Episode Details

In “Hostility to Christianity” (Chalcedon Report No. 155), Rushdoony argues that the drive to abolish Christianity did not begin with modern revolutions but was a long-standing Enlightenment objective, quietly embedded in state policy before erupting openly in events like the French and Russian Revolutions. He shows how this hostility surfaced even in the American War for Independence through British desecration of churches, destruction of Bibles, persecution of pastors, and contempt for Christian faith facts largely ignored or excused by humanistic historians. Rushdoony then contrasts older, overt anti-Christian tyrannies (such as Marxist regimes) with newer, more subtle forms of totalitarianism, exemplified by Sweden, where Christianity is not attacked directly but strangled through education, regulation, licensing, and the systematic removal of Biblical morality from law. This “enlightened” strategy wages war against Christianity in the name of tolerance, order, and neutrality, asserting the lordship of the state over Christ while denying it in words. Against this creeping suppression, Rushdoony insists that Christ’s sovereignty is absolute and indivisible: no institution may lawfully encroach upon His authority over church, state, family, education, and culture. The choice before nations and rulers, he concludes, is submission to Christ or judgment, for only those who “kiss the Son” can stand secure.

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