CR101 Radio - Podcast Network

What made St. Patrick great wasn’t superior training, intellect, or strategy but an unshakable trust in God. Surrounded by danger, barbarian invasions, and threats of death, Patrick cast himself entirely on God’s providence, believing not that he would be spared hardship, but that God would bring good no matter the outcome. He preached both judgment and mercy without fear, confronted tyrants, pursued enemies with the gospel, and anchored his life in one book the Bible. While others were overwhelmed by obstacles, Patrick was impressed by God, and that faith changed a nation. The question remains just as shar...

In *Easy Chair 149* (July 9, 1987), R.J. Rushdoony and Otto Scott warn that money and debt are not merely “economic” topics but **religious and moral realities**—because a culture’s view of money reveals where its faith rests. Scott argues the modern world has entered an unprecedented situation: *“money”* as true wealth has largely disappeared, replaced by **paper claims backed by nothing—worse than nothing, backed by debt**. Rushdoony presses the point: modern states *monetize debt*, so currency increasingly represents obligations rather than accumulated production, inviting inflation, instability, and eventual collapse. They highlight how bond-market fragility threatens pension funds, how real estate va...

Rationalism consistently detaches truth from history, treating abstract ideas and human reasoning as ultimate rather than God’s acts in time. This stands in direct opposition to Christianity, which is grounded in real historical events the Fall, the Incarnation, and the Atonement. Scripture proclaims that the Word became flesh, a claim Greek and modern philosophy reject because it unites truth with history.

By presupposing man’s mind instead of God, rationalism ends in idolatry: gods made in man’s image and truth judged by human logic. Biblical faith begins with God’s revelation in history and sees human re...

In “Relativism,” Rushdoony argues that denying God leads inevitably to the denial of objective meaning, right and wrong, and moral limits, leaving society governed only by interest, power, and the expanding authority of the state. He critiques relativism as a self-blinding faith that mistakes subjective experience for reality, using it to erase moral distinctions and absolutes while claiming intellectual sophistication. This worldview, he contends, undercuts any principled resistance to tyranny, dissolves the foundations of education, marriage, and work, and trains people especially the young for irrelevance, anarchy, and ultimately slavery. Because politics and culture are inseparable from religious presuppositions, the...

An ancient Roman inscription declared, “To hunt, to bathe, to play, to laugh that is life,” and it perfectly captured the mindset that led Rome to collapse. When civilizations abandon faith, they stop thinking about responsibility, hope, and the future, and instead live for present pleasure alone. History shows that technology, power, and comfort cannot save a people without belief good plumbing didn’t save Crete, and pleasure didn’t save Rome. It was not the powerful Romans who ultimately endured, but the persecuted Christians who lived by faith and hope in Christ. Once again, we are surrounded by a cultur...

The future is often painted as dark, unstable, and full of hidden dangers but what if that’s not the real problem? While inflation rises and enemies seem to grow stronger, God is still on the throne, and His rule has not weakened with time. Scripture reminds us that history doesn’t spiral out of control because of external threats, but because people abandon God and His ways. When we reject His law, the world becomes hostile ground; when we walk in faith and obedience, we discover it is still our Father’s world. If God is for us, who ca...

Isaiah’s striking description of the man of faith as one who “walketh in darkness, and hath no light” confronts our natural desire for clarity, explanations, and visible guidance, for faith does not remove darkness but requires us to trust God within it. We cannot see beyond the present, nor can we fully understand past sorrows or unanswered prayers, and Scripture forbids us from kindling our own light seeking certainty by sight, explanation, or self-made assurance because such attempts only lead to sorrow. To walk in darkness is therefore to walk by faith alone, acknowledging that man cannot live by sig...

This session contends that economics rises or falls with the strength of the trustee family, not with state policy or abstract theory, exposing the Enlightenment myth that “reason” and social order exist only apart from God as ideological nonsense designed to justify hostility toward any institution not created by human fiat. Drawing on Zimmerman and Unwin, the argument shows that civilizations flourish when the family governs property, inheritance, children, welfare, and education, weaken when the state intrudes, and collapse when the atomistic family replaces covenantal continuity, sexual discipline erodes, and loyalty to past and future is severed. The trustee fami...

A once-successful man plunged into gambling, then into theft first from his company, then from his own wife in the vain hope that a “lucky break” would undo his mounting sins, proving again the folly Scripture condemns: “Let us do evil, that good may come.” His life illustrated the truth that a bad business cannot have a good ending, and yet such moral confusion is now praised as “realistic” even in the church. The only redeeming element came from his godly wife, who, refusing the illusion that prison time “paid his debt,” embraced God’s law of restitution. She worked, sacrificed...

This passage argues that the public is often misled about budget cuts. Media and politicians claim that cuts primarily harm the poor and elderly, but in reality, budgets are frequently still increasing, and cuts usually apply only to proposed increases. Meanwhile, overgrown bureaucracies and legislators’ own expenditures remain untouched. Ordinary citizens, facing rising taxes and aggressive collection, bear the real burden. The author contends that claims of protecting vulnerable populations are used to guilt taxpayers into accepting excessive government spending, while the root problem bloated and inefficient government is ignored.

#BudgetCuts #GovernmentSpending #TaxBurden #Bureaucracy #FiscalHonesty

In “Moral Force,” Rushdoony argues that all lasting authority rests not on brute power but on moral force rooted in faith, and that when societies abandon moral absolutes they inevitably replace persuasion, law, and justice with coercion, bribery, violence, and aestheticized destruction. He traces how relativism leads first to cynicism, then to the worship of power—whether through revolutionary violence, statist control, or an aesthetics that glorifies shock, perversity, and negation—until man becomes enslaved to the very state he trusted to save him. Political salvation, artistic rebellion, and force-based ideologies all fail because they cannot give meaning, character, or hope...

God's love is not unconditional, and pretending otherwise has gutted the church. Andrea Schwartz sits down with Mark Rushdoony to trace how the modern gospel of unconditional love and unconditional forgiveness collapses into antinomianism, manipulative altar calls, and a Christianity with no kingdom and no game plan. They press into covenant as a relationship on God's terms, the abandoned doctrine of repentance, the prophets' indictment of social injustice as covenant-breaking, and why the church cannot expect blessing while it actively rejects God's law. Theonomy, they argue, is the unavoidable issue. Don't miss this conversation.

unconditional love, antinomianism...

This session exposes inflation as a moral disease before it is an economic one, rooted in fiat money, statist power, and a humanistic belief that value can be created by decree rather than by work, thrift, and godly character. When money is severed from real wealth, it becomes a tool of theft, rewarding debtors, punishing the faithful, and financing cultural decay—from foreign Marxist regimes to domestic moral revolutions—while quietly enslaving nations through unpayable loans. Inflation is shown not as an accident or policy mistake, but as institutionalized larceny, driven by bad theology, antinomianism, and the rejection of God’...

An old French proverb says, “The more things change, the more they are the same,” a truth many rediscover whenever election hopes collapse into the familiar reality of corruption, taxes, and disappointment. No matter the promises, yesterday’s rascals soon look little different from today’s reformers, because changing the names without changing the character of the men in office can never produce a new order. As the old American saying reminds us, “You can’t make a good omelet with rotten eggs” yet we persist in expecting people without faith, integrity, or fear of God to build a righteous soci...

Rationalism claims to prove God by human reason, but the “god” it produces is only a product of fallen imagination acceptable to man but not the living God of Scripture. By ignoring the Fall and its corruption of the human mind, rationalism assumes reason is neutral and pure, when in fact sin has radically warped man’s thinking.

Because fallen man resists a God who judges him, he reshapes truth to fit his reason, making himself the final standard of knowledge. This shifts epistemology from God to man and replaces revelation with human judgment. Rationalism is thus not in...

People often boast, “I know people,” but such confidence usually appears just before they make a serious mistake about someone. The truth is, as Solomon said, no man fully understands even his own way, for people change some grow stronger under pressure, others falter; some old men mature, while some young men refuse to grow at all. Over time, many we trust will disappoint us, and others will surprise us. We cannot truly say, “I know people.” Only God knows the heart, and only He sees the beginning and the end. Our one certainty is this: we know the Lord, wh...

A foreign visitor once marveled that Americans will sit at a red light at 2:00 a.m. with no car in sight an unconscious habit inherited from Puritan forebears who lived with the deep awareness that God’s eye is always upon us. Early Americans obeyed even in solitude because they knew there is no escaping God: He sees every sin, but also every need and every faithful act unnoticed by men. Though many today no longer believe, the old habits linger yet habits cannot survive without the living faith that once produced them. By turning blind to God, we ha...

Peace in the biblical sense is the wholeness, prosperity, and well-being that flow from reconciliation with God and restoration under His order. It is more than the absence of conflict; it encompasses peace with God, with oneself, with others, and with creation, reflecting the Edenic harmony lost in the Fall and progressively restored through Christ. Messianic prophecies, such as living under one’s vine and fig tree (Mic. 4:4; Zech. 3:10), symbolize this holistic peace, encompassing security, prosperity, and personal fulfillment, while Jesus Himself embodies and grants this peace (John 14:27). Statist or humanistic peace, limited to the suppression of conflict, cannot ac...

God’s declaration in Amos 9:9 that He will sift His people “as grain is sifted in a sieve” teaches a hard but necessary truth: the Christian life necessarily involves shaking, breaking, and tribulation, not as punishment but as purification, so that the chaff may be separated from the wheat. Scripture consistently affirms this principle through much tribulation we enter the Kingdom, and God removes what can be shaken so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Yet bound up with this severe process is a profound promise: not a single grain will be lost. God’s sifting guarantees pain and disr...

In *Easy Chair 148* (June 4, 1987), R.J. Rushdoony and Otto Scott argue that the French Revolution didn’t merely “happen” in history—it **still shapes the modern world**, and its errors keep replaying wherever elites try to seize man’s destiny. They trace the revolution’s logic back to Enlightenment assumptions (especially Locke’s belief in morally “neutral” man who can be remade by education), producing the modern self-appointed class that claims to be **the voice of reason and virtue**—and therefore entitled to rule, censor, purge, and compel. Scott emphasizes that the French Revolution became the template for later leftist revolutions...

A grieving friend recently told how she has faced her sorrows by trusting that whenever God closes a door, He also opens another an outlook rooted in the promise that all things work together for good to those who love Him. The real danger comes when people fixate on a closed door, living in the past, refusing God’s providence, and becoming blind to any future; one acquaintance, who spent fifteen years lamenting an old hurt, finally collapsed morally because he would not move on. When we cling to what God has shut, we cut ourselves off from life, gr...

Rationalism becomes heresy when it places human reason in judgment over God’s revelation. By demanding that Scripture first satisfy the standards of fallen reason, rationalism enthrones man as judge and reduces God to an object needing validation. This repeats the original sin of Genesis 3:5 man seeking to be his own god.

Scripture teaches that the Fall corrupted not only man’s will but also his mind. Reason is not neutral, nor capable of rightly judging God apart from submission to His Word. When rationalism ignores the Fall, predestination, and the atonement, it distorts theology even when it u...

Charles Spurgeon observed that when a man is down, he has his greatest opportunity to trust God, for a false faith survives only in calm waters, but true faith proves itself in storms. Many claim they cannot believe in a God who permits suffering, yet they raise their children with that same creed shielding them from every hardship and then wonder why those children grow into selfish, destructive adults. God indeed leads His people through the valley of the shadow of death, using affliction as the fire that purifies and prepares them for His service. Troubles are meant to...

In “The Smiling Face of Evil,” Rushdoony warns that evil rarely appears brutal or grotesque but commonly presents itself as kind, helpful, idealistic, and morally concerned, masking its true nature behind pleasant words, good intentions, and public-relations charm. Drawing on personal anecdotes and biblical examples, he argues that Satan’s most effective strategy is not open hostility but deception—using humanitarian language, visions of peace, and promises of progress to replace God’s law with man-centered hopes, as seen in movements that borrow Christian language while opposing Christian truth. Because people prefer comfort to truth, the smiling face of evil is of...

This opening session argues that economic collapse is not accidental but moral, the predictable fruit of a statist, fiat-driven world that has abandoned God’s created order. Using Christ’s parable of the steward, the teaching confronts Christian other-worldliness and insists that faithful stewardship of money is a spiritual requirement, not a worldly distraction. Humanistic economics treats reality as something man can remake by decree—fiat money, fiat law, fiat planning—but Scripture declares a law-governed universe where debt enslaves, inflation punishes thrift, and judgment is built into disobedience itself. The modern debt mountain—personal, corporate, and governmental—is portrayed as...

A man recently sighed, “Problems, problems how I wish I could be rid of them,” and in truth we all share that longing at times. Yet problems never disappear; they simply change shape, following us through childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age, and appearing in our homes, work, churches, nation, and even our own hearts. They belong to life in a fallen world, but even before the Fall Adam faced the challenges of cultivating Eden and the daily test of obedience before the forbidden tree. To solve one problem is merely to create the conditions for the next, for prob...

As we look back on our lives, we often see how little of it unfolded according to our own plans, and this can trouble us unless we grasp the truth Solomon expressed: “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps” (Prov. 16:9). We are responsible for our choices and accountable for our actions, yet we are not omnipotent, and countless forces lie beyond our control, making self-directed planning an invitation to frustration. Scripture reminds us that while we may devise plans, only God governs the course of our lives, and this is not a cause for fe...

In “Abominations”, Rushdoony explains that Scripture’s strong language about sin reflects God’s holiness and justice, not vulgarity or excess, and that the biblical term abomination consistently denotes what God finds utterly abhorrent because it is idolatrous, lawless, and spiritually corrupt. Drawing on Hebrew and Greek usage, he shows that abominations are actions and attitudes that despise God’s law while often masquerading as faith—ranging from sexual immorality and idolatry to dishonest worship, lying, and false weights—revealing the unity of moral, spiritual, and physical corruption. What God calls an abomination is not culturally relative or emotionally offensive but...

This passage argues that a new form of bigotry is emerging in the foster-care system, where devout Christians though responsible and moral are being rejected as foster parents. The author cites a tragic case in Pomona, California, where a child was sexually abused and killed in foster care, suggesting that prejudice against Christian foster parents may contribute to such failures. The broader concern is that this humanistic bias against a morally upright segment of society undermines the welfare system and endangers children, reflecting an insidious form of societal bigotry.

#FosterCare #ReligiousBigotry #ChildSafety #MoralDiscrimination #HumanisticBias

One of history’s recurring problems is the stubborn survival of false ideas, and among the most destructive is the Jeffersonian belief that evil is a product of the environment rather than of the human heart. As Daniel J. Boorstin notes, Jefferson treated moral corruption as no more blameworthy than catching yellow fever. Scripture, however, insists that man is morally responsible, and that evil flows from within: “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts… ” (Matt. 15:19). A society that denies this cannot long maintain any law order. Our age has inherited Jefferson’s mistake, trading the Biblical concept of duty for a...

This session presents Abraham and Sarah as Scripture’s model—or “normative”—marriage, not because it was easy or sentimental, but because it was forged through responsibility, obedience, and costly decision-making under God. Sarah, whose very name signifies authority, was no passive figure; she commanded decisively when right and submitted faithfully when obedience to God required it, even in terrifying circumstances like Egypt. Abraham’s much-criticized decision is reframed as an act of covenant responsibility, not cowardice—choosing life, calling, and the messianic promise over suicidal idealism. The lesson cuts against modern chivalric myths and romanticized marriage: biblical manhood is not self-de...

Rationalism fails because it ignores the Fall. Scripture teaches that man’s original sin was the desire to be his own god, and as a result every part of his being including his mind is corrupted by sin. The Bible is explicit: “the carnal mind is enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7). Fallen reason is not neutral, nor capable of judging God rightly, because it refuses to submit to God’s law.

Rationalism assumes that human reason can stand above God and evaluate His revelation, but this simply repeats the rebellion of Genesis 3:5. All thinking is shaped by moral presuppo...

One of the great heresies of our age is the notion that “being spiritual” is the same as being Christian, when Scripture never calls us to pursue spirituality as such, but to be filled with the Holy Ghost. Greek philosophy prized spirituality over materiality and condemned Biblical faith as too earthly, but Scripture teaches that holiness not abstract spirituality is God’s command. Holiness means obedience to God’s law from the heart. Thus Paul writes, “This is the will of God, even your sanctification,” and then defines it in very practical terms: sexual purity, marital fidelity, honesty in work and bus...

A great deal of nonsense is written about the supposed last days of California or the imminent end of the world, as though fear should drive us into the arms of whatever theory the writer is selling, despite our Lord’s plain declaration that no man knows the day or hour (Matt. 24:36). Scripture is not secretive about the true “last days”: the new creation began when Christ rose from the dead as the “firstfruits” (1 Cor. 15:20), and all who are in Him are already part of that new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). The “first days” of God’s renewed world are behind us, and we are c...

Man’s recurring temptation is to claim infallibility for himself or his institutions whether in government, church, or popular opinion but such claims are dangerous and false, because fallen, sinful man is by nature erring and finite. History shows that whenever men declare their laws, leaders, councils, or collective will to be infallible, they inevitably diminish or deny the sole true standard: God’s infallible Word. Only God is infallible, and only Scripture can serve as the final authority for faith and obedience, for human reason, emotion, and will are all corrupted by sin and incapable of generating ultimate auth...

A young prince once demanded that economics be explained to him in ten words, until a courtier answered with nine: “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” That principle lies behind many of our modern problems, because someone always pays through work, money, or taxes. The same truth applies to salvation: Scripture never teaches that it was “free” in the modern sense of “without cost,” but that it was free of obligation on Christ’s part, who voluntarily freed us from the slavery of sin (Gal. 5:1). Our redemption was purchased “with a price” the priceless blood of Christ (1 Cor. 6:2...

This talk argues that the Christian is not an anarchist but a believer in God’s government, and that modern speech about “the government” wrongly treats the state as ultimate, when Scripture places the real “seats of government” first in self-government under God’s Word, then the family, then church, school, vocation, and community, with the state only as civil government—limited and subordinate to the “Supreme Governor.” It insists biblical law remains God’s binding instruction (Torah) for sanctified living, rejecting both law-as-justification and law-as-condemnation for the believer while affirming law as the path of holiness and social order. The lecture h...

Power and authority are inseparable from God’s law: power is mere force, but authority is the lawful right to rule, and only where both are grounded in God’s word can true order exist. Scripture teaches that the saints are called to govern the world not through humanistic coercion, miracles designed to compel belief, or institutional dominance but through obedience to Christ’s law and faithful self-government under Him. Humanism offers only two outcomes, anarchism or totalitarianism, because it lacks a transcendent law; biblical authority alone restrains both chaos and tyranny. Christ possesses all power and perfectly embodies author...

Modern rationalism begins with René Descartes, whose famous claim “I think, therefore I am” made human self-consciousness the starting point of reality. Instead of God creating and defining all things, man’s thinking became the judge of what is real. God was reduced to an object that must be validated by human reason, laying the groundwork for the modern idea that God can be “created” or dismissed by man.

This logic was developed further by Kant and Hegel, leading to the belief that the rational is the real. The result is a worldview in which man, not God, stands...

When Jacob lay dying, he prophesied of the Messiah and called Him Shiloh “He whose right it is” the true King and Lawgiver to whom all authority and all nations belong (Gen. 49:10). Christ affirmed this office after His Resurrection when He declared, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth,” commanding His church to disciple the nations and teach them to obey all His commandments (Matt. 28:18–20). As Shiloh, no sphere church, state, school, family, or any area of life stands outside His rightful rule. But humanistic man, claiming to be his own lord, cuts every institution loose from...