinian faith. In the 1930s, the Nazis shocked the world with abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, and the "green" movement and its exaltation of nature above people, and much, much more. Now, opposition to these things is called "Fascist and Nazi!"
- When Gene and Robin Newman were here recently, Gene reported on a very important fact, a speech by Prime Minister Netanyahu while in the U. S. He stated that religiously Islam was committed to jihad, a holy war against all others. I regard this as very important. Netanyahu is insisting that no peaceful solution is possible with such an enemy. Humanists are very prone to seeing all religions as equal, and this equalitarian faith is applied in one sphere after another. Islam's intransigence is smashing this humanist faith in equality as it rejects all forms of compromise. Equalitarian beliefs are being endangered as a result, and a major cultural shift is under way.
- Something brought to mind today an incident of a good fifty years ago. It was spring branding time, and this one young husband, an Indian, was at the other end of the reservation rounding up calves and cows. The work went very well, and late at night, he left the camp to go to his wife. In his tent at the round-up branding site, he looked into his tent to find his wife and a big, brawny male, naked and asleep, with an empty bottle of liquor at their side. Realizing that he was no match for the adulterer, he reached in, grabbed the man's clothing, and put all of it on a nearby smoldering camp fire! He then rode back to the roundup site, slept there, and was far from the scene of the offense. Being drunk, the adulterer slept late; everyone else was up, and all he could do was to wrap one of the young women's dresses around his middle and try to sneak away to cat-calls, jeers, and much mockery. He never learned who had done this to him, and, for a strong and feared man, he became a joke.
- Thanks to John Lofton, I was able to recently get a copy of Carl C. Cutler's The Story of the American Clipper Ship, Greyhounds of the Sea (1930), almost a cyclopedia on the subject. It is one of the most exciting chapters in American history. The sheer existence the clipper ship represents an important index into the American character. How can anyone write a U. S. history textbook, or an account of the American character and expansion without mentioning the clipper ships? Those whose families, unlike mine, go back to those days have much to be proud of: they have a great past. One of our readers has a forbear who was a captain of one of the finest clipper ships.
- I believe it is urgently necessary for Christian educators to think about the future of education. In earlier America, primary schooling was very strong in its emphasis on the basics. After grade school, a boy at age 14 would go to a summer academy to study such things as advanced mathematics and Greek, Latin, or Hebrew. He would then enter a university to graduate at approximately 18 years of age. Our Chalcedon Christian School 8th grade graduates who have taken the university examinations for high school equivalency have passed. When we all step up the curriculum to prepare students for the university at age 14 or 15, they will be ready for mature employment or professions early in life, thus making for earlier marriages. We must pioneer in education. This means absorbing high school courses into grades 6-8.
- The ancient Stoic view of the good life was life in accordance with nature. For Christians, because nature has fallen, the virtuous life is in accordance with Jesus Christ and God's law-word. Charles Darwin, in The Descent of Man, held that "the standard of morality [is] the general good or welfare of the community." He saw the good of evolution as the rearing and pressuring of healthy and vigorous individuals. In other words, morality is an evolutionary product! Nietzsche took Darwin's premise to mean that evolution would lead to "a transvaluation of all values." This meant for him the radical abandonment of all Biblical standards. This is what is happening today in our courts, legislatures, and, too often, in our churches.
- 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.