Customer Reviews

The Institutes of Biblical Law

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Rushdoony is a theologian that you either love or hate. And this is consistent with his presuppositional philosophy of no neutrality. Drawing from the great Christian philosopher and theologian Cornelius Van Til, Rushdoony clearly lays out in "The Institutes" and in his numerous other works, the defining question of all thought: BY WHAT STANDARD? Either we will uphold God's Law and repudiate man's attempt "to be as God, knowing [i.e., determining for himself] what constitutes good and evil" (Genesis 3:5); or we will accept the challenge of the tempter, believing the lie that we can be like god, living forever in a universe of our own invention (Genesis 3).

In short, we will either serve and worship God, or we will serve and worship His creation, attempting to ignore Him (Romans 1). We cannot have it both ways.

I cannot say that I agree with everything that Rushdoony wrote. How could anyone agree with all of his views, given how controversial, sincere, and rigorous he was? However, the corpus of his work -- including his Magnum Opus, "The Institutes" -- supplies a sure foundation for a systematic and "epistemologically self conscious" worldview: one that applies God's Law to every area of life and thought in a rigorous and uncompromising manner.

Given the "hidden" or "veiled" influence that Rushdoony has had on our society, more people -- both Chrisitians and humanists -- should pay attention to Rushdoony and his followers such as Gary DeMar, Kenneth Gentry, Gary North, and others. Many do not realize that Rushdoony was at the center of the fight in the '60s and '70s to legalize private and home education. His "Messianic Character of American Education" and "Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum" should be read by educators, particularly those of a Christian persuasion.

Rushdoony influenced many prominent and visible leaders in Christian circles today, even though many of these men are afraid to identify with him for fear that their reputations will be tarnished. Most people do not want to be thought of as radical, but Rushdoony had a different mentality. That is why, love him or hate him, a student of theology, philosophy, history, and law can greatly benefit from Rushdoony's distinctly Christian analysis and critique of society.

If you want to read something that encapsulates Rushdoony's thinking into a systematic set of works, read his three volumes of "The Institutes." If you can only read one, make sure to get the first volume.

Clear, penetrating reasoning which considers the Biblical basis for respecting divine law, and working to obey it. The author also examines each commandment of the decalogue in detail, showing the application and implications of each. I have never seen such a probing analysis in a quarter-century of reading and study on this subject! You see, the overwhelming majority of churches in this century teach that God's law not only no longer applies to believers, but that it was sort of defective and evil anyway. They teach that attempts to respect and obey it repudiate what Christ did! For the most part, if you want to read well-thought-out arguments which show the bankruptcy of that position, you have to drop back in history and read selected works from the time of the Puritans up through the late 19th century, when numerous preachers and commentators could explain the relevance of divine law cogently. But their older style of writing doesn't always "compute" for the modern reader. This book is an entirely up-to-date, hard-hitting challenge to the prevailing concept. Face it: whatever you believe, somebody, somewhere thinks you're doomed for it! This book will force a serious Christian to consider whether what you've been taught holds water. It's not an "easy read," more like a college text; but the examples and citations are timely, modern. Caveat: While I enthusiastically endorse Institutes of Biblical Law to serious Christians as a tool for getting your brain in gear, I don't want to leave readers thinking this is a plug from the author's church or similar. I go to a different church than he, and I believe there were some erroneous conclusions in the book -- but he has really "done his homework" and he really made me think. Reading this whopper was well worth my limited time. What more can a reader ask of an author

Get the volumes (a third is now out) and read for yourself. Don't let knee-jerk responses like the reader from Houston, TX (who obviously hasn't read the books)sway you. Rushdoony provides what the modern church scene has not - in depth, well grounded biblical analysis minus the pious gush, end times madness, subjective mysticism and emotional overdosing. His books will not appeal to those with lazy minds not willing to think things through to their logical conclusions. But who cares. There are plenty of books written for that crowd. Rushdoony is for those who are tired of playing church and want to know just how Christian faith works itself out in every area of life.

Rushdoony is rejected by many Christians and non-Christians alike as being on the lunatic fringe. There is good reason for this, though it is complicated. As John Frame argues, while rightly challenging in many ways, Rushdoony's work is a fine example of how *not* to engage in theological dialogue. Making accusations of "antinomianism" at every turn is not the best way to draw in your audience. I argue that Rushdoony's detailed insight into ignored aspects of history in the Christian era is fascinating and valuable (hence the four star rating), but the theological lessons to be learned do not always hold together. He makes a convincing case for political libertarianism (a.l.a. Ron Paul), but his theonomic vision is frightful to many fellow libertarians. He writes of the dual dangers of expanding militaristic and socialistic powers of the state, but he unfortunately sees fit to condemn interracial marriage. He masterfully makes sense of many Mosaic texts in a plausible way to the modern Christian, but the architecture of his theological argument is confounding. Are we really "sanctified by the law", as Rushdoony suggests? Surely we are "justified by grace", but juxtaposing that with "sanctification by the law" seems to diminish the Gospel.

Nevertheless, perhaps Rushdoony's critics have not read him closely enough. The man was incredibly well read and incredibly prolific. It took me THREE YEARS to get through _The Institutes of Biblical Law_! This is the best case for theonomy I have yet to read. If you follow him carefully, Rushdoony proposes that Christ's theonomic reign will only come as more and more people come to know Christ. Regeneration ALWAYS precedes civil reform. The bulk of the population in any nation (I've heard Rushdoony elsewhere say at least 80% of the population) needs to confess faith in Christ BEFORE biblical law can be implemented fully in a society. State coercion is NOT in Rushdoony's vision. Well, if that is the case, then those who fear the rise of the "Religious Right' have nothing to fear from the likes of Rushdoony. With less than 70% of Americans going to church and less then half of those claiming to be "born again", I think that the evangelical movement will be preoccupied for many years with evangelism and discipleship before it ever gets to the task of theonomic-based governance.

Rushdoony's whole argument for theonomy is based on both his presuppositionalism; i.e. there is no such thing as philosophical "neutrality," and his postmillenialism; i.e. the world is getting better and better all of the time. Presuppositionalism and postmillenialism are not well-understood nor well-embraced within Evangelicalism. A proper appreciation of Rushdoony will fail without an adequate grasp of these two theological concepts.

With this in mind, Rushdoony fans are faced with some intractable problems. First, Rushdoony rightly presupposes the Word of God to be true, but the sad history of Christian Reconstructionism is that the exposition of the biblical text gets mangled up by its interpreters. The theonomic vision gets lost in a sea of biblical disputation. Gary North, a contributor to this volume and his son-in-law, has a falling out with Rushdoony over biblical interpretation. Others have parted ways with Rushdoony and North, too. It appears that much of the reason why John Milton wrote Paradise Lost was one way of coming to grips with the futility of trying to get a bunch of conflicting religious groups together to build a theonomically-governed society in Oliver Cromwell's England.

Secondly, most politically-minded evangelicals do not share the rosy optimism of Rushdoony's postmillenialism. Having the patience to rebuild society by Christian witness and example is not always palatable to those more dispensationally-minded Christians who fear that Christianity is being attacked day-by-day in America. With such a pessimistic mood, it is tempting to use theonomic language to justify grabbing the reigns of political power. In other words, we need to appreciate the whole of Rushdoony's argument, less we misuse him.

If I were stranded on a desert island with a few other people and wanted to form a Biblically based government, this is the second of two books that I would want with me. To put it another way, this would be in the top 10 items that I would save, if my house were burning. What does it mean to be dead to the law? Aren't we under grace, now? As an antinomian, this book has dealt me a body blow. Capital punishment? I used to be very indecisive, but now am confident. Did Rahab sin when she gave false directions regarding the where abouts of the spys? If a Nazi had asked you, if you were hiding Jews, and you were, would you be sinning to lie or sinning not to lie? When, if ever, does a Christian go underground in opposition to an ungodly regime? Is there a time not to turn the other cheek? These and countless other questions, that are often a quandary to Christians and that often render them fence straddlers , as to the correct response, are seriously and adequately dealt with. No, I do not swallow this book hook, line and sinker doctrinally, but it has helped me greatly to define what is the correct response, as to life's issues.

I really liked this book.. I agree with a lot of it. I just thought it was funny how the author is so adamant about sticking to the law... Yet the Sabbath was no big deal. LOL! That really made me value the book less, hence the 3 stars. He obviously has a lot of knowledge.. But he's not perfect (no one is). If you understand that, then you can get a lot out of this book. It's interesting, and has a lot of additional resources and information in it.. So I gave it 3 stars.. It would be 5 stars if he wasn't being such a hypocrite about the Sabbath... But that's just my personal opinion, and we all have those.

This book should be standard reading inside every Seminary across the world. What Christian Reconstruction did, and this book really kicked it off despite Rushdoony's other works from a decade and more before, was to take the no-holds-barred Epistemology of Dr Cornelius Van Til and apply it to social theory.

If what Van Til said is true, and it is if only becoz of the impossibility of the contrary, then all social theory must draw its final influence from Scripture - in so far that any social theory departs from Scripture, it collapses under the weight of its own internal contradictions.

In closing, the fact that there are those who decry Rushdoony in their reviews speaks more to their own unstated presuppositions of unbelief rather than anything either constructively or destructively critical of Rushdoony, and Christian Reconstruction in general. What Rushdoony, following Van Til, showed in his other works is that we all have unstated assumptions about morality, nature, and how we know what we know. The difference between Rushdoony and his detractors is that Rushdoony freely admitted it - his detractors do not, if only through ignorance.

This is a brilliant study of Biblical Law and an indepth analysis of the Ten Commandments. Many pastors and theologians in this day and age are woefully ignorant of the importance of Biblical Law and have allowed antinomianism to corrupt a large portion of the Church. A respect for the Law or a outright support as laid out in the Bible does not make one legalistic, but truely a Christian. For you combine the Law of Christ and the Law of Moses, grace and law into one whole. I admit there are laws in the Mosaic Code that no longer apply, such as the sacrificial laws, but those regarding blasphemy, murder etc. deal with problems that were not abolished with the coming, death, and resurrection of Christ. Other laws are grounded in nature and can never change unless God himself changes those natural laws that are the basis of those Mosaic laws. We need to reread the Biblical Law and follow the path of our ancestors not into the Age of Antinomianism but into the a new Age of Christendom. If you buy one book on Biblical Law or law in general, buy this one.

What makes this book so effective is that it regards the ENTIRE Bible as the inerrant Word of God. It doesn't just throw out the death penalty requirements (for sodomy, blasphemy, adultery, etc.), curses, threats of Divine wrath and retribution, and the like in the Old Testament because they don't sound very nice. The book well written, quoting many different sources (many contemporary) to prove what Rushdoony is saying. It is outlined on the model of the Ten Commandments in the Book of Exodus.

An excellent chapter is the one on the woman forgiven for adultery. Rushdoony explains that this trial actually reaffirmed the death-penalty statutes in the Law of Moses. When Christ drew in the dust at the temple after the Pharisees made their accusation against the woman, he invoked the curse of the bitter water (from the Book of Numbers) on the Pharisees. When he asked who was without sin, Christ referred to the sin of adultery. Since the curse of the bitter water was invoked on the Pharisees (and the penalty for adultery is death), they knew that if they threw a stone at the woman, they would also come under the death penalty for adultery themselves. Therefore no one threw a stone and they all left. Thus, there was no legal case against the woman since "the testimony of two or three witnesses" is necessary to convict of a crime in the Law. So Christ had no legal case against the woman, and she was let go and warned not to sin again.

Other good chapters in this book deal with Christ's political messianic leadership reaffirmed at the transfiguration, and Gary North's "In Defense of Biblical Bribery" appendix.

The fact that Rushdoony's *Institutes* elicits such invective from theological/social liberals/humanists (l/h's) is proof of its value. If all I knew of the book was that l/h's hate it, that would be enough for me to want to read it. The truth is that l/h is the photographic negative of all that Rushdoony teaches in *Institutes*, and if l/h's had their way (which they mostly do), they would establish the same form of government that they say Rushdoony would establish, only upon humanistic tenets. Thus, their screeds, chest-beatings, name-callings, apoplexies, and histrionics regarding *Institutes* are completely hypocritical. Think about it - more people have died from humanistic governments (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, et al) than have ever been harmed by "Christian theocracies".

You should read this book. It will introduce you to ideas that you have probably never before encountered and that you should certainly seriously consider. But be prepared to be challenged, as you will have to reconsider many things that you were taught in government schools and fluffy, trendy churches.

Eventually, we all have to do battle on the field of ideas, whether it is in the arena of polemics or simply at the voting booth. And in this battle, there truly are, as one man wrote, "no rusty swords." If you are a Christian, arm yourself with serious iron by reading this book. If you are an humanist, read this book to give yourself a chance to see how you have been mislead.