The Chalcedon Podcast

Are there things to which God is indifferent? Are there areas of life that are neutral, and we as man can create our own moral standards? Anyone familiar with Rushdoony’s work is familiar with the phrase “the myth of neutrality,” but are we familiar with an ancient problem in the church known as adiaphorism?

The meaning of the term is “things indifferent,” or areas of life that God does not legislate and therefore man has the freedom to legislate. The end result is anything but freedom. Its consequences are sin and totalitarianism.

We are living in a time of great overreach by the civil government while protests are erupting all over the world in resistance, but what freedom are people looking for? Is it Christian liberty? What is Christian liberty? Can you have liberty without law?

“Men’s hearts failing them for fear.” (Luke 21:26)

The corrosive forces of humanism are creating great fear throughout the world as the bottom falls out for man’s morality and social order. Humanity struggles to contend with an unending supply of crises because their worldview is bankrupt.

Rushdoony wrote, “The only thing that can counteract and overcome the deadly personal and social effects of the Great Fear is the Great Faith,” and that means a faith that overcomes the world!

This is the subject of Episode 19 of the Chalcedon Podcast.

The bad words of political systems are fascism, socialism, and theocracy, but does the average truly understand the definitions of each term? Take fascism, for example. Groups like Antifa—defined as anti-fascist—act more fascist than those they accuse, so what exactly is fascism?

The same goes for socialism and theocracy. They are terms we throw around to demonize our political opponents without truly understand their meaning—especially in a Biblical sense.

In this episode of the Chalcedon Podcast, we discuss the meaning of these political systems and what the Bible has to say about God’s form of government.

“Both liberties and powers are alike limited, under God, and hence under law. Liberty is limited and power is limited because the temporal order is under God.” (The One & The Many, p. 20)

For fallen man, the political battle is always one of power vs liberty. Some men seek for liberty while the remaining seek for power. For example, anarchists and libertarians desire liberty while socialists, technocrats, politicians, and oligarchs seek for power.

To seek power is to emphasize the “one,” while to seek liberty is to emphasize the “many.”

This is an unresolvable conflict without God as the determining factor for both power and liberty, which is resolved in the law of God and the kingship of Christ.

Therefore, both power and liberty are limited by law—God’s law.

Part of the educational mission of Chalcedon is to restore this presupposition and further the development of its implications, and that’s the subject of this episode of The Chalcedon Podcast.

“Christian Reconstruction” is a school of thought that is diametrically opposed to the autonomous reason of man which itself has long infected Christianity.

Today’s Christian assumes that fallen man is an impartial judge over knowledge and reality—that he is “neutral”—and that fallen man can be “reasoned” into faith.

R. J. Rushdoony continued the battle against modern man’s pretended neutrality by building off the thinking of his mentor, Dr. Cornelius Van Til, who himself was developing the implications of the Dutch school that began with Abraham Kuyper.

In this episode of the Chalcedon Podcast, hosts Mark Rushdoony, Martin Selbrede, and Andrea Schwartz share a short history of the Dutch school as well as the implications of this philosophy on modern Christianity.

In Romans 12:2, the apostle Paul writes, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” The dynamic of New Covenant living is the radical pursuit of proving the will of God for every area of life, but does that mean the Old Testament prophets are obsolete?

Quite the contrary, the whole of God’s Word is for us including the law and the prophets, one of the joys of Christian living is studying the entirety of Scripture in order to see its application for life and thought.

In this episode of the Chalcedon Podcast, hosts Mark Rushdoony, Martin Selbrede, and Andrea Schwartz share insights on how we can better glean God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will of God from all of God’s Word.

Rushdoony often noted that the way to build Christian civilization—or save it—is to restore the spiritual capital of faith and character. This is a central part of the work of Christian Reconstruction because it’s established upon God’s Kingdom, His law, and the covenant He established through Jesus Christ.

As we labor to restore that spiritual capital, it’s important that we secure ourselves during uncertain times, and to do that means putting the Kingdom of God first before all things. There is no greater security than the firstness of the Kingdom.

Rushdoony often noted that Christian Reconstruction was not a movement but rather the definition of Christian action. For the past few decades, we saw it explicitly applied to education by way of homeschooling and Christian schools.

What’s next for Christian Reconstruction, and how should approach answering that question?

Rushdoony wrote a chapter on “Extraterritoriality” in his volume Christianity and the State, in which he emphasized the importance of understanding the church as an embassy—and we as ambassadors of Christ—in the earth.

The modern church needs to better understand this concept so as to truly challenge the culture as a “nation within a nation.”