Sunday, June 10, 2007

Update to Charismatic Resurgence Post!

Apologies for the short delay on the "Charismatic Resurgence Post"! Ern Baxter has been keeping me occupied and busy. As Mark Heath said - transcribing is a timely business. But however I have updated it and there are a number of awesome posts worthy of your attention. They will build your faith!

Just to give you a taster; Terry Virgo testifies to a young man being healed of dyslexia, I've been listening to NCMI leader Tyrone Daniels preaching on "The Potency of the Prophetic" and Adrian Warnock reminds us that the whole object to this is that we might "GO!".

Go read it - God is on the move! And to re-emphasise the "Ultimate Triumph" theme, here is a video clip from the extrodinary theologian R J Rushdoony (I think my friend Dave Skipper might approve of this!). He says; "We have a duty; we have to occupy the whole world! ... We have a magnificent calling and I don't believe God programmed us for defeat".


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow!! Dr Rushdoony! Now there is a blast from the past. Excellent quotes and I must confess I was amazed at the passion of his commitment to the glorious end times! We've got to go take the nations! We do indeed have a duty to take the nations. I had always heard he was a dull dusty theologian - clearly this proves not so.

Great find.

Dr S A J Burgess.

Anonymous said...

40, 000 hits!!!

Wow you ought to have a party or something!!! :) Do you know who was the 40, 000th?!?! Maybe you ought to give them one of your Ern Baxter tapes or something!!! LOL!!

Well done you tho, it's been a fab site and its been amazing to follow it since the beginning and see it develop.

Anonymous said...

I heard that Rushdoonys library was something like 30,000 books wasn't it?! Wow bet that makes your mouth water Dan!!

Dan Bowen said...

Thanks all. Yes my former pastor Stanley Jebb mentioned the awesome size of Rushdoony's library. That's my goal and my aim. And my next of kins dread and fear when I finally make it to glory!!

According to my zippy map thing down the bottom of the blog I think the 40,000th hit came from deepest Brazil or somewhere so if they want to write an email or something their Ern Baxter prize will be loaded onto a donkey and I will set off into the mountains. Or wherever they live.

Anonymous said...

Here's an excellent tribute to R J Rushdoony that may interest some. It's from this blog site;

http://cosmicchrist.blogspot.com/2005/04/tribute-to-rj-rushdoony.html

He writes;

A Tribute to R.J. Rushdoony

When people find out how much I like to read and how much I enjoy studying theology I get a lot of puzzled looks. In fact, some people who read this blog have given me puzzled looks when they discover these facts about me. Every once in a while I will get one individual who will tell me that they want to learn more about theology and Biblical worldview issues. When I get this sort of response I give only one reply, “Read R.J. Rushdoony.�

There are different areas of theology that I like to read into, and I usually will pinpoint one main authority in that area. For apologetics, one needs to read and listen to Greg Bahnsen, and then they need to read Cornelius Van Til. It’s important to read Bahnsen before Van Til (trust me on this one). For eschatology, read Kenneth Gentry and Gary DeMar. These two men have reshaped the eschatology debate for years to come. For economics, buy every book from Gary North. You need to especially check out his economic commentaries on the Bible. Dr. North is the only Christian scholar that I know of who has taken a particular field and tried to write a Bible commentary with that field in mind. He has reconstructed his field of interest and will surely impact several future generations of Christian thinkers (maybe even unto a 1000 generations). For Christian education, one should be familiar with the Foundation for American Christian Education (www.face.net) and be familiar with the work of Rosalie Slater and Verna Hall. For law, get anything by Herb Titus. He is the leading expert for the study of Christian jurisprudence, law, and public policy. Also, visit Vision Forum (www.visionforum.com) and get any materials they provide on this topic.

R.J. Rushdoony is not a professional theologian. He isn’t an economist, a philosopher, an apologist, or an expert on eschatology. Most don’t consider him a history expert (though those who think this way should regret this). R.J. Rushdoony is what you call a Renaissance Man. You can’t place a man like Rushdoony into any particular field. Rushdoony read over a book a day growing up. He is said to have had about 60,000 plus books in his personal library (it maybe even be more than that). He also wrote a lot. The Chalcedon Foundation, the ministry he started, has published more than 30 books plus many tracts and pamphlets. There is also a huge tape library of Rushdoony lecturing on different topics. However, Rushdoony has so many unpublished manuscripts, the people at the Chalcedon Foundation will be tediously working to get his works published for years to come.

Rushdoony was never restricted to just theology. He wrote about education, philosophy, apologetics, eschatology, history, law, economics, politics, science, literature, etc. It seems that Rushdoony liked to touch on all areas of life. This is because he believed that God was Lord over His creation and all areas of life. Now, what exactly did Rushdoony have to say about these topics? This is where Rushdoony was a revolutionary. Rushdoony tore down almost everything that was presupposed or taken for granted about each of these topics and he reconstructed them to be consistent with a Biblical worldview.

This process was started in 1963 when Rushdoony published, The Messianic Character of American Education. In this monumental work, Rushdoony became one of the first pioneers of the Christian day school/home schooling movement. He showed how education is always based on someone’s religion, and that our modern-day public school system was founded on the secular humanistic precepts of Horace Mann. He showed how this progressed over the next 100 years until we got to the middle of the 20th century. Rushdoony called all Christians to take their children out of the ungodly government school system and take up the Biblical mandate of giving their covenant children a Godly education (Deut. 6:4-10).

Rushdoony also showed his support of the philosophy of Cornelius Van Til, who taught at Westminster Theological Seminary for 40 years. Rushdoony defended Van Til’s system of thinking with By What Standard. Van Til was also known for reconstruction a field, philosophy, and rebuilding it on Christian principles. Rushdoony agreed with Van Til that our philosophy, epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics must be built on the presuppositions of the Bible. Only a Christian worldview can make sense of logic, science, math, language, history, etc. For Rushdoony, this presuppositional approach to knowledge is what influenced him to apply this to other areas of thought.

All of this came to fruition in 1973. While the infamous Roe v. Wade decision was passed down, which has been responsible for over 44 million babies being murdered in the last 32 years, Rushdoony published his Institutes of Biblical Law. Unlike the Supreme Court Judges in the Roe v. Wade case, Rushdoony saw that all human law must be based on the Divine law found in the Bible. If any law went against God’s law, it is null and void. Rushdoony saw that both the Old and New Testaments had principles of law and justice that are applicable to our modern day society. He especially noted the importance of the judicial law found in the Old Testament. While I and many others do not agree with all his conclusions, Rushdoony’s main thesis is right on: God’s law is our final standard of authority.

When it comes to how much Rushdoony has affected my thinking, my favorite book of his is actually not a systematic book. Chalcedon published The Roots of Reconstruction, which is a collection of articles by R.J. Rushdoony in a publication called the Chalcedon Report, which is now a bi-monthly magazine called Faith for All of Life. The work is obviously massive. However, if one just reads a couple of articles a day (less than 10 pages) you will be changed! Rushdoony is that powerful a writer and thinker. What most people need 2 pages to say, Rushdoony can spew it out in 2 paragraphs. While most people write about the facts, Rushdoony points you to the underlying presupposition behind the facts. It is transforming stuff.

Rushdoony died in 2001 at the ripe old age of 84. The Chalcedon Foundation has suffered some financial loss since this event (any organization does when the founder dies), but they are optimistic and they are hard at work to preserve the legacy of R.J. Rushdoony. So if you want to learn more about Biblical worldview issues, there is only one name I can give you: Rushdoony!

www.chalcedon.edu

Dan Bowen said...

Thanks for that link - looks like a good site. Any site with the word "Cosmic" in attracts my attention!! It appears he had more like 60,000 books! We'd better get reading people!! I really find that inspiring - the fact that Rushdoony wrote and not necessarily with any idea of publication in mind. Too many of us think writing is only for the "famous" Christians. Writing is an excellent spiritual discipline that we all ought to do. And follow Pete Day's encouragement to "Publish!". I'm so grateful to God for this internet sphere which can be a useful resource to help us get our writing and thoughts out and available.