Baptized Patriarchalism: The Cult of the Family by Gary North
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book should be required reading for anyone who likes or has read R.J. Rushdoony. This book chronicles his changes in orthodox protestant theology in the 1960's to that of Anabaptist/family cult theology by the 1990's. He went from a classical view of the Church to a racist low-church ecclesiology that made the blood of the family equal to the covenant. Dr. North shows John Calvin's doctrines to contrast Rushdoony's views of the Church.
Rushdoony came to believe that marrying someone of another race is prohibited and equivalent to marrying an unbeliever - something that goes in the face of us being an adopted family of God by the waters of baptism, where there is neither Jew nor Greek. He also came to believe that fathers should baptize and give the Lords supper to their children, and that family patriarchalism is the way to combat state power. This leads to Warlordism/Mafiaism. If every father is a priest and the absolute ruler of his own miniature home church, making his own laws, and refuses accountability to anyone above him, how is this not different from the concept of the Roman paterfamilias, where the father controlled the life and death of the entire family?
The answer is that the Church is central to community life, with accountability to elders. Only the Christian Church can combat both the ancient pagan heresy of racial/family patriarchalism and the all powerful civil state. The blood family is not eternal, and it should not be made a cult. The adopted family of God though, is eternal through the blood of Christ. The water of baptism is thicker than blood.
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