Is Conservatism Enough Without Christ? (guest Mike Groenewold)

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.