Faith for All of Life March/April 2013 Editorials 2 from the Founder
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Faith for All of Life March/April 2013 Publisher & Chalcedon President Editorials Rev. Mark R. Rushdoony 2 From the Founder Chalcedon Vice-President Christianity and Culture Martin Selbrede Features Editor Martin Selbrede 4 Evidence of the Exodus Managing Editor Miles R. Jones, Ph.D. Susan Burns 11 The Repentance Tipping Point, Jeremiads, and Nehemiads Contributing Editor Dr. George Grant Lee Duigon 14 Charity: The Covenantal Way Chalcedon Founder Bojidar Marinov Rev. R. J. Rushdoony Columns (1916-2001) was the founder of Chalcedon 19 The Virtue of Deliberate Christianity and a leading theologian, church/ Andrea Schwartz state expert, and author of numer- ous works on the application of 22 The Challenge to the Church: An Interview with George Grant Biblical Law to society. Interviewed by Lee Duigon Receiving Faith for All of Life: This 24 Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind by Mark A. Noll magazine will be sent to those who Reviewed by Hannah Schultz request it. At least once a year we ask that you return a response card if you Products wish to remain on the mailing list. Contributors are kept on our mailing 26 Catalog Insert list. Suggested Donation: $35 per year ($45 for all foreign — U.S. funds only). Tax-deductible contributions may be made out to Chalcedon and mailed to P.O. Box 158, Vallecito, CA 95251 USA. Chalcedon may want to contact its readers quickly by means of e-mail. Faith for All of Life, published bi-monthly by Chalcedon, a tax-exempt Christian foundation, is sent to all who request If you have an e-mail address, please it. All editorial correspondence should be sent to the managing editor, P.O. Box 569, Cedar Bluff, VA 24609-0569. send an e-mail message including Laser-print hard copy and electronic disk submissions firmly encouraged. All submissions subject to editorial revi- sion. Email: [email protected]. The editors are not responsible for the return of unsolicited manuscripts which your full postal address to our office: become the property of Chalcedon unless other arrangements are made. Opinions expressed in this magazine [email protected]. do not necessarily reflect the views of Chalcedon. It provides a forum for views in accord with a relevant, active, historic Christianity, though those views may on occasion differ somewhat from Chalcedon’s and from each other. For circulation and data Chalcedon depends on the contributions of its readers, and all gifts to Chalcedon are tax-deductible. ©2013 Chalcedon. All rights reserved. Permission to reprint granted on written request only. Editorial Board: Rev. Mark management contact Rebecca R. Rushdoony, President/Editor-in-Chief; Martin Selbrede, Editor; Susan Burns, Managing Editor and Executive Rouse at (209) 736-4365 ext. 10 Assistant. Chalcedon, P.O. Box 158, Vallecito, CA 95251, Telephone Circulation (9:00a.m. - 5:00p.m., Pacific): (209) 736- or [email protected] 4365 or Fax (209) 736-0536; email: [email protected]; www.chalcedon.edu; Circulation: Rebecca Rouse. From the Founder Christianity and Culture By R. J. Rushdoony (Reprinted from In His Service [Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 2009], 75-80.) ur Lord com- people read, not books so much as book ias. And when he had opened the Omands us in the reviews, to know how to think; they book, he found the place where it Sermon on the Mount visit the “trendy” art galleries in order was written, to be the light of the to know art as it presently is supposed 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon world (Matt. 5:16). to be. The “legitimate theater” may me, because he hath anointed me David declares of God, be offering garbage, even as the films to preach the gospel to the poor; he For with thee is the fountain of and television do, but it is “high” art as hath sent me to heal the broken- life: in thy light shall we see light. against the “low-brow” art of the more hearted, to preach deliverance to (Psa. 36:9) popular media. In a meaning unintend- the captives, and recovering of But men seek light elsewhere; ed by Alan Levy in The Culture Vultures sight to the blind, to set at liberty rather, they seek to be their own light. (1968), these people, whether in New them that are bruised. York, London, Paris, or Moscow, are Isaiah tells us of God’s verdict on all 19. To preach the acceptable year such men: culture vultures. Culture vultures believe that only of the Lord. Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, the best in art is true culture, and it is to 20. And he closed the book, and he that compass yourselves about with be enjoyed only by the best among men, gave it again to the minister, and sparks: walk in the light of your namely, themselves. The popular defini- sat down. And the eyes of all them fire, and in the sparks that ye have tions of culture are thus elitist as well as that were in the synagogue were kindled. This shall ye have of mine anti-Christian. In this sense, culture is fastened on him hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow. seen as the prerogative of an exclusive (Isa. 50:11) 21. And he began to say unto group of people to the exclusion of them, This day is this scripture ful- Rather than the light of God, men those deemed uncultured. filled in your ears. (Luke 4:16–21) seek to generate their own light and vi- Our Lord, however, sees the neces- These verses were part of the sion. They are men of darkness, seeking sity of externalizing the new life we have early church’s marching orders. They an escape by their own self-exaltation. in Him. Because we are regenerated preached salvation through the aton- They dream that their wisdom will give by His saving grace, we must seek to ing sacrifice of Jesus Christ. They had them the necessary light. Calvin felt that regenerate all men and to work for the a ministry of healing, and they soon God was saying to all such men, You “new heavens and a new earth, wherein established hospitals. They preached to have rejected Me and sought to kindle dwelleth righteousness” (2 Pet. 3:13). the poor as well as the rich; they healed your own light to escape the darkness. We are the people of the Jubilee, and the brokenhearted, ransomed captives, Well, now your life will take its course our Lord at Nazareth read the great healed the spiritually as well as the in your own fire, which will be, not Jubilee proclamation of Isaiah 61:1ff.: your salvation, but your destruction: “at physically blind, and they set free the the place of torment ye shall lie down!”1 16. And he came to Nazareth, oppressed, those bruised or crushed by They will create the culture of death. where he had been brought up: oppression. We have seen that the false defini- and, as his custom was, he went The early church included tion of culture restricts it to an upper into the synagogue on the Sabbath many prominent people, lawyers, class element interested in the arts. This day, and stood up for to read. philosophers, men of state, and so on. interest is a non-Christian and there- 17. And there was delivered unto But it also included slaves, and the poor. fore a superficial one. In New York, him the book of the prophet Esa- Such a mingling of peoples in an elitist 2 Faith for All of Life | March/April 2013 www.chalcedon.edu Faith for All of Life culture brought them contempt as a observed but the violent overthrow of the which is the law of the city in which one slave religion. These despised Christians present order. The doctrine of Providence is a citizen.”6 This is clear and obvious were creating a Christian culture, one stresses the ultimate harmony of all humanism. It is the faith of our time, in which all relations, vocations, spheres interests in the Lord, whereas Revolu- and the culture of our time. Righteous- of activity, and persons were aspects tion insists on the continual conflict of ness or justice is the tie that binds and of God’s Kingdom and an evidence interests. As early as 1659 in England, holds a culture together. The growing of a new culture. The Christians were men were turning from Providence to injustice of humanistic states is lead- hated because they were effectual and Revolution. Richard Flecknoe wrote, “all ing to fearfulness, fragmentation, and successful. things in this world being in perpetual inner decay. We must have a Christian This hatred is a witness to Christian revolution, tis impossible from the begin- culture, governed by God’s law-word, power. John Dryden in the seventeenth ning to see the end of all things.”3 The and ever mindful that God holds us century showed aristocratic disdain for believers in God’s providence held and accountable for the maintenance of the Puritans as trash, describing them as hold with Peter, “Known unto God are His order. The tests of a culture as God the “rascal rabble …whom kings no title all his works from the beginning of the declares them are blunt and earnest: 2 gave, and God no grace.” This same world” (Acts 15:18). Moreover, God sets 21. Thou shalt neither vex a “cultured contempt” is very much with forth His work in His Word, so that it stranger, nor oppress him: for ye us still. is possible from the beginning to see the were strangers in the land of Egypt.