Out of the Question Podcast

Few topics generate more heat and less light than the question of women's roles in the church and family — but what does Scripture actually say when freed from both feminist ideology and culturally accumulated assumptions? In this episode, Andrea Schwartz and Charles Roberts work through the key passages — from Genesis 1 and Galatians 3:28 to 1 Peter 3:7, 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, and Ephesians 5:24 — examining apparent contradictions and unpacking what Paul and Peter were actually addressing in their original contexts. Drawing on R.J. Rushdoony's insight that "a help meet is not a doormat, but a subordinate and necessary partner," they argue that the kingdom of God is far larger than the institutional church and that women's ministry within it is correspondingly broad. The conversation challenges both the totalitarian impulse that reduces wives to silent doormats and the feminist impulse that erases God-ordained distinctions, calling listeners back to Scripture's own balance: husbands and wives are joint heirs of the grace of life, designed for dominion together. Listen at cr101radio.com/ootq and subscribe to Out of the Question.

Is being alone the same thing as being lonely? After saying goodbye to a beloved dog and noticing the new silence in her house, Andrea Schwartz sits down with Gwen Saunders, a widow of seventeen years whose husband died suddenly just as they were preparing to move across the country. Gwen describes how the hectic years after John's death kept grief at bay, and how loneliness arrived only when her youngest daughter married and moved away — until she came to see that a believer who knows the Lord is always present is never truly alone. Together they discuss the well-meant platitudes that wound the grieving, the temptation to hide from grief in busyness, and the freedom that singleness brings to serve neighbours, widows, and the Kingdom in ordinary, unglamorous ways. It is a gentle, practical conversation for anyone walking through loss and for every church that wants to care well for those who live alone. Listen at cr101radio.com/ootq and subscribe to Out of the Question.

Scripture calls believers "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ," yet most Christians treat their faith as little more than fire insurance — a ticket out of hell with no obligations attached. In this episode, Andrea Schwartz and Charles Roberts explore the profound biblical concept of heirship, arguing that to be an heir of Christ means far more than possessing a spiritual status; it carries the duty to advance His kingdom across every domain of life. Drawing on Romans 8, the parables of the talents, and R.J. Rushdoony's commentary on Galatians, they trace how the dominion mandate given to Adam and Eve is renewed and fulfilled through the Great Commission — not as a slogan on a t-shirt, but as a call to disciple nations under Christ's lordship. The conversation challenges pietistic retreatism and the truncated gospel of "just getting people saved," calling believers instead to claim their inheritance by faithful, visible obedience to God's law in family, church, and civil life. Listen at cr101radio.com/ootq and subscribe to Out of the Question.

"God loves me just the way I am" and "don't ever change" are sentiments rooted more in pop culture than in Scripture — yet they have quietly shaped how many Christians think about their faith. In this episode, Andrea Schwartz and Pastor Charles Roberts examine the crucial biblical doctrine of sanctification and why it demands ongoing transformation rather than comfortable self-acceptance. Drawing on the Westminster Shorter Catechism, personal stories of humbling encounters, and the example of Christ with Zacchaeus, they distinguish between the instantaneous act of justification and the progressive, lifelong work of growing in holiness. The conversation challenges both the antinomian impulse to treat salvation as "one and done" and the Pharisaical tendency to measure our sanctification against other people rather than against God's law. Along the way, they address how believers can hold one another accountable with grace rather than accusation, and why the call to "be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect" means pursuing maturity, not pretending we have arrived. Listen at cr101radio.com/ootq and subscribe to Out of the Question.

Modern believers routinely condemn Abraham for decisions Scripture never rebukes — his deception of Abimelech, his taking of Hagar, his apparent failures of nerve in Egypt. In this episode of Out of the Question, Andrea Schwartz speaks with Mark Rushdoony, president of the Chalcedon Foundation, about his September 2026 *Arise and Build* essay, "Abram Did Not Fully Understand Yet Believed God, Do We?" Rushdoony argues that this judgmental posture stems from two related errors: a moralistic reduction of Scripture to character lessons, and an antinomian dismissal of the Old Testament as no longer authoritative for Christians. When the law is set aside, all that remains is mining biblical narratives for virtues and vices — what R.J. Rushdoony called "confessing other people's sins."

The heart of the conversation is the covenant ceremony of Genesis 15, where God alone passed through the split sacrificial animals in fire and smoke while Abraham watched. Rushdoony identifies this as the moment Jesus referenced in John 8:56 — Abraham saw Christ's day and rejoiced. It was a vision of substitutionary atonement centuries before the cross, and yet Abraham still received no specific answers about when or how God's promises would be fulfilled. His faith rested not in a detailed roadmap but in the character of the God who made the covenant. The episode draws a sharp contrast between this kind of faith and the consumer-based Christianity that treats the gospel as a benefits package and then questions God when providence brings suffering. True faith, as Abraham exemplified, produces obedience even in the absence of full understanding — and sanctification is the lifelong evidence that regeneration is real.

If you've ever paid an insurance premium without a second thought, have you considered what theological assumptions undergird the entire modern insurance industry? In this episode of Out of the Question, Andrea Schwartz and Pastor Charles Roberts explore a question most Christians have never asked: Does the Bible have anything to say about insurance — and if so, does what it says challenge the way we've structured our entire approach to security, health, and the future?

Drawing on R.J. Rushdoony's writings in the Institutes of Biblical Law, The Politics of Guilt and Pity, and his California Farmer columns, the hosts argue that the modern insurance apparatus — from Social Security to health insurance to corporate benefit packages — represents a massive jurisdictional transfer away from the family and church and toward the state and faceless corporate entities. Rushdoony's insight was not that all insurance is inherently sinful, but that when insurance becomes a substitute for the covenantal responsibility of families and churches, it reflects a humanistic reliance on financial security rather than faith in God's providence. The conversation ranges widely, from the biblical dowry system as a wife's original "insurance policy," to the deacons' fund as the church's proper instrument of charity, to the way birth control functions as a kind of insurance against God's sovereign blessing of children.

The distinction between insurance and assurance is ultimately the heart of the matter. Christians are called not to a reckless disregard for the future but to providential thinking rooted in obedience to God's law and trust in His promises. Whether you're evaluating your own financial arrangements or rethinking the role of family and church in bearing one another's burdens, this episode offers a framework you won't hear anywhere else. Listen and consider what it would look like to rebuild covenantal structures of care — starting now.

Every heated debate hides a question nobody wants to ask: by what standard is any of this being discussed? Andrea Schwartz and Charles Roberts mark their 400th episode by arguing that the collapse of productive conversation traces to one refusal — submitting autonomous human reason to God's revealed law. The source of a society's law is its god, and the choice is always the same: God's word or man's substitute.

"Sorry, I've been busy" may be the most socially acceptable lie in modern culture. But what if the constant refrain of busyness is not a sign of productivity but a mask for misplaced priorities, avoidance of duty, and even disobedience to God? In this episode of Out of the Question, Andrea Schwartz and Pastor Charles Roberts examine the culture of busyness through the lens of biblical law and ask whether Christians have absorbed a humanistic standard for how they spend their time.

Drawing on key passages — Martha's distraction in Luke 10, the excuses of the invited guests in the Parable of the Great Supper, Paul's admonition to redeem the time in Ephesians 5, and Christ's teaching on the vine and the branches in John 15 — Schwartz and Roberts argue that activity disconnected from abiding in Christ and His law is ultimately futile. They extend the conversation to the erosion of the biblical family, noting how busyness has become a ready excuse for delaying marriage, avoiding childbearing, and neglecting the Great Commission as it begins in the home. The discussion draws a striking contrast between the expanding, family-centered cultures of other religions and the shrinking, atomistic tendencies of modern Western Christianity.

Whether you are a homeschool parent feeling the weight of an overstuffed schedule, a single Christian deferring marriage indefinitely, or a church member quietly sidelining your duties with "let me pray about it," this episode challenges you to examine your calendar as a moral document. What does your time reveal about whose kingdom you are building? Listen in for a convicting and practical conversation about what it means to seek first the kingdom of God — starting with your own household.

Can conservatism — even sincere, well-intentioned social conservatism — actually conserve anything if it is severed from Christ? That is the provocative question at the heart of this episode of Out of the Question, as Andrea Schwartz welcomes Mike Groenewold, a writer and board member of Freedom Defence Canada, who has been deeply shaped by the writings of R.J. Rushdoony and the tradition of Christian Reconstruction.

Mike traces his journey from a Dutch-immigrant Christian Reformed upbringing in western Canada, through years of missionary work and vocational restlessness, to a transformative encounter with the biblical world-and-life view — first through Dr. Glenn Martin's teaching that "God applies to all of life," and eventually through Rushdoony's *Institutes of Biblical Law*, which he describes as the most serious engagement with God's law-word he had ever encountered. That intellectual and spiritual foundation now fuels his writing at Freedom Defence Canada, where he is pressing a pointed thesis: a Christless conservatism will accomplish nothing. Without the crown rights of Jesus over every sphere, conservatism becomes a hollow shell — unable to define what it conserves, unable to withstand the evils of the age, and ultimately unable to offer genuine hope.

The conversation ranges across adoption and providence, the sacred-secular divide that plagues evangelicalism, the call to be ambassadors rather than accommodators, and why faithfulness — not measurable success — is the standard by which Christians ought to evaluate their work. Whether you are in Canada, the United States, or anywhere the church is tempted to retreat from cultural engagement, this episode offers a bracing reminder that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and our task is simply to bear witness to that truth.

From 45s to streaming, music has always shaped culture. In this episode, we explore how song lyrics reflect and influence worldviews — from the hopeful folk songs of the '60s to today's darker themes. We discuss why words matter more than the beat, the deep heritage of ancient Christian hymns, and how believers can think critically about the music they consume. Plus: what would dominion-oriented music look like today?