Each December my family and I take time to give thanks for the men and women used of the Lord to shape and define our lives. There have been many. On different evenings we will tell the stories of different men and women who make up the providential investment which God has deposited in the bank account of our lives and the lives of godly fathers who came before us. This week we are telling the story of Dr. R. J. Rushdoony — a man who, like David before him, could declare: “I love the law of God.”

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony was God’s appointed evangel who guided my beloved father out of the lostness of his Judaism and into the glorious Gospel of Christ. As such, he was the tool of the Lord to bring light and life into my family. For this, as well as for his many, many personal kindnesses to me, I will forever be his debtor.

Around the time that Dr. Rushdoony went to be with the Lord (February 8, 2001), my father suffered an accident and was unable to attend the funeral. I was running a Father and Son retreat in the middle of a blizzard in the mountains of California when I received the call from my father that he wanted to commission me on his behalf to drive through the night and morning, travel about eight hours, and bring a very special message to Mrs. Rushdoony on his behalf. Last night I found the tape of the funeral and the meeting with Mrs. Rushdoony. God willing, I will pull a few clips from the funeral and the meeting with Mrs. Rushdoony and post it on my blog next week. (FYI, Mark Rushdoony has graciously granted me permission to show the clips.)