The Cure of Souls: Recovering the Biblical Doctrine of Confession

R. J. Rushdoony once sought to establish a Christian university. In this vision, he both failed and succeeded. While there exists no actual campus, Rushdoony did something greater. In books, essays, sermons, and lectures, he reasserted the unity of truth. For such a unity to exist, all truth must have a common basis. For Rushdoony, building upon the foundations of Augustine, Calvin, and Kuyper, that foundation was Scripture. Visualized graphically, Rushdoony’s university resembles a wagon wheel where the hub of the wheel is God’s revelation to us the Bible and every academic department is a spoke connected to that central revelation.

Had he authored have a dozen books, Rushdoony would still have been a pivotal thinker in one or more specific areas. As an interpreter and popularizer of Cornelius Van Til’s presuppositional apologetics, Rushdoony could have rested upon his own writings in apologetics and philosophy. Likewise, his essential writings on Christian education, which have had a major impact on the growth of Christian education, could have sufficiently established him as an educator, or he could have been a historian. Certainly, his theological writings earned him the title of theologian. As it happened, Rushdoony’s prolific mind and writings hopped across academic disciplines, sometimes tying disparate ideas together, exploring thought from a variety of angles, and always gathering in a huge net a wide range of insights to be gleaned and inanities to be scorned from his encyclopedic reading and memory.

The term Christian Reconstruction became the identifying mark of Rushdoony’s thought. Rarely has such a theological term engendered so many different reactions. For many, it was an oasis of delight after suffering from overly pietistic forms of Christianity. It was also a call to action. It was not a humanistic “Yes, we can,” but rather a God-breathed cultural mandate. For many Christians, the liberating force of Christian thought rescued their minds and brought thought itself under the law-word of God. For many, Christian Reconstruction enabled them to see that the collection of Bible stories for moral edification, commonly called the Old Testament, was a blueprint for godly dominion.

Such were the reactions of those who found delight in Rushdoony’s works. But others recoiled from his writings. For his most virulent opponents, Christian Reconstruction beckoned frightening images of an oppressive theocratic state, armed with a ready supply of stones for every deviation from Rushdoony’s theological pronouncements. Rushdoony’s writings were triumphal biblicism, revived postmillennial social gospel, law-works salvation, and extreme rightwing fanaticism. Since Rushdoony’s writings were voluminous and his pronouncements unreserved, it was always easy to find a point of disagreement with Rushdoony and from that splinter, posit a whole logging industry.

Time will both preserve Rushdoony’s books and calm the passions on both sides. While Rushdoony preached a slow, postmillennial salt-and-light cultural infiltration of Christianity, some of us zealots yearned for an immediate theonomic kingdom. In recent years, Rushdoony’s opponents, perhaps as shrill as ever, have generally lost their audiences. So we have time to think out the implications of Rushdoony’s writings and consider where they take us.

For this reason it is good that The Cure for Souls: Recovering the Biblical Doctrine of Confession by Rushdoony has been published by Ross House Books. In word association, when someone says, “Rushdoony,” we say, “Ten Commandments,” “Christian Reconstruction,” “Dominion,” “Postmillennialism,” and so on. We describe him as a theologian, a cultural critic, or as a philosopher, but it is important to remember that Rushdoony’s foremost calling and labor was as a pastor.

Rushdoony never lost sight of this pastoral calling as he explored and discussed many topics and issues. Rushdoony’s life-long labor for Christian Reconstruction, a labor that began long before the term itself was applied to it, was pastoral in scope. All too often forgotten is the fact that Christian Reconstruction is based on “the cure of souls.” It was never premised on a political takeover, for that would simply be one more version of the same humanistic statism that Rushdoony deplored. It was never merely an intellectual paradigm, for that would have been the same intellectual elitism (or gnosticism) that plagued the church since its earliest times. It was never just unrestrained Calvinistic theological dogmatism, for that was the theological impotence Rushdoony rejected all his life.

Christian Reconstruction was premised on spiritual regeneration, on the one-by-one conversion of lost men, the mustard seed growth of the kingdom, the gentle change wrought by the Holy Spirit over the whole earth. Rushdoony said, “The most effective cure of souls is the preaching of the Word of God. It is not only faith that comes by hearing, but also repentance, a change of heart and life, humility, a submission to correction, and more.” Souls responding to the preached Word of God would become the laborers for Christian Reconstruction in the fields of church, family, school, state, and for all of society.

This book is subtitled Recovering the Biblical Doctrine of Confession. The recovery of confession is necessary because Catholics have warped the doctrine into an act that implies self-salvation. But Catholics are not alone in being in error. Protestants have sidestepped confession, in part, by trading it for personal testimonies. The world has aped confession, especially the world of celebrities. For those imprisoned by cable television, there is a never ending dialog of the rich and famous, right along side the obscure and lowly, proudly confessing the most sordid and degenerate lifestyles, past actions, and personal beliefs.

Rushdoony said, “The word confession is not primarily associated with the confession of sins but with confessing Christ.” He emphasizes this point repeatedly, saying later, “By this simple act of confession of faith in Jesus Christ, the whole burden of sin is forever removed. By this simple act of confession of faith in Jesus Christ, we step from the realm of sin into the realm of God’s righteousness in Jesus Christ.”

He does not deny the necessity of confessing our sins, but he notes the dangers in this type of confession being primary. He says, “To confess sins, to deal with confession of sins at length, is to continue struggling in terms of the law, trying to make atonement by word of mouth, by acts of contribution or penance, trying to gain a personal righteousness in terms of our own nature.”

Divided into forty-nine short chapters, this book lends itself to devotional reading. But it is not the sentimental or “spiritual” type of devotional; rather, it fits C.S. Lewis’ preferred type of devotional reading. Lewis said, “I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.” The Cure of Souls can surely cause the heart to sing unbidden.

Being a book so focused on pastoral and experiential faith, The Cure of Souls may seem different from the “normal” writings of Rushdoony, but it still has several of his key writing characteristics. First, it takes a central theme—the contrast of Biblical confession with sinful humanistic confession, in this case—and then replays that theme with variations of approach and application. Second, it displays the typical Rushdoony sweep of expansive reading and decades of human observations. Footnotes site sources ranging from news magazines to theological studies to topical books of all kinds. Third, it includes much historical research, particularly regarding both proper and improper uses of confession in the history of the church. Fourth, it continually builds upon Rushdoony’s adherence to Reformed theology, Reformed standards, and the basic Reformed emphasis on the sovereignty of God and sufficiency of God’s grace.

The Cure of Souls takes its place among the numerous works that comprise the university that Rushdoony built. Basic to the failure of the modern university—including all too many Christian universities—is the error of trying to build a tower of Babel, rather than community united on God’s Truth. The soul, and not the mind, is the center of man’s redemption. It is by confessing Christ as Savior—savior in the cosmic, rather than just the ecclesiastical sense—that the way is opened to truth and hope. It is by confessing Christ that one truly begins studying in God’s university.

Looking Ahead to August; Looking Ahead to Augustine

Let’s face it: Most of us have come around to classical Christian education a little late. We did not learn in a classical Christian school. Maybe we did not educate our children in a classical Christian school. Perhaps we were teachers and Christians, but we did not have a unified Christian worldview and methodology for teaching.

Add to all those problems the fact that we are surrounded by a culture that is at war with Christianity. Add to that the problem that the Christian church as a whole today is filled with enough troubles to make the New Testament church at Corinth look like a Sunday school picnic. Add to that our own struggles to understand and practice the teachings of the Bible.

The sign out front at Veritas Academy says we are classical and Christian. At the conference, we were reminded that we are classical and Christian. But just what does all that mean? As the administrator with twelve years of administrative and teaching experience here (along with a previous sixteen years of teaching), I can confidently tell you, “I’m not always sure what it all means.”

We are in trouble. We better get some help. We need an educational consultant, an administrative advisor, a mission director. Using classical Christian language, we need someone who understands the Rhetoric of classical Christian education.

How about Augustine of Hippo? Augustine lived from 354 to 430 A.D. in North Africa and Italy. He is one of the fathers of the Christian Church and one of the fathers of Classical Christian education. He was raised on a high fiber diet of classical learning. (Latin was his native tongue.) He was also influenced by his Christian mother’s teachings. But he rebelled against the faith and tried out virtually every philosophical system that could be found in the Mediterranean world. Much that was pagan and even some things perverse were tried on for size by Augustine.

At age 32, God changed his heart. As he confessed later in his prayerful autobiography, “Our hearts are restless, O God, until they find their rest in you.” This comes from his work titled Confessions. His greatest work is The City of God, which has had a dominating impact on the world since it was written. But along with these and other books, Augustine compiled a work for Bible teachers and preachers. It is known to us by two titles, On Christian Teaching or On Christian Doctrine. We will be using this marvelous little work to instruct us in various ways on how we can better implement classical Christian teaching in the classroom and classical Christian living in all areas of life.

Travels and Travails

Peregrinations have never been my forte, which is to say that I am not by nature a traveler. Staying at home is the better course of action for me. Un-interrupted routine is a delight. The term "adventurous journeys" is synonymous with "dreadful stresses."

Nevertheless, the past month and a half have been the occasion of four trips for me. In late May, I was honored to be a speaker at the Confederate Heritage Conference in Monroe, Louisiana. For the past eighteen years, Pastor Steve Wilkins and Mr. Walt Trisler and others have labored to make this occasion--corresponding with Memorial Day weekend--an opportunity for spiritual and intellectual growth and fellowship. So much that is good, honorable, and noteworthy in the history of the South and of the Confederacy has been forgotten, expurgated, and distorted. So, these men in Monroe have taken up the banner once carried proudly by Confederates in the late conflict of 1861-1865.

Since 1865, there have been many who have glanced backward and southward and noticed gold glinting in the sunset of the ruins of the South. In 1929, a group of surging young poets and scholars centered around Vanderbilt University produced a dynamic set of essays titled I'll Take My Stand. For these essays, they were debated, mocked, misunderstood, and pilloried, but while the opponents' works fell into obscurity, these men, labeled the Agrarians, went on to achieve great fame in literary circles and their essay collection remains in print. William Faulkner, always marching to a different drummer, likewise heralded the South as an image of man and the world fallen, distorted, and wretched, but yearning for grace. Other great scholars, such as philosopher Richard Weaver, literary critic Cleanth Brooks, and literary critic and historian M. E. Bradford all recognized the "eternal verities" (borrowing from Faulkner) of the South.

This Southern reunion has been carried on in Monroe now for nearly two decades. Such great thinkers, authors, and lecturers as Dr. Clyde Wilson, Otto Scott, Dr. John Eidsmoe, Larry Pratt, Dr. George Grant, Madison Jones, Dr. Thomas Woods, James Everett Kibler, John Dwyer, Donnie Kennedy, Mickey Schneider, and Mark Duncan are among the host of men who lectured over the years at the conference. The lectures always consisted of a blend of historical, literary, and theological scholarship designed both to honor the Southern and Confederate past and to examine critically the soul of the culture today.

The conference was also a reminder of the need for joy and celebration. For many, it was not the lectures, but the Confederate Ball on Saturday night that best captured the weekend's celebration.

As I said, I was honored and humbled to be a speaker, along with Donnie Kennedy and Steve Wilkins, at this year's conference.

My first lecture was titled "The Tragedy of the South Having Gone to War" and the second was "The Blessing of Southern Defeat." Being patient Southerners, the audience did not, thankfully, jump to any conclusion from these titles that a scalawag had gotten onto the platform. Perhaps a later post can explain the irony and content of my lectures.

In early June, my family and I took a quick trip to Little Rock, Arkansas so we could attend and I could take part in the wedding of Zachary and Dorie Ramsey. Zachary was a student of mine from 8th grade to his senior year and has been a church member here since childhood. We have been through many of the travails of the Christian walk together. He is one of my heroes for having been such a witness during his horrendous Dante-like journey through the Inferno via a serious bout he had with cancer. From the Inferno, he continued to mend and completed his college (corresponding with Dante's second venture--the Purgatorio). In the Providence of God, Zach met his Beatrice, a wonderful girl named Dorie, who comes from Albania. We are not surprised that God had to reach across the ocean to find a women fit for this man. This wedding and now this marriage has been a real celebration for all of us who know them.

On June 25, my wife and I joined others from Veritas Academy to attend the ACCS conference in Austin, Texas. This was the 16th annual conference for Classical Christian Schools, and for me, perhaps the best one ever. The plenary speakers--Kenneth Myers, Douglas Wilson, Matt Whitling, & George Grant--were outstanding. The workshops quite useful. The book tables filling and the food and fellowship quite a delight. This conference was a reminder of how intellectually high these classical Christian schools are actually reaching. Emotionally, the impact is devastating (we have so much more to do) and thrilling (we are on the right track). The movement is still young and the numbers (850 people at this meeting!) are still small, but the country is being changed. And so is the world, for one of the most encouraging times was when I got to talk with Nehemiah Small, who is a teacher with the Classical School of the Medes in Iraq.

When I got back from Austin, I barely had time to unpack and repack for church camp. Grace Covenant Church in Nacogdoches, Texas and Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church in Monroe, Louisiana sponsored the first Summer Sanctus--a Christian church camp held in south Texas. (Thank God--again--for air conditioning.) Around sixty young people and sponsors attended this four day event.

I gave two talks at the camp with the general title of "So Reformed and Yet So Catholic." The first talk focused on the "Riches of the Reformed Faith" in which I talked about our theological wealth in general and then focused on just one treasure--the life of Groen van Prinsterer, the Dutch historian and political leader. My second talk focused on how God has also raised up blessings and riches outside of the Reformed world. From there, I highlighted God's work in Britain where we recieved the blessings of Chesterton and Belloc, Lewis and Tolkien, Eliot and Sayers, Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh, and last, but not least, that great historian Christopher Dawson.

I celebrated the Fourth of July, my first day back home, by sleeping nearly all day and nursing a troublesome summer cold. Enough on travels and travails, book notes coming soon.