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Libertarian Christians

andrew

andrew

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Some questions came up in another thread about libertarianism and some specific political issues. Thought I'd post this link to the Libertarian Christian Institute for anyone who's interested in more information.

Full disclosure: I only became aware of LCI recently, so am not 'promoting' this based on personal knowledge as much as inviting y'all to join me in checking something new out. If anybody checks it out and you see something spectacularly awesome or egregiously awful, please let us know here.
 
Read this article on
Circumcision and the “War on Self-Pollution”
Quite a title there. I noticed when I went to link it here the author is a woman.

Some interesting and thought provoking history, and commentary in a well written article.
That's just my opinion on one article, but it looks like a site worth checking out, and I expect we will enjoy reading more.

Food for actual thought is getting rare these days!
 
According to Andrew Sandlin, an American theologian and author, Christian libertarianism is the view that mature individuals are permitted maximum freedom under God's law.[2] Courtesy of Wikipedia (though I hate to quote them, it seemed like a decent synopsis of the view.)

IMO, it all comes down to your view of which priesthood are you under? Levitical or Melchizedek? Under Levitical you are dependent on and subject to another mans interpretation and enforcement of God’s law. Under the Melchizedek, you have assumed your rightful, and God ordained position, as the head of your household and are answerable directly to God for your family without the middle man to take the heat if you’re doing something incorrectly.
 
@sun, I don't know what that guy is critiquing, but it isn't libertarianism, and he makes several "if/then" statements that are just silly. He either misunderstands or deliberately misrepresents "libertarian thinking", when he attempts to explain what he means by "libertarian thinking" or "libertarianism" at all.

Until somebody changes things, our government representatives are at least theoretically elected by the voters, and this is supposed to be a Constitutional Republic. The Libertarian Party is the best shot any candidate (any would-be representative) has of getting elected on a platform that endeavors to restore limited, Constitutional government. It's not perfect (no human institution is), but it's better than the rest.

The "American experiment" in limited government and individual liberty (remember: "where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty") is at risk, and likely to fail spectacularly in civil war or collapse of the central government if we don't turn it around. There may not be time to do that, as the growth of the prepper community (also represented here) and self-sufficiency movement hints at. The Republocrat party won't turn it around—they're part of the problem, or more accurately, the huge glaring political manifestation of our cultural problem, which begins in the home and in the relationship between men and women. And the other minor parties and startups don't have a chance at any real solution and are there mostly to make people feel better about voting.

The Libertarian Party has been experiencing phenomenal growth (membership and donations) over the past several years as more and more people are becoming "woke" to the seriousness of the problem, and it offers a real shot at becoming a new second party when one of the two majors collapses under the weight of its internal mismanagement and sheer hypocrisy. If anyone here wants to actually understand "libertarianism" or "libertarian thinking", start here.

(NB – Our state convention is next weekend, and the platform committee has proposed some excellent changes that will streamline the platform and make it a little punchier. If you're interested in checking that out, you can review here.)
 
Verifyveritas76 said:
According to Andrew Sandlin, an American theologian and author, Christian libertarianism is the view that mature individuals are permitted maximum freedom under God's law.[2] Courtesy of Wikipedia (though I hate to quote them, it seemed like a decent synopsis of the view.)

IMO, it all comes down to your view of which priesthood are you under? Levitical or Melchizedek? Under Levitical you are dependent on and subject to another mans interpretation and enforcement of God’s law. Under the Melchizedek, you have assumed your rightful, and God ordained position, as the head of your household and are answerable directly to God for your family without the middle man to take the heat if you’re doing something incorrectly.
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Mature men who are focused on the hard, dirty work of taking care of their own families tend to be less interested in the abstract self-righteous smugness of judging other people they don't know and aren't responsible for. The nation-state peaked in the 20th century, and millions of people killed by their own governments later, empowered by the technology of the internet, some of us are looking for a better way. The biggest part of what that way looks like is helping men to remember what being a man is supposed to be about, equipping them where they need a little extra help, and building tribes of competent men and their families. Not redistributing the wealth of the productive and meddling in foreign entanglements.

Central, bureaucratic, corporate government is soulless and corrupt, and it corrupts those who taste its power and crushes the individuals that it sees only as abstractions. But starting with the individual man, then the family, then clusters of families, building from the ground up, we can restore loving servant leadership to the body of Christ first, and then to the society in which we are supposed to be salt and light. That is my task; that's where you'll find me.
 
I voted Constitution party in the last presidential race—not because the party is substantially better than another 3rd party but because Daryl Castle was the only Christian man on my ballot (as determined the best that I could by judging the fruit of mens’s lives)
And only 7000 others in Colorado voted with me. Which I got a kick out of:

But what is the divine response to him? “ I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
Romans 11:4

But I have no illusions. The train is barreling down and has jumped the tracks. Arguing who the engineer should be at this point is fun but unproductive. In fact, we should pray that our enemy is at the controls so that responsibility will fall upon him and his party. (Just look at the damage that Obama did to the liberal/progressive movement. Nationwide, Democrats lost in excess of 7000 seats under Obama)

I am a Christian Reconstructionist. Without fail, the biblical model is first a falling away from God, God does one thing specifically when He judges a nation—He gives them over to lust, specifically, homosexual relations. And we are there. Not universally, but heading there. Evidenced by one thing I can’t ignore—I can’t tell male from female in so many cases.

Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.
Romans 1:24-27

So first comes destruction. But not for the faithful and the obedient—God always preserves them. So be counted as one. Be the head of the household counted as faithful. Vote faithfully regardless if your candidate “stands a chance.” Pleasing God is more important. God doesn’t ask us to compromise and we can’t expect Him to bless compromise.

Then comes reconstruction. This work can and should begin now. It should start within each of us. The renewing of the mind and the spirit. And then we build. First, we raise godly offspring. Then we give them the Christian heritage to live a life pleasing to God. Then we give them the means to fight an ungodly culture and anti-Christian government—wealth.

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, And the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.
Proverbs 13:22

I have this verse engraved on the JAE stock of a custom M1A. Someday, one of my progeny will need to use it to do justice and righteousness. And he or she may never know me, but they will remember me and praise the Lord for His providence.

So build. Build the kingdom. First the family. Then the Christian community. Then your town, your county, your state and ever-outward.

Just my .02.
 
andrew said:
I don't know what that guy is critiquing, but it isn't libertarianism, and he makes several "if/then" statements that are just silly.
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IMO, He wasn't realy critiquing anything in the article but rather trying to create a platform for Calvinist Apologetics.
 
Barry said:
A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, And the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.
Proverbs 13:22

I have this verse engraved on the JAE stock of a custom M1A. Someday, one of my progeny will need to use it to do justice and righteousness. And he or she may never know me, but they will remember me and praise the Lord for His providence.
Click to expand...

We see among the patriarchs of scripture this same forward thinking toward one’s descendants. Looking to be a good father, not just to your children, but also to your children’s children’s children’s children! I like it :)
 
Thank you. Yes, I do believe we are encouraged to be future oriented. The Gospel is entirely future oriented— the mustard seed that becomes a tree so large that ALL birds rest in it.
 
Kevin said:
He wasn't realy critiquing anything in the article but rather trying to create a platform for Calvinist Apologetics.
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This is exactly it. From the moment he trotted out the straw man of Pelagianism I knew it would be all down hill from there. It wasn't a serious critique of libertarianism; he didn't even bother defining it or revealing its presuppositions. It's likely he doesn't even understand it. Just intellectual posturing.

andrew said:
The Libertarian Party has been experiencing phenomenal growth (membership and donations) over the past several years as more and more people are becoming "woke" to the seriousness of the problem, and it offers a real shot at becoming a new second party when one of the two majors collapses under the weight of its internal mismanagement and sheer hypocrisy.
Click to expand...

It will be the GOP to change/morph/die out. The Dem's are well on the way to becoming a socialist immigrant/minority party with nothing in sight to check that. But the Libertarians only have a shot at being the GOP replacement if they can adopt a nationalist America First platform. Border wall, clamped down immigration, and tariffs to protect American jobs. It was not for nothing that Trump managed to flip a swath of rust belt, Obama voting, middle Americans.
 
rockfox said:
It will be the GOP to change/morph/die out. The Dem's are well on the way to becoming a socialist immigrant/minority party with nothing in sight to check that.
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Possibly, but I'm not sure the Dems are as healthy and unified as you portray them. The way I see things, there are deep divisions within them. I count no less than four different ideological factions on the left. Sometimes they overlap, but often they are opposed. These are broad brushes, of course, and you can probably break it down quite further.

1. You've got your basic Neoliberal, many of which are associated with Hillary, corporate corruption, elitism, and war hawking. This group seems to be falling out of favor, and many more extreme Dems consider them basically no better than (neo-con) Republicans.

2. Economic Socialists. This is your Bernie Bro, tax the rich, free college for all, universal health care crowd. Sieze the means of production! They feel deeply betrayed by group 1, who they blame for stealing the election.

3. "Progressive" Cultural Warriors. Smash the Patriarchy, down with Whitey, and Bash the Fasch. This is a vast swath of guilt-laden college educated middle class people. There's a lot of overlap between 2 and 3, but also between 1 and 3, and probably a lot of 3 that disagrees with both 1 and 2. In some ways, these were the pawns that Bernie and Hilary were fighting over. This group is also prone to purity spiraling, and eating there own.

4. "Classical Liberals". These are basically the left's version of libertarian, and the left has been hemmoraging them like crazy. Free speech is a big issue with them right now. They don't really like the Right, but as individualists, they also don't agree with the Marxist lenses of 2 or 3, and they see 1 as basically corrupt out of touch elites, so many of them ended up voting Trump for lack of anything better. They feel abandoned by the left (who calls them Nazi sympathizers), but it's likely some would return to it if there were a non-corrupt, non-marxist Dem candidate running against, say, an evangelical Republican. OTOH, a lot of these are probably among the newly "woke" ones that @andrew alludes to, contributing to the Libertarian Party's growth.
 
You forgot #5 which is basically various minorities which vote along ethnic lines first and foremost. To the extent they are ideological, which they are not at their core, they are a mix of free money #2 and down with Whitey #3.

The Neocons and Neolibersal were the real power center of the bifactional ruling party and are being made irrelevant on both sides of the aisle. They're quickly loosing control of both bases and their only true power left is the deep state. It's not a done deal yet but #5 means their ability to retain control of the DNC long term is highly questionable. The problem is #4 is leaving; which leaves #1 all the more isolated and with no real weapon against the identity politics of their base.

2-5 will permanently marginalize #4, which could end up in a new center party along with the neocons/newlibs. But if the US devolves completely into identity politics they will end up in the new GOP. That is most likely as I see no indication of the left standing down from the identity politics game.

The problem for the Libertarians is they are an uneasy coalition of Left and Right which will always be unstable and somewhat contradictory. If this was a parliamentary system I'd expect the L party to partner with the new Center. But our system isn't set up for that. Which is the problem, our system basically lends itself to a 2 party system so it is very hard for a 3rd party to succeed.
 
Kevin said:
IMO, He wasn't realy critiquing anything in the article but rather trying to create a platform for Calvinist Apologetics.
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Which makes his article, and much of the elements of Reconstructionism (not bashing you Barry) distasteful to me. Yes, we can have Christians in government, but to mold the secular government into a theocracy is dangerous ground to tread. It will never leave room for the free thinker and counter culturalist.

I will stand by me proposition that I would rather live as a hard core Christian in a free, secular nation, than as a hard core Christian in a Christian theocracy. Just ask the families who have been shunned and kicked out of their "Christian, bible believing" churches how contrarian thought works out in a theocracy.

Hard-core Calvinist doctrine relies upon a neatly packaged box. Everything about God is able to fit inside of it. All the answers are inside of that box. When something outside of that box (libertarian thought) challenges it on moral, philosophical, and theological grounds, there is no room in the box to accommodate it, so it is rejected as being counterfeit to the box's dimensions...rejected. God is bigger than a box.

I'm not trying to bash Reformed folks. I have huge respect for them.
 
Mojo said:
Which makes his article, and much of the elements of Reconstructionism (not bashing you Barry) distasteful to me. Yes, we can have Christians in government, but to mold the secular government into a theocracy is dangerous ground to tread. It will never leave room for the free thinker and counter culturalist.

I will stand by me proposition that I would rather live as a hard core Christian in a free, secular nation, than as a hard core Christian in a Christian theocracy. Just ask the families who have been shunned and kicked out of their "Christian, bible believing" churches how contrarian thought works out in a theocracy.

Hard-core Calvinist doctrine relies upon a neatly packaged box. Everything about God is able to fit inside of it. All the answers are inside of that box. When something outside of that box (libertarian thought) challenges it on moral, philosophical, and theological grounds, there is no room in the box to accommodate it, so it is rejected as being counterfeit to the box's dimensions...rejected. God is bigger than a box.

I'm not trying to bash Reformed folks. I have huge respect for them.
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All governments are theocracies.
Please let me explain: governments must enforce laws. The source of those laws are the de facto god of that society and define the culture.
Secular humanists borrow heavily from judeo-Christian law origins simply because they are pragmatic—but they claim the source of law as man. Therefore, the humanist government is just as theocratic as any other, their god being man himself.
And so if you will acknowledge the authority of law, then you accept that authority as god for you.
I simply prefer that my laws be just and tend toward the establishment of righteousness, and there is only one standard by which that may and will happen—if those laws be the same as those delivered by God Himself to His people for their liberty and edification.
 
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