I want to say something before finishing on what God has done in the past thirteen years in developing and training a man in His own way, as well as in developing a work. “Where did you husband get all this?” “At what universities did he study to get this which he is giving?” “Where can we buy the books he has read to prepare this stuff?” “Your husband has a new apologetic, that is such an influence . . . you have no idea how it is changing man’s approach . . . but where did he get it?”

It would be a short cut for me to say that “God gave it to him”, as it can be told in a more understandable fashion. We prayed for the ones of God’s choice to be sent to us. We believe the people who have come, have come for help they themselves needed. However, we believe God can do two things at once. (A masterpiece of understatement!) In this case I am certain He brought people for their own sakes but also brought a variety of people as a training-ground and as a means of developing, in the arena of live conversation, that which Fran is giving in his apologetic today.Rather than studying volumes in an ivory tower separated from life, and developing a theory separated from the thinking and struggling of men, Fran has been talking for thirteen years now to men and women in the very midst of their struggles. He has talked to existentialists, logical positivists, Hindus, Buddhists, liberal Protestants, liberal Roman Catholics, Reformed Jews and atheistic Jews, Muslims, members of occult cults and people of a wide variety of religions and philosophies, as well as atheists of a variety of types. He has talked to brilliant professors, brilliant students and brilliant drop-outs! He has talked to beatniks, hippies, drug addicts, homosexuals and psychologically disturbed people. He has talked to Africans, Indians, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, South Americans, people from the islands of the sea, from Australia and New Zealand and from all the European countries as well as from America and Canada. He has talked to people of many different political colours. He has talked to doctors, lawyers, scientists, artists, writers, engineers, research men in many fields, philosophers, businessmen, newspapermen and actors, famous people and peasants. He has talked to both generations! In it all God has been been given, not out of academic research (although he does volumes of reading constantly to keep up) but out of this arena of live conversation. He answers real questions with carefully thought out answers which are the real answers. He gets excited himself as he comes to me often saying, “It really is an answer, Edith; it fits, it really fits. It really is truth, and because it is true it fits what is really there.” The excitement is genuine. This is what I mean when I say God has given him an education in addition to unfolding a work in these past thirteen years.

Plenty about artists, scientists, and brilliant drop-outs. Nothing about Van Til. The long list of conversation partners, coupled with the negative statements about “ivory towers,” are dangerously close to blatent dishonesty about his time at Westminster Theological Seminary studying under Cornelius Van Til, from whom he took the “presuppositional” apologetic that is the basis for his work The God Who Is There. Not only did the Schaeffers allow people to think that Francis Schaeffer had invented the stuff out of his own mind. To the best of my knowledge, Schaeffer never once acknowledged any sort of intellectual debt to Van Til between his debut as an author and his death. I would be glad to have anyone prove me wrong on this.

2 apologetics journal, edited –> apologetics journal edited

2 Knapp, and –> Knapp and

2 (www.choosinghats.com) –> (www.choosinghats.com).

2 I am the foremost.” (1 Timothy 1:15) –> I am the foremost” (1 Timothy 1:15).

3 And obvious pun –> And, obvious pun

3 Biblical –> biblical

3 1 Timothy 1:15 –> version uncited

4 “Four Horseman” –> Four Horsemen

4 just as Van Til said it would” –> just as Van Til said

4 www.vox-veritatis.com –> www.vox-veritatis.com.

4 God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question — Why We Suffer –> italicize

4 in brief –> briefly

4 on film –> concerning film

5 In starting with Calvin –> Starting with Calvin

5 better –> sufficient

5 more power –> the power

5 C. L. Bolt –> Reviewed by C. L. Bolt

6 their precious time –> your precious time

6 From GK Chesterton’s Orthodoxy –> Chesterton, Orthodoxy.
[it would also be good to have a page number for this citation]

6 We destroy . . . –> Lose italics, add quotation marks. So also throughout paper.

7 And obvious pun –> And, obvious pun

7 pretty much burn out –> burn out

7 rather prophetic –> prophetic

7 all-the-rage-ideology –> all-the-rage ideology

7 about however –> about, however

7 However, for those –> But first, for those

7 rather brief recap –> brief recap

7 The so-called “New Atheism” movement –> The “New Atheism”

7 “borrowed” –> borrowed

7 I can’t help but facepalm in noting –> I can’t help but notice

7 footnote three –> unnecessary padding. This needs to be trimmed down one way or another. Especially in italics, it is messy.

8 actually expect Mister Hitchens –> expect Mr. Hitchens

8 footnote 4 — Most of this footnote could be safely removed, or else the line divisions could be indicated by slashes (/) to conserve space.

8 footnote 5 ideology . . . a position –> ideology — a position

8 footnote 5 in a Damoclean fashion –> in Damoclean fashion

8 footnote 5 I’m afraid this footnote has become embarassingly long, so I will endeavor to wrap this up. –> This sentence must be deleted. It is part of the problem, not the solution.

8 footnote 5 thief do we not –> thief, do we not

8 footnote 5 But as Thomas Brooks once wrote in regards to that theif (not JC Ryle, as many misattribute for some reason) –> But in the words of Thomas Brooks (not JC Ryle)

8 footnote 5 The Thomas Brooks quote needs to be cited to or removed. I suggest it be removed.

8 footnote 5 Delete the last two sentences.

9 Biblical Apocalypse –> biblical Apocalypse

9 the (for lack of a better word), the soulful one –> the — for lack of a better word — soulful one

9 sleeveless undershirts –> a sleeveless undershirt

9 in combination with a beanie –> with a beanie

9 muscled arms –> his muscled arms

9 and adorning –> adorning

9 And Sam Harris . . . well . . . not to be too insulting or dismissive but Sam Harris is ‘that other guy.’ –> And Sam Harris is ‘that other guy.’

9 Every band has one, and those of you who play in one know exactly what I mena. –> Every band has one.

9 But more on Mister Harris later. –> But more on Mr. Harris later. [Combine with previous paragraph.]

9 The literature of the New Atheism is often said to be bracing in its assertions. –> The New Atheism is bracingly assertive.

9 rather perverse –> perverse

9 And once –> Once

9 it right? –> it, right?

9 noble . . . but –> noble, but

9 there . . . just –> there, just

9 disingenuity –> disingenuousness [I would have allowed 'disingenuity' if the article's tone wasn't so . . . internet-speaky.]

9 And in that understanding I was finally able to understand while after nearly five years of dealing with the fallout that this movement has produced, I can honestly say that while I have been exhausted, I have not been enriched. –> Upon realizing this, I could finally understand why it is that in five years of interaction with this movement, I have been exhausted, but not enriched.

9 You see, the whole movement, when the veneer of glamour, rage, and panache is stripped away, is empty inside. –> When the veneer of glamour, rage, and panache is stripped away, the whole movement is empty.

9 The Integrity of Doubt in Dawkins –> [Move to next page.]

10 Take Richard Dawkins for example. –> Take Richard Dawkins, for example.

10 He quotes –> He cites

10 Mister Dawkins –> Mr. Dawkins

10 don’t get me wrong; –> don’t get me wrong:

10 EVER –> ever

10 footnote 6 where an unbeliever –> in which an unbeliever

10 footnote 6 You see my point? –> [Delete this sentence.]

11 not) . . . and these –> not). These

11 Mister Dawkins –> Mr. Dawkins

11 heck –> lose the italics

11 This is getting long, so I must move along, and so I skip past Dennett for reasons of space rather than fear to arrive at Hitchens. –> For reasons of space, I will skip Dennet and address the work of Hitchens.

11 Now to be –> To be

11 Mister Hitchens –> Mr. Hitchens

11 rather fun –> fun

11 all the examplars –> the exemplars

11 far-and-away –> far and away

11 a rather alarming –> an alarming

11 a rather obvious –> an obvious

11 that is uncomfortable given his inability to ground his own beliefs in it (if one is being accusatory) –> that is uncomfortable.

11 greater detail on the matter, and is more fun to read as well, so I would simply recommend to you his essay on the subject. –> greater detail on this matter, so I simply recommend to you his essay on the subject.

11 (And in –> (Which, in

11 footnote 10 –> through him and for him –> through him and for him.

11 footnote 11 in particular –> in particular.

12 to even rise –> to rise

12 argumentation in any event –> argumentation

12 Other may employ . . . –> [Delete entire sentence.]

12 Now you’ve been . . . –> [Delete entire paragraph. Constant apologies for wordiness are part of the problem, not the solution.]

12 You see, this brings us to –> We now come to

12 Harris and his most recent foray into the fray, –> Harris, who most recently entered the fray

12 so as to have relatives –> with relatives

12 and infographic is –> an infographic is

12 You see, all that to say that late last week Mister Harris –> Late last week, Mr. Harris

12 emerged onto the seek –> appeared

12 One writer has even crowed her triumph by crowning her endorsement of the graph of the graphic with the proclamation, “So to — One writer, crowing with triumph at this alleged coup de grace, announced “to

12 Alright . . . got it. Flag on the play. –> Delete both sentences.

12 , as they say, –> Delete.

12 But is this really a case –> Is this a case

12 Steve Wells . . . and apparently Mister Wells has been –> Steve Wells, who has

12 (that is the correct term, we do not say –> (we do not say

12 pretty much exactly –> exactly

12 objections and questions to the Bible –> objections to the Bible

13 both . . . in annotated –> both, in annotated

13 And just to muddy –> To muddy

13 but that’s another issue for another day –> Delete these words.

13 Now please understand, my point here is not to fault –> I do not fault

13 in using a readily available set of data –> for using a readily available data set

13 And to be fair, it doesn’t seem to be an exact mach since the graphic in question cites 439 alleged contradictions and the latest version of the SAB cites 457. –> Delete this sentence or footnote it.

13 (And I do emphasive . . . reading them there.) –> Delete this whole sentence.

13 (at least, properly understood) –> Delete.

13 Alright, so –> So

13 But does it end there? –> Delete.

13 (we’re being charitable remember, so let’s call it an essay) –> Delete.

13 allegedly-novel –> allegedly novel

13 (alternatively described as “stunning” and “provocative”) –> Delete or cite.

13 alleged –> Lose the italics.

13 footnote 19 hate-mail –> hate mail

13 footnote 20 –> Explain what the link leads to or delete it.

14 which interestingly enough covers a decent range of my theological library as well –> Delete.

14 . . . sort of25 . . . –> (sort of25)

14 rakish –> lose italics

14 Now, the design –> The design

14 rather familiar –> familiar

14 me . . . probably –> me, probably

14 However, lest I mistake charity for lying, it is worth noting in passing that when the capital is borrowed without the original artist’s knowledge, we call that “stealing,” and when the capital is abstract and epistemic or artistic in nature we call that “plagiarism.” –> It is worth noting, in passing, that borrowing capital without one’s knowledge is called “stealing,” and when capital is abstract or epistemic or artistic in nature, it is called plagiarism.

14 Now to be fair, do I –> Do I

14 real evidence –> evidence

14 Mister Marlow simply stole Mister Harrison’s –> Mr. Marlow stole Mr. Harrison’s

14 what sort of propositions you accept as –> what you accept as

14 Mister Marlow –> Mr. Marlow

14 elsewhere . . . then no. –> elsewhere, then no.

14 attribution . . . then no –> attribution, also no

14 eyes, and when point out that this is Mister Harrison’s –> eyes. This is Mr. Harrison’s

14 Mister Marlow –> Mr. Marlow

14 week . . . well, decide for yourself. –> week. Decide for yourself.

14 To my “trained” eye, –> To me

14 footnote 25 but not surprisingly –> but, not surprisingly

15 (I’m paraphrasing here) –> Delete.

15 But this comes to a head of sorts –> This comes to a head

15 footnote 28 [Delete.]

16 footnote 31 Van Til taught is evident throughout all of life –> Van Til taught.

17 attention, as it continues: –> attention:

17 Why We Suffer”. –> Why We Suffer.”

17 My Personal Satisfaction”. –> My Personal Satisfaction.”

17 of Suffering,” –> of Suffering;”

17 Sin,” –> Sin;”

17 Redemptive Suffering,” –> Redemptive Suffering;”

17 Ecclesiastes,” –> Ecclesiastes;”

17 suffering, –> suffering -

18 members…But –> members . . . But

18 or Matthew 28:20 –> and Matthew 28:20

18 The disagreement arises when he asserts that these explanations are mutually contradictory, but unfortunately –> However, he asserts that these explanations are mutually contradiction, even though

18 People suffer because –> [The indentation ought to be removed, as it gives the impresson that the material is quoted from Ehrman; while it is in fact part of the paper's argument.]

18 Deuteronomy 32:39 –> [Let line breaks in the quote be made clear with slashes (/).]

18 footnote 4 weaker treatment –> weaker, treatment

18 footnote 4 Chicago: IL, Moody Press –> Chicago, IL: Moody Press

19 poorly-argued –> poorly argued

19 The unsupported assertions and judgment calls that Ehrman makes –> Ehrman’s unsupported assertions and judgment calls

19 say “are –> say, “Are

19 or “this –> or, “This

19 allowed the [sic] Satan –> [There's really no need to have a (sic) here. Use of the term "the Satan/satan" is well-attested, and ultimately traces back to the book of Job.]

20 “murder” –> murder

20 foonote 5 Emphasis original. –> [What emphasis?]

21 redistributed… –> redistributed . . .

21 racists…I –> racists . . . I

22 God, and the doctrine –> God and the doctrine

22 footnote 17 Ed. –> ed.

22 footnote 18 102 –> 102.

23 footnote 25 Scriptural –> scriptural

24 (2) and (6) –> [2] and [6]

24 footnote 29 eds. –> eds.,

26 so, it is hard –> so it is hard

27 Lord…Shall –> Lord . . . Shall

28 churches who were –> churches which were

28 the contemporary culture –> contemporary culture

28 A matrix created by the work of a capable theologian –> Such a matrix

29 footnote 9 Pinker would point out –> Pinker would point out that

30 big thrust –> major thrust

30 yet they still –> yet still

30 demur the use of Calvin –> demur to the use of Calvin

32 that, “man –> that “man

34 both present active –> both present and active

35 footnote 54 2003). –> 2003),

35 footnote 55 Theology. 123 –> Theology, 123.

35 footnote 57 57 –> footnote 57

36 per se –> italicize

36 footnote 62 the extremely similar essay William Edgar –> the extremely similar essay by William Edgar

37 power of trio –> power trio

38 it may seem that these would be hard to see these readily displayed –> it may seem that it would be hard to see these readily displayed

39 footnote 79 that when dissected –> that, when dissected

40 the stories of film, images –> is stories images

42 accomplish by Christ –> accomplished by Christ

45 that, “apologetics –> that “apologetics

God makes Adam and places him in an orchard to begin his work. Adam is a working creature, and not because some overlord needs his labor, and not even because he must work to survive. God, after all, has provided him with Eden. Adam works because he is made in the image of God. Exploitative work, then, is a violation of what God has made man for. Both the Fall and the Law testify to this.

Another thing we may note is that the text is concerned with the family and gender relations. Though chapter one simply speaks of adam as being created “male and female” and jointly being given the task of ruling the earth. The woman is named Havva, or in today’s language Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

It is significant that the Genesis story traces all mankind to one family. This is the proper relationship of one human to another. At least in theory, if there were no major disruptions, the family would simply grow, generation by generation, filling up the earth, ruling over the animals, eating the plants.

Genesis 2 also instituted marriage: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they will be one flesh.”

In short, Genesis 1 and 2 are a sort of manifesto. Far from being a mere description of the world and adam, though they are that, they are a prescription. They are a statement about how things ought to be. As the story develops further, we will learn that the theme of mankind as a single family will be developed in great detail, and so will the problem of slavery and how it is dealt with.

It is important to keep in mind that slavery, in the case of the Bible, refers chiefly to domestic slavery, not industrial slavery. It was, in short a part of the family structure, an oppressive part of it to be sure, but a part of the family nonetheless. This old pattern of slavery continues, for example, in Jamaica, with the restavek system. Eradicating such a system with a single, simple law would be at best difficult and at worst counterproductive. Study up on restavek before disagreeing.

Why is understanding the biblical notion of slavery important? Because the background of Americans for understanding slavery is race-based chattel slavery, a concept which would be almost entirely entirely foreign to the biblical authors. The slavery of the ancient world was a different matter. Now, the Bible’s response to ancient slavery is relevant for developing Christian responses to modern slavery. But the distinction must be kept in mind.

The difference is especially important for understanding oppression. Oppression today is widely considered a “social” problem, generally ascribed to political structures of oppression. For that we can partially thank Marx. And it is true that oppression can come through politics.

But Genesis 3 locates oppression as beginning in the family. The many family problems people have would suggest that Genesis 3 is right about this much. Freud would probably agree.

Let’s read Genesis 3, for the moment in terms of what we can find in the text itself. Let’s avoid reading it through the lens of New Testament soteriology for now. (There is a time for that, but there is also a time to read a text by itself.)

In Genesis 1 and 2, God sets up a basic order of work, family, reproduction, and rest. We are not given a huge amount of detail on this, but the words “very good” are applied to it.

But in Genesis 3, we learn that the two of them are not content with merely living life in the “very good.” Instead, they embark upon an ethical experiment with good and evil. Let not the imagery and the pictures you see in children’s “illustrated” Bibles distract you from the ethical claim: that adam’s decision to experiment with good and bad lead to catastrophe.

Adam goes from a state of free labor to a state of unfree. Just look at the terms of the curse, God’s statement about the negative consequence of playing with good and evil:

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly increase your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bring forth children. You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you.

And to Adam he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, eating of the tree which I commanded you not to eat, cursed is the ground for your sake. In pain you will eat of it all the days of your life.

Thorns and thistles it will bring forth to you, and you will eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground. For dust you are, and to dust you will return.

Even if we cannot go so far as to locate the origin of slavery per se in this passage, it certainly introduces the first oppression, both oppression of man over woman and generally oppressive living conditions. The otherwise happy task of reproducing and filling the earth is made painful. The battle of the sexes begin, an endless war of women trying to control men and men dominating women which is, last time I checked, alive and well in the world today. There is more than a hint of truth in the words of feminists who declare that marriage is a form of enslavement of women. It was not intended to be, and it does not have to be, and I have known plenty of couples for whom it is not. But it is nevertheless true that when marriage becomes an unprincipled clawing for power, the result is awful for men and disastrous for women. On the male side of the equation, Adam was cursed to painful work, a sense of futility because of the earth’s refusal to cooperate in his farming efforts, and a struggle till survival until death consumed him.

Am I stretching the text to bring slavery into it? Not at all. In the next installment we will consider the relationship between the text of Genesis, in particular its notion of the exile, with the experiences of Israel with enslavements in both Egypt and Babylon. The story of Adam and Eve, of the garden and the expulsion, of infighting and chaos, and of oppression and rebuilding, contain clear echoes of two other major events for Israel.

Let’s dispense with the question of whether or not anything in Genesis 1-2 is historical in the modern sense of the term. Perhaps thousands of pages and thousands of hours have been spent on whether or not, if we could take a video camera back in time, we would eventually see a naked man and a naked woman and a snake trying to give them fruit. Thousands of pages and thousands of hours will be spent before the question is settled to everyone’s satisfaction. In the meantime, let’s agree on this much common ground and work from there: Genesis 1 and 2, which together provide the origin story for the whole Bible, are central to a biblical understanding of what God wanted and wants for adam and what adam’s problem was and is, in the here and now. And, given what the word means, the problem of the guy named adam is also the problem of humankind.

The question of evolution has been passed back and forth endlessly, and it won’t be addressed here. I’ll simply lay out what Genesis says about the relationship of adam to animal. Genesis declares that while adam were created like the animals, adam were made in the image of God and as his agent is to rule over the earth for him, including the other living beings in all three of the habitats God made for his creatures: sea, sky, and, best of all, land. “Let us make adam in our image, according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over all the land, and over every crawler that crawls on the land” (Genesis 1:26). The creation of adam in Genesis is not only the creation of a particular guy called Adam, but is the creation of adam as humankind, male and female. Genesis 1:27 is playing with the multiple meanings the word can take on: “So God created the adam in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:28 then commissions adam, male and female, with the task of joint rulership over the earth. “And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the land and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and every living thing that moves on the land.”

Adam were to “subdue” the land, and to “rule over” the various critters. This was at this point a benign process, not adam against animals but adam over with animals. Both adam and animals, in verses 29-30, are given the seed-bearing plants and fruit trees as sources of food. Adam’s agricultural “subduing” of the land was a process of taking it from a wild state to an orderly one for agricultural reasons. This parallels what God had just done over the past six days, taking the chaotic land and populating it in an orderly manner with plants and animals. Adam, in their calling to subdue the earth, were to act out on a much smaller scale God’s order-bringing activities. And just as God declared himself ruler over adam in a benign and loving manner, so also adam were to were over the animals in a friendly manner.

In short, we have a world at rest: God and adam and animals and plants, all in their proper places, harmoniously living and progressing together from strength to strength. To task to which God and adam are both set is the high calling of work. God does not need to work. Genesis makes it clear that God can speak things into existence. And yet God spends six days in orderly, creative activity, because he is a God who works. Similarly, we will learn shortly that God gave mankind everything he needed in this world. According to some, people must work because we need to survive. They are wrong. We work because working and bringing order and managing things is in the nature that God gave of us. It is a reflection of who he is.

On the seventh day, God rested. This, according to Genesis, is why God hallowed the seventh day, setting up a pattern which would later become law in Israel: life as alternating cycles of work and rest. Just as God worked for six days and then celebrated what he had made once it passed from merely “good” to “very good” with the making of adam, so also the ancient Israelites, for whom Genesis was their origin-story, observed a pattern of working for six days and then enjoying the fruits of their labor and God’s labor on the sixth day.

Why spend nearly one thousand words on Genesis 1, a passage which doesn’t include the word “slavery” even once? Because Genesis 1, and Genesis 2, help set the standard by which we are to judge what is good and compatible with the will of God, and was is bad. In the biblical order of things, we have to have some acquaintance with how things were and ought to be and will be again before we can understand the problem we’re in. And that problem is slavery. We’ll get to it.

Into a series of profoundly dysfunctional worlds, over and over, the hand of God reaches down and offers again and again to pull man back up and out. These deeply broken situations into which man repeatedly plunges himself in a bewildering array of ways may be summed up in one word: slavery. The problem the Bible addresses is slavery, though it takes many forms and goes by many names. And the process by which God works to restore humanity from the depths, though it too takes many forms and many names, may also be summed up in a single word: liberation.

And so, in ensuing posts, let’s examine the outlines of how the Bible deals with slavery and liberation. You will have to judge for yourself whether you buy into the central thesis.

2. The death of Ludwig Von Mises. Ludwig Von Mises marked the last of the great classical liberals, non-religious but gentle, intelligent, and hard-working people who were so overwhelmingly wholesome in their personal lives that they imagined everyone else was the same way. Misesians in the sense of people who share Mises’ general outlook toward the world no longer exist. His intellectual heirs are now either market socialists like Hayek, anarchists like Rothbard, militant atheists like Ayn Rand, or socially conservative Christians.His economics live on, stronger than ever, but the sort of person he represents is either extinct or close to it.

3. The birth of Christian Reconstructionism. CR had been developing for perhaps a decade and a half, but was really launched in 1973 with the publication of Rushdoony’s The Institutes of Biblical Law. This is significant not because it has achieved widespread fame (it has not) nor because it is a perfect blueprint for society (ditto), but because it symbolizes the abandonment of the myth of neutrality by Christians of various stripes, because its author was intimately involved with the founding of the Christian school / homeschool movement which has immeasurably strengthened the Christian right, because it leaves behind the intellectual and political bankruptcy of retreatist premillenialism, because it encourages Christians to abandon modern statism, and because it represents the frank admission that Christians wish to push at least some of their values onto society.

Understand these three issues inside and out, and you’ll understand a host of other seemingly unrelated things: the current state of economic theory and practice, the rise of the religious right, the appeal of Ron Paul to young people, the decline of premillennial eschatology, the real cultural impact of the Puritans, the continued political power of creationism concurrent with increasing secularization in the public schools, the shift toward a pro-life perspective, the failures of welfare statism, the collapse of communism . . .

There are, it is true, short summaries of his life here and there online. But all of them contain massive gaps, and having spent the better part of the last few days trying to gather together all the basic facts of his life, I still cannot answer certain basic questions: At what point in his life did he become a theonomist? When did he switch from working with the Presbyterian Church in the United States to working with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church? Why and when did he leave the Orthodox Presbyterian Church? When did he marry his second wife? What caused the divorce with his first wife? Did his divorce really cause a shift in his ecclesiology? Was his shifting ecclesiology really the reason for the rconstructionist split?

Due to my reading reconstructionist books off and on for well over a year now, I know a large number of individual facts, and I know where in some books and other publications certain information about him is found. But I still have not developed a satisfactory account of his life. This is the hold-up that has been keeping me from finishing this series. I currently have approximately 4000 words (16 pages) worth of basic biographical information that I have culled from a variety of sources. I am continuing to gather information and sort through the stuff I have to turn it into some sort of master narrative.

Even if I don’t find a single other fact, my sixteen pages, once arranged, will be the most comprehensive biography of R. J. Rushdoony in existence. I doubt it will be for long, though: given the already vast and continually growing influence of Rushdoony and his followers on modern America, it will only be a matter of time before someone does the job properly. In the meantime, my little paper will serve as a stop-gap solution, an appetizer to hold you over until somebody prepares the main course.