In His Service: The Christian Calling to Charity
Overview
In this text Rushdoony argues that a modern, self-centered church has isolated the faith to a pietism that relinquishes charitable responsibility to the state—resulting in empowering a humanistic world order. He discusses the difficulty the church has in recovering the biblical meaning of words like charity and compassion. He argues that because post–World War II liberalism has redefined them politically into state welfarism and that this redefinition has made charity a political tool to retain social order—and made the state the primary agency of compassion. But biblical compassion flows from our having first received the grace of God and then manifesting it to others. Therefore, biblical charity—which is compassion in action—is personal. It begins with God’s mercy towards us, and then the people of God give expression to that at an individual level. It is in his service that we understand our calling to charity. In this book, Rushdoony elucidates the Christian’s calling to charity.
For the entire set, see R.J. Rushdoony Culture and Ethics Collection (7 vols.).
Key Features
- Contends that the church and society has a faulty understanding of compassion and charity
- Maintains that biblical charity and compassion flows from experiental knowledge of the gospel
- Demonstrates that compassion is the outworking of God’ mercy shown to his people
- Title: In His Service: The Christian Calling to Charity
- Author: Rousas John Rushdoony
- Publisher: Ross House Books
- Print Publication Date: 2009
- Logos Release Date: 2014
- Pages: 232
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Charity; Charity › Religious aspects--Christianity; Compassion
- ISBNs: 1879998548, 9781879998544
- Resource ID: LLS:HSSRVCCLLNCHRTY
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T00:37:26Z
Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) was was a well-known American scholar, writer, and author of over thirty books. He earned degrees from the University of California, received theological training at the Pacific School of Religion, and received an honorary Doctorate from Valley Christian University for his book The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum.
Rushdoony was an ordained minister and served as pastor at two California churches. He served for almost nine years as a missionary to the Shoshone and Paiute Indians in a remote area of Nevada. It was during this time as a missionary that Rushdoony began writing. The Institutes of Biblical Law and Commentary on the Pentateuch are just a few of the titles that Rushdoony has penned.
The Chalcedon Foundation, an educational organization devoted to research, publishing, and cogent communication of a distinctively Christian scholarship to the world at large, was founded by Rushdoony in 1965. He served as the editor of The Chalcedon Report, the monthly magazine of the Chalcedon Foundation.
Rushdoony also published the Journal of Christian Reconstruction and was an early board member of the Rutherford Institute which was founded by John W. Whitehead.