The Economics of Debt

The Bible is full of economic wisdom which often goes neglected in our day because the Bible, the book for all of life is too commonly reduced to a devotional manual and “non-spiritual” truth is discarded.

Psalm 126: 5, 6 Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goes forth weeping, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

Here we have a famine in view; the precious grain is sown with tears, because life depends upon its harvest. Present advantages must be sacrificed for future benefits. Sowing seed constitutes an investment in the future. A Society without hope is present-oriented society. It is a consumer society; it eats up its seed grain rather than planning for a future harvest. It becomes something that God condemns, a debt-oriented society, rather than a saving and sowing one. It pays no heed to the six-year limitation on debt, nor to the principle that the goal is to owe no man anything save to love one another (Rom 13:8). A debt society is death oriented; it makes saving, thrift, and future-oriented planning difficult or unprofitable, because it encourages consumption but not production. The tax structures of our time are anti-Scriptural with a vengeance. The moral order is reversed; debt becomes an asset to these humanists, and wealth a liability and an evil. Money today does not have gold or silver behind it but debt.

No country is underdeveloped because it lacks resources; rather, it does not utilize its resources; its capital is not productively employed. Neither its human resources nor its physical resources are put to productive use.

He who is future oriented sows with hope in the Lord, “shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bearing his sheaves with him.” The result is not only productivity, but joy…In Psalm 144:12-15, David prays for an obedient people, a faithful people, faithful to their covenant God and His law, “That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as cornerstones, polished after the similitude of a palace…happy is that people, whose God is the LORD.”

Such a society begins with your faithfulness and mine. It is time to say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 14:15).

Excerpts of Chalcedon Report 192

"Let My People Go"

A tyrant is one who rules without God. The goal is the destruction of covenant children.

The word of the Lord comes through His faithful servants to the tyrants of our time: Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let My people go.’” Gen 5:1 It is never easy to serve the Lord, but it is harder not to. For those who refuse to obey His voice are under the plagues of Egypt.

"Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." Rev. 18:4

We are God's property and must keep all things entirely under His word. He arms us to stand in His Name against all enemies of His Kingdom.

The enemy we face is humanism, the worship of the creature, of man. The first humanistic manifesto was issued in the Garden of Eden by the tempter. Its affirmation is that every man must be his own god, knowing or determining for himself good and evil Gen. 3:5. Humanism's war against God is the oldest and most central of all wars, but the least recognized. If we know the Lord, we know who His enemies are.

God's word to His enemies remains the same: "Let my people go!"

Exerpts of CR186

God-is-Dead Movement Alive in Evangelical Circles

Excerpts of R.J. Rushdoony in Roots of Reconstruction Chalcedon Report #41

If a man professes to be a Christian and yet is guilty of sexual offenses against God’s law, he is effect saying, by his persistent contempt of the law, which for him God is dead in the area of sexual morality.

Now the same reasoning applies to every other sphere of life. If a man professes to be a Christian and yet favors the public (or statist) schools, and sends his children to them, he is declaring that God is dead in at least the sphere of education. He is denying the sovereignty and the existence of God for educational life. No less then the sexual offender, he is saying that God is dead and can be safely disregarded in the area of education.

…some very devout ministers have taken exception to my emphasis on economics and the gold standard; they feel I should be preaching the “gospel" instead...

I am declaring the good news that God is alive and governs not only the church but the state, school, science, economics, agriculture, art, and every other sphere. Our modern economics is the death-of-God economics; it denies that God exists and governs the sphere of economics by His law.

Science too must be under authority, or it will make itself the authority…

Our finest people have become sadly schizophrenic. They believe in God, and they live sober, godly, and productive lives, but they have not and do not wage war against the God-is-dead movement as it takes over one domain of life after another…A man cannot serve two masters; sooner or later, he will hate the one and serve the other.

…man refuses to know the truth about himself and about his knowledge. When faced with ultimate issues, he drops them and turns to trifling things.

…either we become alive to God in every sphere of life, or we become to that extent dead to Him. But God remains alive.