Perry Coughlin didn't set out to become a Christian Reconstructionist. He was being trained as a Wesleyan Arminian minister when a single book reoriented everything — and the questions it raised were too large to ignore from a pulpit. In this conversation with Andrea Schwartz, Perry traces his theological journey across five decades: the grip of sovereign grace, the abiding validity of God's law, the founding of a Christian school as a kingdom enterprise, and the humbling work of heart surgery and covenant faithfulness in marriage. Application, Perry insists, is not optional. It is the fruit of grace.

Tags: Christian Reconstruction, Theonomy, Biblical Law, Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law, Sovereign Grace, Kingdom of God, Postmillennialism, Christian Education, Covenant Living, Reformed Theology, Chalcedon

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A Wesleyan Arminian seminary student picks up Rushdoony's Institutes of Biblical Law — and steps out of the pulpit because the questions are suddenly too large to ignore.

Perry Coughlin has spent five decades working out what it means to take every word of God seriously: in his marriage, in the Christian school he built as a business, in the years of heart surgery and hospital beds, and in the daily discipline of putting off the old man and putting on the new.

This is not a theoretical conversation. It's what reconstruction looks like when it comes home.

L. Ron Hubbard reportedly told a science fiction conference that the surest way to make a million dollars was to start a religion. In 1954, he did exactly that. In this episode, Andrea Schwartz tells her own story of being recruited into Scientology as a nineteen-year-old, spending a decade selling its lies to others, and the providential path God used to bring her out. She unpacks what the cult actually teaches about man, sin, and salvation, why intelligent people are its prime target, and how the absence of biblical foundations leaves any soul vulnerable to deception. A sober warning and a testimony to the sufficiency of Christ. Listen now.

KEYWORDS/TAGS

Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, cults, Christian testimony, Andrea Schwartz, Chalcedon, Reformed faith, false religion, deception, dianetics, biblical worldview, conversion testimony

The modern church has softened the word "witness" into something polite and passive — but in Scripture, a witness was the one who cast the first stone. Andrea Schwartz and Mark Rushdoony examine R.J. Rushdoony's treatment of the Ninth Commandment and what it means that Christ is called the faithful and true witness. They discuss the inversion of the word martyr, the cross as the dividing sword of humanity, the Amen of God, the failure of the disciples to grasp the kingdom, and why optimism about Christ's advancing reign is the only honest response to history. Sobering, clarifying, essential.

Tags: Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law, Ninth Commandment, faithful witness, biblical law, theonomy, Reformed theology, Chalcedon, Christ the Judge, postmillennialism, Andrea Schwartz, Mark Rushdoony

In this episode of Out of the Question, Andrea Schwartz and Pastor Charles Roberts examine diplomacy from a biblical perspective, arguing that true peace and just international relations can never be built on political pragmatism, compromise, or humanistic power struggles. Instead, they contend that God’s law is the only objective standard for justice, whether between individuals or nations.

The conversation explores the relationship between diplomacy, war, and civil government, showing how modern states often use diplomacy as a tool of manipulation, self-interest, and global control rather than truth and righteousness. Drawing heavily on the work of R. J. Rushdoony, the hosts contrast the “warfare state” with the biblical vision of nations under God, accountable to His law and called to pursue justice, peace, and obedience.

Rather than accepting conflict, propaganda, and globalism as inevitable, this episode calls Christians to recover a distinctly biblical view of statecraft. The central message is that peace does not come through compromise with evil or elite management of the nations, but through regeneration, covenant faithfulness, and submission to Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.

In this episode of Out of the Question, Andrea Schwartz and Pastor Charles Roberts argue that many of society’s deepest problems are rooted in disobedience to God’s law. Using passages such as Psalm 19, Psalm 127, and 1 Samuel 8, they trace how areas like taxation, state education, welfare, and civil government have moved away from biblical standards and produced widespread social disorder.

The discussion explores how the modern state increasingly assumes responsibilities God assigned to family, church, and local community, especially in education, care for the poor, and the stewardship of resources. Drawing on the work of R. J. Rushdoony, the hosts contend that public policy, taxation, and government schooling are not neutral arrangements but religious expressions of a broader worldview.

Rather than ending in despair, the episode points listeners to the hope of Christian Reconstruction: returning to God’s Word as the standard for personal, family, and social life. The central message is simple but far-reaching: if we want blessing, health, and cultural renewal, we must do things God’s way.

Here is a shorter version if you need it for tighter podcast fields:

Why are so many young conservatives flocking to Rome? Andrea Schwartz and Pastor Charles Roberts dig into the trend of political conservatives converting to Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy — and argue that the real problem isn't the attraction of ancient liturgy, but the failure of Protestant churches to present the full scope of biblical faith. Drawing on their own experiences inside the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, they make the case that only a robust Reformed understanding of God's kingdom over every area of life can answer what these converts are actually looking for.

Every relationship you have — with your employer, your spouse, your children, your nation — is either governed by God's law or governed by you playing God. There is no third option. In this episode, Andrea Schwartz and Chalcedon Vice President Martin Selbrede trace the catastrophic consequences of what Rushdoony called "direct, unmediated relationships" — from wage fraud hiding in plain sight to the collapse of marriage to the inevitability of socialist tyranny. If you think God's law is just about personal piety, this conversation will dismantle that assumption. Listen now.

Is war ever justified — or is it, as the famous song declares, "good for nothing"? In this episode of Out of the Question, Andrea Schwartz and Pastor Charles Roberts examine the subject of war through the lens of biblical law, asking the question that too few Christians are willing to ask: by what standard do we evaluate military conflict?

Drawing on Genesis 3:15, Deuteronomy 20 and 28, and the writings of R.J. Rushdoony and Greg Bahnsen, Andrea and Charles lay out what a truly just war looks like — defensive in nature, covenantally grounded, and accountable to God's law rather than the ambitions of politicians or the profits of the military-industrial complex.

From Vietnam to Iraq to the current conflict involving Iran and Israel, they trace a consistent pattern: wars prosecuted on humanistic rather than biblical foundations, propped up by propaganda, and paid for in the blood of young men whose leaders would never set foot on the battlefield themselves.

They also tackle hard questions — what about the conquest of Canaan? What does Matthew 26:52 actually mean? And what does it say about the church when supposed Reformed scholars dismiss Old Testament law as "basically harmless"?

This episode is essential listening for any Christian serious about applying God's word to all of life — including the hardest questions of statecraft, national faithfulness, and what it means to truly seek peace.

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