The Roots of Reconstruction

by Rousas John Rushdoony

This large volume provides all of Rushdoony's Chalcedon Report articles from the beginning in 1965 to mid-1989. These articles were, with his books, responsible for the Christian Reconstruction and theonomy movements.

Genres: Theology, Christianity, Christian

1124 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Rousas John Rushdoony was a Calvinist philosopher, historian, and theologian and is widely credited as the father of both Christian Reconstructionism and the modern homeschool movement. His prolific writings have exerted considerable influence on the Christian right.

Reviews

[Joshua · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a very thought provoking read and though I didn't agree with all of Rushdoony's theology, I enjoyed the fact that he was constantly comparing what was happening in America at the time (These were written in the 60's), to past history. These issues, are still very prevalent today!
He covered a huge amount of topics and apologetically calls for reform in American government, the church, and fellow believers.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rushdoony was an absolutely brilliant man, whose ability to "understand the times" is almost unparalleled. He read voluminously, and wrote shelves worth of books. This one is somewhat unique, in that it is a collection of short essays that were originally published in his newsletter from the mid 1960s to the late 1980s.

Naturally, in such a book, the essays will be uneven in quality, and they are. Many are also very repetitious, which makes it hard to just plow through this book front to back. It took me a little over two years to get through this one, and I'm glad I read it in the way that I did, as it allowed me to digest the repetition in a way that was actually helpful, as the original readers of the newsletters would have likely received it.

The essays broach the same topics those familiar with Rushdoony would expect. That is to say the essays reflect the topics he touched on in his books. Central to Rushdoony's work is theonomy (God's law) versus autonomy (man's law). As he brilliantly summarizes, "Theonomy and autonomy cannot be reconciled: they represent Christianity versus humanism." p. 1112.

If God is God, his law is supreme; any law must be in accord with it, or it represents autonomy, or humanism. This being true, there are profound consequences that the church must work out, many of which Rushdoony spent his life to point out. These main lessons include the necessity of Christian education, self-government, the immorality of inflation, the abiding relevance of Old Testament Law, God's authority, the insistence that there is no neutrality, all law is inherently religious, the importance of the tithe, postmillenialism, and so on.

There are some fantastic quotes in this book, which I couldn't possibly do justice to in such a brief review. Here are a few that stand out:

“No society can be healthy if the people are not strong in their faith. A strong state means a weak people. The various civil governments of the world are all strong and over-bearing in their power because the peoples are weak in the faith. Statist power grows to fill a vacuum in government created by the irresponsibility of the people. When men say of their Lord, ‘We will not have this man to reign over us’ (Luke 19:14), they are inviting anarchy. The Book of Judges describes such a time. Men had rejected God as their king, and, because ‘In those days there was no king in Israel’ God having been denied, ‘every man did that which was right in his own eyes’ (Judges 21:25).” p. 281

“The present order will not change unless it is shattered, and it is God’s shattering we need. God, who governs all things, is never absent from history. He created and ordained it. He demonstrated His intervening power and concern in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. ‘For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his should: and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, The might God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end’ (Isaiah 9:6,7). Christ shall confiscate the power of the confiscators. All laws, including economic law, are a part of His creation and ordination: defeat is written into the nature of the universe for all who transgress His laws. Both naturally and supernaturally, Christ’s government works to punish evil. They who live by easy credit will die by easy credit. They who steal shall be robbed of all they have. ‘But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength’ (Isaiah 40:31).” p. 621

"The significance of God’s absolute law is that it requires a future orientation. Law speaks of consequences, of penalties, of rewards for obedience, of life and death, success and failure. Because law indicates causality, it requires that men who respect law analyze cause and effect and be governed by that knowledge. To reject law is to reject the past and the future.” p. 735

[Emma R. Pilcher]

This is not the kind of book I could rate. If I gave it 3 or more stars, that would seem to suggest that I really enjoyed it. The content was mostly good, and it wasn't entirely boring, though painfully repetitive. That is not to insult Rushdoony himself. Since this is decades of Chalcedon reports, newsletters, position papers, etc. all smashed into one grand volume, repetition is unavoidable. I most enjoyed his position papers. Especially those pertaining to church history and strange theological movements. There was a dash of history in many of the Chalcedon reports and position papers. That was very pleasing.

Just for fun, here is my summary.

Statism = idol = bad

Plato was an Elitist!

Tithing. Tithe, tithe, tithe TITHE, you heathen! (If you want to read more on this, Tithing and Dominion is a more concise and thorough treatise.)

Layman + humanism = secular humanism.

Public school 🪓(I intentionally take the Boniface option)

Big Pharma is statist!

Theonomy, 'cause I'm a controversial late 20th century Reconstructionist! Someone had to proceed the cage stage Christian Nationalists, after all...

Statism! The end.

I suppose there is something for everyone in this massive volume. For instance, I could lean towards my mom's treadmill (This book and the gym are inseparable now; I read most of it on the elliptical) and discuss the medical reports, then discuss Oliver Cromwell and the English Puritans with my father over dinner. Rushdoony sparked many interesting(and niche) conversations, so I can safely conclude that this book was not a waste of my time. Should you read it? I can't really say. I might just stick with the first two thirds of the book, but I personally couldn't bear to leave it unfinished after slaving through 800 pages.

[Josiah Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This tome is a Giant collection of Rushdoony's essays and short written pieces through the years. There is just so much content in this one book covering such a wide variety of topics it is difficult to give a thorough review of it all. The best part is that you get to feel all of Rushdoony's punches because there is nary a topic that is not covered in this book. The one downside is that because it is a collection of his writings, there is ample repetition throughout the book where he covers many of the topics several different times. Regardless, this is a good way to get a broad understanding of how he applied all of his theology to all of life.

[Andrew Stout · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read a handful of these Chalcedon position papers and reports. A more selectively edited volume of these would have been useful. There is a lot of needless repetition.

[Brian Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of essays from the Chalcedon Reports.