“Church leaders have been unable to confront the humanistic world order effectively. First, as we have seen, their concepts of sovereignty and law are defective. They concede these to the state and thereby cease to be Christian. Like the mystery religions of the Roman Empire, their role is limited to providing salvation in the form of inner peace and an abstraction from the world.
Second, churchmen see religion as one sphere among many, and they seek cooperation among the spheres, i.e., such as the harmony of religion and science. Their position involves a fundamental error. It is true that the church is one sphere among many, i.e., spheres such as the family, vocations, civil government, etc. To seek to make the church more than a particular sphere is imperialism, such as the state sphere now exercises. Religion, however, is more than church. It is the ground of all spheres. Church, state, family, the vocations, the arts and sciences, and all things else must be governed by religion, by Biblical faith, and every sphere has equally the duty of faithfulness to the triune God.
R. J. Rushdoony
Sovereignty — pp. 182
Paragraph #1
1.) Many, if not most contemporary expressions of Christianity, are, in the words of Dr. Gary North, nothing but escape religions. Christianity thus serves as a tame pet for the various statist power religions. There seems to be a unwritten truce between the state and much that passes for the Christian faith where the state continues to agree to give churches their tax exempt status in exchange for the church making sure that the natives don’t ever connect their faith to what happens in the public square where the state has its way. Christianity, as the ultimate escape religion, thus, holds hands with the humanism which is the ultimate power religion. It is a very commodious relationship.
Paragraph #2
1.) Churchmen continue to fail to accept that religion (theology / worldview) informs every area of life. Another way of saying this is that different spheres owe their definition and meaning to the religion (theology / worldview) that launches any particular sphere (or discipline) in question.
2.) This means the attempt to harmonize the Christian religion (as only one sphere) with another sphere is that there is no attempt to inquire what religion (besides the Christian religion) is the religion that is responsible for launching the sphere that the Christian religion is trying to harmonize with. Concretely speaking this means that it is grave error for the Christian religion to try and harmonize with a science (as one example) that has been launched by a competing religion. The Christian religion can only harmonize with a science that has been launched by the Christian religion.
3.) There is no common realm where epistemologically self conscious men with different religious commitments can meet and pursue what are thought to be various non-religious spheres or disciplines apart from the impact and consideration of their respective religious faiths. There is no cloak room in reality where our respective impacting religions can be hung up so that another room in reality may be entered where we may consider spheres or disciplines “un-religiously.” The fact that men with different religious commitments do meet and pursue what are thought to be various non religious spheres and disciplines is testimony that most men are not epistemologically self conscious.
