R.J. Rushdoony and Otto Scott discuss revolution, linking it to Romanticism and the Enlightenment. They argue that the Enlightenment’s exaltation of reason cultivated “rootlessness,” which Romanticism transferred to emotions. Revolution, therefore, seeks to destroy tradition, Christianity, and past institutions to create a “brave new world.” All revolutionary regimes whether National Socialist, Marxist, Communist, or Fascist are inherently anti-Christian. Terror is inseparable from revolution, as exemplified by Robespierre and Lenin, and totalitarian states maintain control through fear and manipulation of education.

They describe how modern revolutions are aided by ideology, media, and financial support for violence. Simple-minded or immature Christians who fail to discern truth unwittingly enable revolutionary agendas. Revolutionaries equate life with theater and spectacle, blurring reality and fostering societal chaos, while the broader populace, including the church, often remains indifferent or complicit.

Rushdoony emphasizes that faith is the counterforce to revolutionary collapse. History shows that civilizations fall when morality and justice are abandoned, but Christians, grounded in God’s power, can counter evil and preserve society. He urges believers to awaken, take responsibility in every sphere government, education, business, and church and actively resist revolutionary and anti-Christian trends before it is too late.

The Psalmist compares the godly to “a tree planted by rivers of water,” and the image is deliberate: living trees never stop growing. The moment they cease to grow, they begin to die and soon become dangerous or obstructive. Scripture uses this metaphor to confront the church with an uncomfortable truth: many of its problems come from “no-growth members,” believers who have stopped drawing life from Christ, the water of life. Like dead trees with rotting roots, they remain in place but contribute nothing and often hinder the health of the whole orchard. A Christian who does not grow is not merely stagnant he is dying. The Lord’s comparison leaves us with a stark choice: grow, or die.

Modalism denies the Trinity by reducing Father, Son, and Spirit to temporary “modes” of a single, unknowable force. It presents God as evolving, changeable, and ultimately beyond clear revelation making Scripture, theology, and doctrine negotiable rather than authoritative.

When God is treated as a shifting life force instead of the unchanging Triune Creator, truth collapses into relativism. Modalism may sound spiritual and humble, but it replaces the biblical God with another religion altogether one that leaves the church vulnerable to new prophets, new revelations, and enduring confusion.

Some people repeat the same sins and blunders endlessly, even after receiving clear counsel, because as Solomon says “the way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.” Without a teachable heart, there can be no growth, and without regeneration there can be no teachable heart. The spiritually dead cannot be taught; they prefer talking about change to actually changing. But the just walk “as the shining light,” growing steadily because the life of Christ is in them. Growth is not optional for a Christian; it is the inevitable fruit of regeneration. The question we must ask is whether our lives show this growing light whether we heed God’s Word and mature in righteousness or whether we remain self-satisfied, repeating our sins in the darkness.

In “Providence” (Chalcedon Report No. 131), Rushdoony argues that Christianity is founded on God-ordained distinctions between good and evil, righteousness and sin, holy and profane while humanism destroys these distinctions by making autonomous man the sole standard. When man becomes god, all absolutes collapse, progress ceases, and meaning evaporates, because a self-deified humanity has no reason to grow, judge, or reform itself. Rushdoony traces this levelling impulse through Asian philosophies, Greek and Roman decline, medieval decay, and modern relativism, showing how the denial of providence leads inevitably to nihilism, stagnation, and despair. In contrast, biblical faith affirms God’s sovereign providence and holiness, calling for separation according to His law and the active exercise of dominion. Holiness, he concludes, requires both divine grace and cultural obedience; without providence, all values flatten into nothingness, and “equality” finds its truest symbol not in democracy, but in death.

Many devout Christians faithfully attend church and pray, yet have a selective hearing problem when it comes to God’s Word. Like the boy who “didn’t hear” his mother’s command but heard instantly when invited to lick frosting from a beater, believers often listen eagerly to the comforting parts of Scripture while tuning out the commands that challenge or correct them. But the Psalmist declares, “I will hear what God the LORD will speak,” and promises that God speaks peace to those who obey Him and refuse to return to folly. True discipleship requires hearing all that God says not just the parts we like. Only then can we know His peace as individuals and as a people.

Much of life is lived behind masks carefully managed appearances that hide a self-centered inner reality. But God is not fooled by surfaces. He strips away all pretenses, exposing the heart as it truly is. True faith begins when we surrender the mask and receive God’s grace, becoming new creatures in Christ no longer hiding behind appearances, but revealing the inner reality of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Rushdoony frames modern culture as a return to pagan totalitarianism, using the prosecution of cryptographer Philip Zimmermann as a symbol of the state’s demand for total surveillance and control. Privacy, property, and due process are eroding, while biblical morality is displaced by licentiousness enforced through law and education. He argues that chastity is now treated as illegal “religion,” while sexual immorality is normalized, showing that the modern state is not neutral but aggressively anti-Christian. Law has been reduced from fixed moral standards to endless bureaucratic regulation, and education has become a tool for reshaping citizens into obedient subjects of humanistic statism.

At the heart of the crisis is a false view of man. Against the biblical doctrine of total depravity, modern religion and culture preach the donum superadditum gospel: man is basically good and only needs a religious add-on. Rushdoony insists fallen man hates God’s law and therefore seeks a world without moral limits one that endorses abortion, sexual perversion, and even the normalization of crimes in the name of freedom. Global movements toward a “new world ethic,” Gaia worship, and enforced moral uniformity reveal a unified hostility toward biblical Christianity, which they regard as intolerant and unfit to exist.

Yet Rushdoony’s outlook is ultimately hopeful and militant. Drawing on Berman, he argues that Western civilization rests on the doctrine of the atonement and biblical law; when these are abandoned, collapse follows but renewal also begins there. The task of Christians is not withdrawal or waiting, but rebuilding through self-government under God, then family, church, education, charity, and other institutions taking back one sphere at a time from the state. History shows pagan systems destroy themselves, while Christ’s kingdom advances. Christians, though opposed, are “more than conquerors,” the people of the future, called to act with confidence that what cannot be shaken will remain.

This piece critiques the modern animal rights movement and its push toward vegetarianism as a social imperative. While acknowledging the right of vegetarians and animal rights advocates to promote their beliefs, the author warns against coercive tactics that could impose dietary choices on the broader public. Representative Ronald Mottl’s proposed bill to study animal rights is cited as an example of how advocacy could evolve into regulation. The piece notes that appeals to morality like claims that a nonviolent diet ensures world peace are dubious, pointing out India’s history despite widespread vegetarianism. The argument concludes that freedom must include responsibility; when used foolishly or coercively, it undermines itself. #AnimalRights #Vegetarianism #FreedomAndResponsibility #SocialControl #DietaryChoice #IndividualLiberty #NonViolentWorld #Coercion #Regulation #EthicsVsFreedom

Peter writes to believers who had once lived in drunkenness, wastefulness, idolatry, and immorality but whose sudden transformation shocked their neighbors. Instead of rejoicing, the ungodly resented them, “speaking evil” because these new Christians no longer joined in their former sins. Yet the difference was unmistakable. Peter’s point is piercing: true conversion is visible. If Christ is in us, people will see it whether they like it or not. A contrasting story tells of a pastor whose longtime fishing guide never even knew he was a minister; such invisibility exposes a spiritual problem. Mirrors reflect only our faces, but our actions reveal who truly lives within us. So the question confronts every believer: do others see Christ in your life or only you?