Sovereignty
Overview
In Sovereignty, Rousas John Rushdoony examines the comprehensive implications of God’s sovereignty with a clear eye, critiquing the various things that man posits as sovereign—especially the sovereign state. The word “sovereignty” means “one who is above all.” Calvinists often limit the doctrine of sovereignty to a systematic theological definition of God. However, a deeper understanding to determine the implications of sovereignty for the kingdom of God and its application in terms of Mosaic.
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- Examines the comprehensive implications of God’s sovereignty
- Focuses on lawful versus unlawful moral conduct
- Notes the contrast between past and present Christians
Top Highlights
“A true sovereign doesn’t merely know what is good and evil: a sovereign can and will define it. A sovereign is the source of law; he is not subject to it.” (Page ii)
“This emphasis on power is a destructive one for man, since a quest for power displaces a quest for moral order, particularly within the context of freedom and its responsibilities.” (Page iii)
“Grotius had declared that a human sovereign cannot alter God’s law; at the same time, he held that no inferior can question or deny a superior’s will, so that men were bound by their human ruler’s false laws. For him, men were required to obey man rather than God. This was Grotius’s second great error, to require submission to human sovereigns, obedience to man’s law rather than God’s law. This made the current form of the state the actual and working god of the society. In the modern world, we see the state less and less willing to recognize any independent realm belonging to Christ. The denial of religious freedom is an ugly fact of our times, because the new god, the state, refuses to allow the church, the last uncontrolled realm in American life, to escape controls.” (Pages 4–5)
“Without God, Augustine held, there is no justice, and the state becomes in time a criminal syndicate at covert war against its own people. The Bible tells us repeatedly that God’s test of a people is their treatment of widows and orphans (Deut. 24:17; 27:19; 1 Tim. 5:3; Ex. 22:22–24, etc.). Today, however, inheritance taxes callously rob precisely these widows and orphans. In God’s sight, this is injustice and evil.” (Page 138)
- Title: Sovereignty
- Author: Rousas John Rushdoony
- Publisher: Ross House Books
- Publication Date: 2007
- Pages: 519
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.
