Chalcedon Report

Over the past several decades, Reformed theologian and biblical scholar James B. Jordan has produced a unique body of work. His electrifying commentaries and essays on Scripture, along with his penetrating writings on Trinitarian theology, liturgics, music, and culture have inspired a growing number of pastors and theologians. In this Festschrift, Jordan's friends and associates celebrate his contributions by applying his methods and insights to a range of biblical, theological, liturgical, and cultural questions. The Glory of Kings aims to bring Jordan's work to the attention of a wider audience and to introduce the work of a scholar that R. R. Reno has called one of the most important Christian intellectuals of our day.

A century and a half after the conclusion of the Civil War, the legacy of the Confederate States of America continues to influence national politics in profound ways. Drawing on magazines such as Southern Partisan and publications from the secessionist organization League of the South, as well as DixieNet and additional newsletters and websites, Neo-Confederacy probes the veneer of this movement to reveal goals far more extensive than a mere celebration of ancestry. Incorporating groundbreaking essays on the Neo-Confederacy movement, this eye-opening work encompasses such topics as literature and music; the ethnic and cultural claims of white, Anglo-Celtic southerners; gender and sexuality; the origins and development of the movement and its tenets; and ultimately its nationalization into a far-reaching factor in reactionary conservative politics. The first book-length study of this powerful sociological phenomenon, Neo-Confederacy raises crucial questions about the mainstreaming of an ideology that, founded on notions of white supremacy, has made curiously strong inroads throughout the realms of sexist, homophobic, anti-immigrant, and often "orthodox" Christian populations that would otherwise have no affiliation with the regionality or heritage traditionally associated with Confederate history.

This is the first critical history of Christian Reconstruction and its founder and champion, theologian and activist Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001). Drawing on exclusive access to Rushdoony's personal papers and extensive correspondence, Michael J. McVicar demonstrates the considerable role Reconstructionism played in the development of the radical Christian Right and an American theocratic agenda. As a religious movement, Reconstructionism aims at nothing less than "reconstructing" individuals through a form of Christian governance that, if implemented in the lives of U.S. citizens, would fundamentally alter the shape of American society. McVicar examines Rushdoony's career and traces Reconstructionism as it grew from a grassroots, populist movement in the 1960s to its height of popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. He reveals the movement's galvanizing role in the development of political conspiracy theories and survivalism, libertarianism and antistatism, and educational reform and homeschooling. The book demonstrates how these issues have retained and in many cases gained potency for conservative Christians to the present day, despite the decline of the movement itself beginning in the 1990s. McVicar contends that Christian Reconstruction has contributed significantly to how certain forms of religiosity have become central, and now familiar, aspects of an often controversial conservative revolution in America.

Revolt Against Maturity is a study of Biblical psychology. Biblical psychology contrasts sharply with a science of the mind based on the religious presuppositions of humanism, which regards man as having no constant nature. A science of the mind based on humanism views the mind as a clean slate, and man's nature as plastic to be molded by men and institutions in the image of man for the new order he will establish. The Biblical view sees Psychology as a branch of theology; theology is a study of all that the Scriptures declare about God. Theology is essential not only to the study of psychology, but to ethics, anthropology, soteriology, eschatology, etc. Biblical Psychology assumes that man is created in the image of God directly, and not indirectly through theistic- or any other kind of evolution. Being created directly by God, man is not in the process of defining or determining his ontological qualities. Man has already been determined and defined by God. Thus it is God who has established the limits and nature of the mind. The mind of regenerate man experiences radically different motives and presuppositions from those of unregenerate man. The author sees the central task of Christian Psychology as that of discerning the mind and soul differences that exist between the regenerate and unregenerate. Pastoral counseling should first seek to establish whether or not a person is truly regenerate, and then aid the regenerate to further growth in sanctification. Work was to have provided the joy of fulfillment in God's goal of maturity for man, but because of the curse man is often subject to the frustration of meaningless and degrading work. True work is the exercise of dominion over the creation under God. When man's work is separated from dominion of the created world, he is often subject to moral and religious paralysis and becomes a sick soul. Man suffers similarly when he abstracts God from reality. Since God created everything, nothing can be interpreted apart from God. When man attempts this impossibility, he suffers psychologically. True knowledge of anything is revelational of God. Thus, an aspect of man's revolt against maturity and against life is his revolt against knowledge. Psychological damaging is inevitable for those in revolt against the maturity which the God of all life and all knowledge has purposed for man. The certain and true guilt which the human personality suffers because of sin can be alleviated only when God effects regeneration through the atoning blood of Christ. Thus having laid aside the old self with its evil practices, the new self is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him in righteousness and holiness of the truth. (Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:24) In the general or wider sense, the image of God in man means that man like God is a personality. The author notes that "in the redeemed man, this means that man becomes progressively more and more a person, self-conscious in his growth and character (as opposed to being unconscious of his nature), and steadily manifesting more and more the image of God in knowledge, righteousness, holiness, and dominion." Sanctification is unto holiness by which man realizes his chief end: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever: But because of his revolt against maturity man continues to suffer psychological damage both personally and collectively through the chaotic condition of his mind and his culture.

Scripture gives us as its underlying unity a unified doctrine of God and His order. Theology must be systematic to be true to the God of Scripture. This is one of two Systematic Theology booklets that would later become part of R. J. Rushdoony's larger Systematic Theology set.

Five hundred years ago Martin Luther wrote his Ninety-Five Theses, inaugurating the Protestant Reformation, and with it exemplified an unflinching devotion to return to the Word of God as the ultimate authority. Today, the church is also in desperate need for reformation--a new reformation to correct her shortcomings and meet the challenges of the day. Some might see everything as fine, some might see everything as hopeless, and others might simply dismiss the church as irrelevant, too impotent to reform herself, much less to strengthen the disintegrating family or address the downward-spiraling culture with a prophetic voice. 95 Theses for a New Reformation confronts the necessity for reformation today head-on. Over thirty of today's pastors, theologians, and church leaders analyze ninety-five current problems, search the Scriptures for solutions, and make sound biblical appropriations to implement into the life of the church, family, and culture. On this 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, let us pray that the Lord will again revive his church for his own glory and for the purification of Christ's beloved bride, the church. And let us prepare ourselves to respond with urgency to God's call to action by reforming the church, family, and culture. Contributors include: John Frame, John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, Peter J. Leithart, and James White

So much has been written about the Sermon on the Mount, but so little of the commentary ventures outside of the matters of the heart. The Beatitudes are reduced to the assumed meaning of their more popular portions, and much of that meaning limits our concerns to downplaying wealth, praying in secret, suppressing our worries, or simply reciting the Lord's Prayer. All of these commandments are most important, but the larger meaning is missed when the sermon is not read and understood from within the context of the New Covenant. As the author writes, "The covenant made by Jesus Christ is new, because it is with a new people, the new church or assembly of God's firstborn (Heb. 12:22-24), but it is the same covenant with Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Israel; the same tree of life is the life of the covenant, but new branches are grafted into it, and the dead branches are pruned out (Rom. 11:17-24). The tree of life, Jesus Christ, is the center and life of the New Jerusalem, God's Kingdom and city, in every age (Rev. 22:1-2) The Beatitudes are the Kingdom commission to the new Israel of God, and R. J. Rushdoony elucidates this powerful thesis in a readable and engaging commentary on the world's greatest sermon.