Our Threatened Freedom

What Has Happened To Integrity? (03:53)

R.J. Rushdoony

Transcript:

R.J. Rushdoony: 00:01 What has happened to integrity? This is R. J. Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.

Speaker 1: 00:08 In recent years we have had a series of reports on very extensive frauds in the scientific world. Several years ago Science Digest gave a detailed report on the high degree of dishonesty in reporting research. Fraudulent claims are made by scientists and when these claims are shown to be false, usually nothing is done to punish the offender. More recently, US News and World Report reported on scandals in the scientific laboratories of major universities and medical institutions across the country. Specific cases were cited. Fabricated data on anorexia nervosa, on cancer therapy, on Hodgkin’s disease, on skin grafts and more.

R.J. Rushdoony: 00:59 One case was described as the Watergate of science. An all too mild a description. Watergate represented one act. These scientific frauds represent a whole chain of operation. The implications of such frauds are deadly. A variety of medical and psychological and educational practices can sue from such research. These practices assume a foundation of scientific data to be true, when it is in reality false. These false data affect your life and mine, as well as the practices of those who assume their truth and work with patients on that basis. Such fraud is criminal in its meaning and yet only rarely is there even a dismissal of such scientists. Only after some flagrant cases did the National Institute of Health establish a debarment procedure to end all further Federal grants of funds to researchers found guilty of fraud.

R.J. Rushdoony: 02:11 Revolting as all this is, we should not be surprised. We are getting what we asked for. We have separated the need and requirement of a godly character from the acquisition of knowledge. Should we be surprised if men of learning and science to be no more than a scientific mafia with the test of time? A doctor or a scientists, as well as an educator, with a great deal of learning but no character, is only a more dangerous man, not a better man. Education makes a man learned, not moral. Just because a man has several degrees of prestigious position and an important status, no more makes him a good man that a million dollar house in the best neighborhood makes a member of the criminal syndicate a good citizen.

R.J. Rushdoony: 03:08 As a people we have poured billions into teaching youth facts, but almost nothing into making them aware of the meaning of godly faith and character. As a result in every area of life we see a lack of integrity, honesty and morality. Our freedom to survive requires more than a literate people, it necessitates a public character marked by a godly faith in integrity and morality. These things are inseparable from freedom.

R.J. Rushdoony: 03:46 This has been R. J. Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.

Rev. R.J. Rushdoony (1916–2001), was a leading theologian, church/state expert, and author of numerous works on the application of Biblical law to society. He started the Chalcedon Foundation in 1965.  His Institutes of Biblical Law (1973) began the contemporary theonomy movement which posits the validity of Biblical law as God’s standard of obedience for all. He therefore saw God’s law as the basis of the modern Christian response to the cultural decline, one he attributed to the church’s false view of God’s law being opposed to His grace. This broad Christian response he described as “Christian Reconstruction.”  He is credited with igniting the modern Christian school and homeschooling movements in the mid to late 20th century. He also traveled extensively lecturing and serving as an expert witness in numerous court cases regarding religious liberty. Many ministry and educational efforts that continue today, took their philosophical and Biblical roots from his lectures and books.

Learn more about R.J. Rushdoony by visiting: https://chalcedon.edu/founder