CR101 Radio

Can Experience Teach? cr101radio.com/podcast/can-ex… A traveler in Europe in 1959 discovered a farming valley dying not because the soil was poor or young men were unwilling, but because inherited customs had chopped property into absurd fragments, destroying ownership and driving families away. A woman slept in one house, had the right to meals in another, and could warm herself only in a third; some farmers legally owned one-eighth of their own land. Such laws doomed the valley to be empty within a generation. This problem is ancient: Rome, as historian Guglielmo Ferrero noted, died from excessive urbanization crushing farmers with controls and taxes until it was easier to live on welfare in the city than work the land. The lesson should be obvious, but men and nations seldom learn from experience. Like gamblers who lose repeatedly yet return to the table, people persist in destructive patterns because experience alone cannot teach them; only faith and character can. Today we see the same signs moral decay, credit-fed cities, farms under pressure and yet we continue as though folly will somehow make us winners. Without a return to faith, and to the Word through which faith comes (Rom. 10:17), we will not change, and like that European valley, we will deserve the ruin we bring upon ourselves.

Learning and Wisdom cr101radio.com/podcast/learni… A very old and vital distinction going back at least to Solomon is the difference between learning and wisdom. Learning is the accumulation of facts, information, and schooling, and our age is overflowing with it; experts and specialists dominate society, expanding knowledge at a rapid rate. But learning alone is not enough, and without wisdom it simply produces learned fools more dangerous than ignorant ones. Some of the wisest people have had little formal schooling, yet possessed the humility and discernment that learning often lacks, for “a wise man will hear, and will increase learning” (Prov. 1:5). Modern culture, however, treats learning as if it automatically grants wisdom and therefore exalts expert rule, producing an arrogant class of “brain-trusters” who act, like Job’s friends, as though wisdom was born with them and will die with them. The more such men govern, the worse the world becomes, because learning divorced from faith becomes pride, and the learned begin to act as little gods. What we need is wisdom God-given wisdom for “the LORD giveth wisdom” (Prov. 2:6), and He grants it freely to those who ask (James 1:5). The reason we have so many learned and unlearned fools is simple: they do not want wisdom. “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil” (Prov. 3:7).

Treason in the Pew, Treason in the Pulpit Judges 8:4–12 Gideon and 300 exhausted men ask the heartland for bread. cr101radio.com/podcast/season… They're refused. They're mocked. The towns Jacob himself built side with the destroyers. The men of Succoth and Penuel walk among us in vast numbers. #Judges #Christendom #Theonomy

The Family as Trustee (Doctrine of the Family) cr101radio.com/podcast/the-fa… This message traces the modern war on the family to humanism’s twin goals: erasing God and dismantling the family as a governing institution. Drawing on history—from the French and Russian Revolutions to failed collectivist experiments in Soviet nurseries and Israeli kibbutzim—it shows that societies seeking rootlessness, anonymity, and radical equality consistently produce damaged children, social chaos, and state tyranny. Against this collapse, the lecture highlights a quiet but powerful recovery of the “trustee family”—the biblical model in which husband and wife steward law, education, work, and welfare under God, with Proverbs 31 as the classic picture of shared dominion. The current tensions within Christian families aren’t signs of decay but symptoms of renewal, as people resist atomistic freedom and rediscover responsibility under Christ’s rule. The takeaway is electric: civilization rises or falls with the family, and the rebuilding of society begins not with politics, but with families reclaiming their God-given trust.

How to Produce a Hippie cr101radio.com/podcast/how-to… If you want to produce a generation of hippies, the formula is simple: remove God, Scripture, and moral law from schools so children learn that faith is trivial; teach them to fixate on their

Responsibility (May 4, 1954) cr101radio.com/podcast/respon… Man often claims absolute independence, insisting he is accountable to no one but himself, yet such freedom is an illusion, for no one can secede from an interdependent universe. Our lives

Depending on Evil cr101radio.com/podcast/depend… In “Depending on Evil” (Chalcedon Report No. 112), Rushdoony argues that modern states consistently trust and support evil regimes because corruption is predictable, purchasable, and controllable, whereas

The Law of the Pack cr101radio.com/podcast/the-la… A worried mother went to meet her son’s teacher after receiving a note from the school, fearing her junior-high-aged Eddie already both mature and helpful at home had fallen into serious trouble. Instead,

The Significance of the Family as a Social Institution (Doctrine of the Family) cr101radio.com/podcast/the-si… This session confronts the social power of the biblical family and explains why it is relentlessly targeted by the modern state: under God, the family governs the future (children), property, inheritance, education, and welfare—the very foundations of society. From Theodora’s transformation of Roman law to Marx, Engels, Dewey, and modern democrats, the pattern is clear: destroy the family and Christianity collapses. Humanism insists religion and family are “private,” stripping God’s Law from public life while expanding state control over sexuality, schooling, property, and children. The result is social breakdown, dependency, unemployment, crime, and cultural decay—problems the state only worsens while the family, when ordered under God, historically solved them. The warning is stark and hopeful at once: every society that undermines the biblical family commits cultural suicide, and Christian reconstruction must therefore begin where God begins—with the family governed by His Law-Word.

Catharsis cr101radio.com/podcast/cathar… Catharsis is the belief that health personal or social comes through the uninhibited expression of inner impulses. Originating in Greek tragedy, it was later moralized by Christians but eventually reverted to its pagan meaning:

Train Up a Child cr101radio.com/podcast/train-… When Ben-hadad besieged Samaria, his demand for Ahab’s gold and silver aimed to cripple Israel’s strength, and his demand for the king’s wives intended to humiliate him but his greatest weapon was the demand for

Who Owns the Child? cr101radio.com/podcast/who-ow… A century ago, John Swett the architect of California’s public school system openly denied that parents had any rights in government education, insisting that teachers were not accountable to them and that

The priesthood of all believers is not a New Testament novelty but an Old Testament doctrine rooted in God’s covenant declaration that His people are a kingdom of priests (Ex. 19:5–6), a royal calling conditioned on obedience to His law and directed toward the establishment of

Poverty by Choice cr101radio.com/podcast/povert… I have before me a treasured book first published in 1875, written by one of America’s great Christian educators. Recently, while lecturing at an Ivy League law school, I met his great-grandson a pleasant young

What Can the Righteous Do?” (October 26, 1954) cr101radio.com/podcast/what-c… When the foundations seem destroyed and evil appears entrenched, Psalm 11 answers despair with faith: the righteous are not called to flee in fear but to trust

When Your Brothers Pick a Fight Judges 8:1–3 You've done the hard thing. The Lord has blessed it. The men who turn up for a row aren't your enemies — they're your brothers. cr101radio.com/podcast/season… Gideon's soft answer ends the wrath in three sentences. A divine if-then you can use this week. #Proverbs #Gideon #Manhood

Titanism cr101radio.com/podcast/titani… Titanism is the glorification of human effort that seeks to do the impossible, often disguising pride as virtue. Rooted in Greek mythology and revived by Romanticism, it celebrates defying limits, fate, and even God, treating

Charity Begins at Home cr101radio.com/podcast/charit… Twice recently friends asked my opinion of glamorous new “charities” their women’s groups had adopted causes I’ll call the Friends of the Whoopee Indians and the Christian Mission to Ivy League

Justice and Authority cr101radio.com/podcast/justic… This passage explores the origin and meaning of the word nag, tracing it from its Scandinavian roots meaning “to gnaw, bite, or burrow” to its modern sense of persistent, irritating talk or complaint. The

The Return to Barbarism cr101radio.com/podcast/the-re… Mrs. B___ lives in a lovely home in an elite neighborhood and prides herself on being a “good” liberal parent, insisting her teenagers bring home every sort of troubled classmate. When her house was