Christian vs. Totalitarian Morality
We can contrast the ethics of anxiety with the ethics of faith. Faith trusts in God, that all will work together for good. The ethics of anxiety believes that because everything is in man’s hands, therefore we cannot even sleep because we have got to figure out a way; everything depending on us, we have to come up with the answers, we have to work things out. And of course the result is sleeplessness, because anxiety is concerned with all the possibilities, turning them over endlessly, as though all the possibilities are human options.
- R. J. Rushdoony
We can contrast the ethics of anxiety with the ethics of faith. Faith trusts in God, that all will work together for good. The ethics of anxiety believes that because everything is in man’s hands, therefore we cannot even sleep because we have got to figure out a way; everything depending on us, we have to come up with the answers, we have to work things out. And of course the result is sleeplessness, because anxiety is concerned with all the possibilities, turning them over endlessly, as though all the possibilities are human options.
- 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.