Who Shall Be Lord? - Challenge of the Book of Acts (Remastered)

Rushdoony argues that the future of society rises or falls with the family. Scripture places the family not the church or the state at the center of social power, entrusting it with education, charity, inheritance, property, and the training of children. When these responsibilities shift to the state, freedom declines and statism grows. By contrast, when families reclaim these callings through Christian schooling, mutual care, and faithful stewardship (especially through the tithe), society is renewed from the ground up.

He insists the family must be understood biblically, not through humanistic or evolutionary categories. Humanist thought assumes conflict, autonomy, and self-fulfillment, turning marriage into bondage and freedom into indulgence. Scripture teaches the opposite: true freedom is found in responsibility under God, where husband and wife are “heirs together of the grace of life.” The family is not biological accident or social convenience, but a God-ordained religious institution reflecting Christ and the Church.The Reformation proved that family reform reshapes civilization altering education, economics, charity, and even the church itself. Today’s revival of homeschooling and Christian family life signals real hope, even as secular families collapse under statism and moral decay. The call is not political but covenantal: re-Christianize the family, live out God’s law in daily life, and trust that faithful households small though they seem are God’s chosen instruments for commanding the future.