The Legacy of Rousas J. Rushdoony

Gary interviews the late Dr. Gary North about his own personal history and how he came to know and be mentored by Dr. Rousas Rushdoony.

Eventually, men confess their true faith, even men who do not expect to win. This is an important theological point. Men’s ability to remain confessionally lukewarm is drastically limited. They cannot always remain silent. Rushdoony has called this the phenomenon of necessary confession.

Confession is a necessary aspect of man’s psychology and nature. Man was created by God to be a confessing creature, to confess God in all his activities, research, study, and science. In every area, man makes a religious confession in all that he does and is. Man’s life is a confession before the world of the faith and purpose which govern his heart. Man’s life is also a continual confession before God and to God. Every thought and motive is naked and open before God… For the unregenerate, the God of Scripture is a prying God who must be barred from the mind of man. His resentment against such sovereign power is intense. His thoughts are his totally private property, and he will not allow to God title over a single thought.[1]

Covenant-breaking man’s problem is guilt. “The sinner refuses to confess his sins to God and to acknowledge his guilt, and he refuses to confess Christ in his daily life and motives, but he does not thereby escape the need for confession. Where men refuse to make a godly confession, they will make an ungodly one. They will confess with their lives, thoughts, and deeds, their rebellion against God, and they will confess with their mouth their sins with a bravado or in spite of themselves.”[2]

Crossed Fingers

This fully-documented tome (more than 1100 pages!) is a handbook for the diagnosis and defeat of the same liberal forces that have captured American Christianity. How did they do it? With a vision, with a plan, and with other people’s money. Crossed Fingers shows how they achieved victory in what had been the most theologically conservative large Protestant denomination on earth. It also shows what the conservative Presbyterians could have done, and still have not done, to immunize the Church.

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Gary interviews the late Dr. Gary North about his own personal history and how he came to know and be mentored by Dr. Rousas Rushdoony. North and Rushdoony heavily influenced 20th century theology with their voluminous books about a great deal of topics. The legacy of Rushdoony is still being felt today, more than 60 years after his first book was published in 1959.

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[1] R. J. Rushdoony, Revolt Against Maturity: A Biblical Psychology of Man (Fairfax, Virginia: Thoburn Press, 1977), p. 274.

[2] Ibid., pp. 274-75.

American Vision’s mission is to Restore America to its Biblical Foundation—from Genesis to Revelation. American Vision (AV) has been at the heart of worldview study since 1978, providing resources to exhort Christian families and individuals to live by a Biblically based worldview. Visit www.AmericanVision.org for more information, content and resources