Some people are simply too spiritually sleepy to hear anything, and writing to them is like talking to a drowsy friend who pretends to listen but is nearly unconscious. I recently heard a farmer dismiss every moral and social crisis Chavez, crime, riots, lawlessness because none of it touched him personally; but let a tire blow out and suddenly the whole world is conspiring against him. Everything is fine until his ox is gored. Scripture calls this sin: a willful blindness to anything outside one’s own interests. Our Lord warned us not to waste holy things on those determined not to hear (Matt. 7:6) and told His disciples to walk away from people who refuse the message (Matt. 10:14). With so many ready to listen, Christ, the Lord of the harvest, calls us to use our time wisely and work where it counts, for we will give an account.

Baptism succeeds circumcision as the covenant sign, preserving the same covenantal meaning while unfolding it in Christ: both testify that fallen human nature cannot save itself, that salvation comes only through death and regeneration, and that covenant membership brings both blessing and judgment. Circumcision symbolized the cutting off of the old nature and pointed forward to Christ’s atoning blood; baptism now proclaims participation in Christ’s death and resurrection, entrance into the new creation, and incorporation into the covenant people. As a sign and seal not grace itself baptism witnesses to God’s electing mercy while placing the recipient under heightened covenant responsibility, for covenant breakers face intensified judgment. In Scripture and the early church alike, baptism was understood as both cleansing and consecration, echoing the Flood and Red Sea judgments while promising a renewed world under the rule of the new Adam, Jesus Christ, whose own baptism marked His submission to covenant judgment and His vindication as Son and King.

#CircumcisionAndBaptism #CovenantTheology #InfantBaptism #NewCreation #DeathAndResurrection #SignOfTheCovenant #JudgmentAndGrace #ChristTheNewAdam #BiblicalContinuity

R.J. Rushdoony reviews books illustrating moral, cultural, and societal trends. He highlights John Morgan’s Prince of Crime on Catholic dominance in urban politics and crime, A. Craig Copetas’ Metal Men on large-scale corporate corruption, and Major Henry Darley’s Slaves and Ivory on Africa’s moral and social challenges. He also notes cultural degeneration in 19th-century France, historical insights on Roman law, and celebrates entrepreneurial innovation in Donald Lambrou’s Land of Opportunity. Throughout, he emphasizes the need for Christian moral guidance and reconstruction in society.

We all know the frustration of speaking to someone who refuses to hear, like a young man I recently met who raged against his capable, long-suffering parents while living off their money, rejecting work, and screaming abuse whenever anyone suggested he reform himself. I’ve seen the same spirit in a minister who preached “love” while seething with hatred, attacking his congregation and exploding at any criticism. Solomon described such people: “a generation that curseth their father… pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness” (Prov. 30:11–12) a proud, self-righteous, destructive generation that criticizes everyone but itself. Since such perversity is with us still, those who love the Lord must instead be a people cleansed by Christ, faithful to His Word, taking responsibility, and rebuilding wherever others tear down.

Claims that Christianity borrowed from ancient mystery religions rest on superficial similarities and miss the real contrast. The mysteries offered secret rites, mystical experiences, spiritual escape, and vague hopes of immortality, with little concern for history, morality, or transforming society. Christianity, by contrast, proclaimed a public, historical faith grounded in God’s revealed Word, the bodily resurrection, and Christ’s lordship over all of life.

Ironically, modern churches often resemble the mystery cults more than the early church reducing faith to private spirituality, emotional experience, and soul-saving alone, while rejecting God’s law, works of mercy, and cultural responsibility. Biblical faith unites belief and action: faith without works is dead, and Christ’s Kingdom calls believers not to retreat from the world, but to serve and reform it under His rule.

In “Loss of the Past” (Chalcedon Report No. 320), Rushdoony argues that modern society’s deliberate forgetting and moralizing distortion of history has severed us from reality, leaving us ignorant of both the past and present and therefore incapable of shaping a sound future. By erasing figures like Patrick Henry and Stephen Decatur, caricaturing European history, and indulging in shallow denunciations of men like Columbus, modern critics practice Pharisaical self-righteousness rooted in a loss of the Biblical doctrine of sin. Without recognizing human depravity, people demand moral perfection from past societies while excusing or ignoring present evils, turning history into a weapon for self-exaltation rather than understanding. Rushdoony insists that sin is fundamentally an offense against God, not merely against other people or the state, and that only through Christ’s atonement can guilt be resolved and history redeemed. When history is viewed under God’s sovereignty, even its failures become instructive and humbling, restoring perspective, gratitude, and wisdom; without this, modern man becomes a moral pygmy condemning giants, blind to his own corruption and drifting toward cultural collapse.

#LossOfHistory #HistoricalAmnesia #Phariseeism #BiblicalViewOfSin #HumanDepravity #ChristAndHistory #CulturalDecline #Perspective

A country pastor once caught his dozing congregation’s full attention by telling an obvious lie about a sow that gave birth to green pigs, then rebuked them: while he preached God’s life-giving truth they slept, but when he told nonsense they were all ears. His point remains strikingly true far too often even Christians respond more eagerly to gossip, slander, and foolish talk than to the Word of God. Scripture warns that those who “love and make a lie” stand outside God’s Kingdom (Rev. 22:15), and that delighting in evil even while claiming not to believe it reveals a corrupt heart. Instead, God commands, “Ye that love the LORD, hate evil” (Ps. 97:10), and urges us to take our delight in Him (Ps. 37:4). Each time we hear both truth and lies, we ourselves are tested: which one captures our attention?

Gideon stands above 135,000 warriors with 300 men and no visible swords. The Lord sends him down to overhear an enemy dream — a barley loaf tumbling into a tent — and Gideon weaponises their fear against them. Trumpets, torches, one cry, and the camp cuts itself to pieces in the dark. A study in Spirit-empowered leadership, the sword that proceeds from the mouth, and how God still topples empires through the few.

My daughter once called home distressed because a classmate claimed George Washington had fathered fourteen illegitimate children and died of venereal disease pure slander without a shred of evidence. I reminded her that such lies arise because depraved people delight in dragging the righteous down to their own level, just as Solomon said, “As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly” (Prov. 26:11). Those who love dirt smear everything they touch. Scripture warns that “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Prov. 18:21), and our Lord declares that every idle word will be judged (Matt. 12:36). Before repeating slander or indulging in careless talk, remember: words may seem cheap, but their consequences are not are you prepared to pay their price?

This opening to a study on the biblical doctrine of the family argues that modern society is fundamentally at war with the family because it has replaced God’s order with statist and naturalistic thinking. Scripture presents the family—not the state, church, or school—as God’s primary institution, with marriage as the first and basic religious vocation, governed by God’s Law rather than personal desire or biological impulse. To reduce marriage to a natural or sexual arrangement is to deny its moral and covenantal character and to embrace the logic of fallen humanity, which always rebels against God-given order. Biblical marriage, by contrast, is an act of dominion and new creation in Christ, restoring life, stability, and meaning where lawlessness produces chaos and death. The family is the one institution carried over from Eden, the chief means by which God orders human life, and the central target of a modern world that refuses to live by His design.

#BiblicalFamily #MarriageAsVocation #GodsOrder #FamilyBeforeState #ChristianWorldview #CreationOrder #AgainstStatism #CovenantLife #Dominion #FaithAndFamily