R.J. Rushdoony (1 of 2) Victory Through Education

[numberonesurvivor75]

Why did Rushdoony condemn interracial marriage? Did he believe that all blacks are condemned to eternal hell fire? If so, it is thoroughly anti bible as Moses had a Kushite wife and Solomon said he was black.

[jcr4runner]

I think "condemn" is too strong a word.

Rushdoony listed racial differences in his interpretation of 1 Cor. to not be unequally yoked.

He saw many factors, including religious, ethnic and cultural considerations, as reasons that might lead people not to marry.

I disagree with this -- I think Paul here is speaking of Christian/Non-Christian marriages only. Race is an evolutionary concept, biblically we are all one race.

But I also disagree that his interpretation is necessarily racist.

[jcr4runner]

This is what Mark Rushdoony said about this issue:

"My father was no friend of racism, having suffered some hurtful discriminating treatment for his Armenian ethnicity early in life. Less than a year before he died, I asked him for his feelings on the Confederate battle flag on the state flags of three Southern states, then the subject of attempts at removal. His reply was, 'If I were black, I would find it offensive.'"

[numberonesurvivor75]

Interracial marriage is a constant biblical motif in the most narrative parts of the bible, i.e., the parts that really are designed to provide exposition and history more than anything else.

My other area of disagreement relates to his interpretation of "dominion." I disagree with some of the Christian Reconstructionists on how they apply Leviticus to other people because of the use of the passive voice in the bible.

I like his work in general though.

[jcr4runner]

I disagree that "race" is biblical.

There was only Israel and the "goyim" (translated as "nations" or "heathen"). God specifically outlawed marriage to certain Canaanite tribes, but aliens and sojourners were invited to become part of Israel, to learn God's Law and under those circumstances they became part of an Israelite tribe through marriage.

In the New Covenant, marriage to non-believers is forbidden, but since the Gospel is to all nations, there is no national or ethnic prohibition.

[numberonesurvivor75]

I don't think Jesus overthrew the Old Covenant at all, but rather corrected the law that had become distorted. In Mesopotamia, like a lot of Pre-Christian civilizations, people prayed to an idol insincerely for political(and hence ethnic and ultimately racial) reasons. The Israelites adopted this sinful custom and Christ came to explain that faith should determine nations and cultures, not vice versa.

[numberonesurvivor75]

The bible does not really condemn fornication as a capital crime. It requires a payment of 50 sheckles of silver to the girl's father and then marriage.

[jcr4runner]

Either a fine and marriage or a fine and marriage.

It is a crime -- just not a capital crime.

[numberonesurvivor75]

He sort of links it with crimes that are considered much more severe in other clips.

Though I share the view that state enforced specialization is thoroughly anti-Christian.

[numberonesurvivor75]

The bible is an attempt at articulating godly principles into man's language. Epistemologically speaking, man cannot truly ever "know" anything due to the flaws of his language. So while God's word is inherently infallible, totally depraved man's articulation of it is always imperfect and very fallible.

The Fall of Man and Chapter 11 of the Book of Genesis(the Tower of Babel) both imply this.

[antipelagian]

Your comment was self-refuting.

[numberonesurvivor75]

How is it self-refuting?