Easy Chair No. 147, May 26, 1987 - The Tree of Hate, Dr. Philip Wayne Powell

Faith in Action

She summed it up in one sentence: “You take it, Lord it’s too much for me.” In a hospital hallway, amid stories of grief piled on grief, that simple act of trust revealed what real faith looks like. Too often we treat worry as virtue, putting on a public display of anxiety as if God needs our fretting to do His job. But Scripture calls anxiety a sign of little faith, not deep concern. Real peace comes when we stop second-guessing God, apply His Word, seek faithful solutions, and place the weight where it belongs. Sometimes the most powerful prayer is the simplest one: Lord, You take it.

Rationalism and Tyranny

Rationalism treats reason as ultimate, impersonal, and nonhistorical, reducing God to a logical concept rather than the living Lord who reveals Himself in history. By denying God’s incomprehensibility and replacing revelation with human reason, rationalism elevates intellectual elites as arbiters of truth. Historically, this leads not to freedom but to tyranny, as “philosopher-kings” claim authority over others deemed less rational. Biblical faith, by contrast, grounds knowledge in God’s self-revelation and affirms all men as image-bearers under God’s law limiting power, resisting tyranny, and ordering life by obedience rather than domination.

Mathematics (Educational Christian Faith) (Remastered)

This session argues that mathematics is inherently religious, not neutral, because every fact, number, and law of logic exists within a God-created order and bears witness to its Creator. Rejecting the Enlightenment myth of autonomous reason, it shows that mathematics depends on the biblical solution to the problem of the one and the many, resolved only in the doctrine of the Trinity, without which numbers collapse either into meaningless unity or chaotic plurality. Modern “new math” and relativistic science are exposed as deliberate attempts to deny a pre-established world, enthroning man as creator and reducing mathematics to a mental game detached from reality, truth, and meaning. Against this, the Christian position insists that the order of the human mind corresponds to the order of the physical world because both are created by the same sovereign God, making mathematical truth possible, intelligible, and applicable. The conclusion is stark and practical: mathematics must be taught as part of God’s revealed order, not as an atheistic abstraction, because when numbers are divorced from God, they lose meaning, coherence, and ultimately their power to explain or govern the world. #BiblicalWorldview #PhilosophyOfMathematics #NoNeutralFacts #TheOneAndTheMany #TrinitarianFoundation #ChristianEducation #AgainstNewMath #GodCreatedOrder #FaithAndReason #AllTruthIsGods

What Aren’t They Telling Us?

James 4:1 asks a question most Christians apply only to personal quarrels: "From whence come wars and fightings among you?" But what if that same diagnostic — that conflicts are rooted in sinful passions and lusts — applies not just to family disputes but to the wars between nations that have defined the modern era? In this episode of Out of the Question, Andrea Schwartz and Pastor Charles Roberts argue that Christians who refuse to apply biblical categories to geopolitical conflict are left defenseless against manufactured narratives and engineered crises. The conversation traces a pattern from the interpersonal to the international: just as a parent asks "who instigated this?" when children fight, so Scripture demands we ask who benefits when nations go to war. Drawing on historical examples — from the circumstances surrounding Pearl Harbor to the pretexts for Germany's invasion of Poland, to the uncomfortable reality that the same financial interests often fund opposing sides of a conflict — Schwartz and Roberts make the case that wars redistribute wealth and power in predictable ways, and that those who profit from conflict have every incentive to perpetuate it. The problem, they argue, is not merely ignorance but a truncated theology that reduces the Bible to a personal salvation manual and cedes public life to autonomous human reasoning. The episode challenges listeners to move beyond both naive patriotism and cynical resignation. If Psalm 2 tells us that rulers conspire together against the Lord, and Psalm 127 tells us that unless the Lord builds the house the laborers work in vain, then the Christian's responsibility is not to retreat into pietism but to bring every institution — family, church, and state — under the governance of God's law. Listeners are pointed to Rushdoony's commentary on James, his *Christianity and the State*, and the *Faith in Action* and *Informed Faith* essay collections as resources for thinking more deeply. This is a conversation for anyone ready to ask the questions behind the questions.

Faith

Some people treat faith like a possession something comforting, personal, and safe while others find that faith has taken hold of them and refuses to let go. One faith comforts; the other compels. When faith becomes a living fire within us, it demands obedience, growth, and sacrifice, often making us uncomfortable but always drawing us forward. True faith points beyond ourselves to God’s will and His Kingdom, governing our lives rather than sitting quietly among our belongings. The real question is not whether you have faith but whether your faith has you.