Rushdoony’s theme is that forgotten victories become present defeats: the church has lost strength because it remembers Scripture but forgets how earlier Christians applied it. He cites 1 Corinthians 6: churches formed courts of arbitration so just that even pagans sought their rulings making Christianity an “empire within the empire” that Rome resented. He then sketches a long shift from Christianity to politics as society’s “savior”: Vatican I, the rise of the German Empire, nationalism after WWI, Marxism/democratic imperialism after WWII, and modern humanistic statism. Even though church numbers grew in the U.S., Christian influence declined because many believers became salvation- or church-centered rather than kingdom-centered (“seek first the kingdom,” Matt. 6:33). He warns that judgment begins at God’s house (1 Pet. 4; Heb. 12): persecution and legal pressure will increase, exposing lukewarmness. Yet he sees hope in Christian schools, homeschooling, and renewed hunger for serious theology, pointing to an approaching Reformation aimed at rebuilding society under Christ’s lordship, until “the kingdoms of this world” become Christ’s (Rev. 11:15).

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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