On Faith: Can a Christian be a libertarian?

[awake]

What would Jesus do? I think his lessons were clear: 'Thou shall not kill, lie and steal, the government hates competition'. Libertarianisim syncs up closely with Christianity there is a definite compatibility.

 

[tremendoustie]

Can a Christian be anything but a libertarian?

I'd say yes, but not if they're consistent.

 

[Southron]

I like that article. The main problem I have with many libertarians is that they come off as moral antinomians or libertines.

 

[LibertyEagle]

// oops, wrong thread. lol

 

[Miss Annie]

Whenever someone at church asks me this my reply is always, "when is the last time Christ forced you to do anything."

Exactly! God gives us free will, so should the government!

 

[EllisIslandNJ]

Always glad to have this discussion when it comes up.

Over the years, I've found the Acton Institute to be a great resource:

http://www.acton.org

 

[robert9712000]

Libertarianism is the closest in my opinion that matches the spirit of God.

To me there are many realms of thinking that confuse a persons mind about there role on Earth as a Christian

1. The first is the Zionist view that as a christian i should be compelled to establish Israels prominence on earth.Theres many flaws with that.The most basic one is the Golden Rule.Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you.Alot of Christians are so zealous to back Israel they dont care about right or wrong or if others are trampled in the process(mainly the Palestinians)which is in contrast to the Golden rule.
The second flaw in the Zionist way of thinking is that Israel is the most important thing in Gods plan here on earth.While the Jews are Gods chosen people it was only for the purpose to have them be the original seed on earth to establish the word of God.It was not Gods will for Israel to always be Gods system to express his Spirit on earth The Pre-Christ time of Israel was the period where believers(Jews) were under the Law and thus subjected to the style of teaching, where like a parent teaches a child,the people are told to do this ,dont do that because i say so.That system gave the Israel Government authority over the people as a means to teach the spirit of God through laws that they enforced and establish the Temple to make sacrifice for the atonement of sin.

After Christ came we were given the Holy Spirit which took away the need for a centralized platform to express the spirit of God to the world.That started the second stage in Gods plan (which is to raise the people up to be like minded as Him).With the aid of the Holy Spirit we now have the word in our heart and are no longer in need of a teacher to bring us to righteousness.We also have no need for a temple to atone for sin because of Christs resurrection.

This is what brings us to Libertarianism,for now that the Spirit of God is indwelled in us, we have no need for a centralized Government to teach the people righteousness.Through this new system man is given free will through the Spirit to determine for themselves what is right and wrong,thus making themselves responsible for what they do in there life.This idea is why its not Gods will for there to be laws dictating morals, for God will be the only Judge now of the motives of a mans heart.It also goes against preemptive laws.For man alone now has personal responsibility for there actions

.The only responsibility now of Government is to protect life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

 

[nasaal]

People of any background can be libertarian. I'm not exactly a libertarian but fairly close and I'm a Muslim. The idea that we have our own choices, consequences, and responsibilities resonates with free minded people. Some don't buy into it and that is because they prefer others to deal with the problems. That is their right and choice, but very dangerous thinking. I wish we could stop doing the grouping thing. I know politics is infused with this group mentality disorder that comes from our past. The beautiful thing about libertarian ideals is that they are so truly universal and without discrimination. That people with completely different spiritual beliefs can be truly one on the view of the role of government and personal responsibility. This is a beautiful thing that I hope doesn't become another tool for the religious right.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. - 2 Corinthians 3:17

 

[Created4]

If anyone has done any reading of Francis Schaeffer, you will see that historically the church is usually last in adopting cultural shifts. Therefore, I would not expect too much from the established church denominations today in terms of understanding libertarianism, as they are thoroughly entrenched in ideology that they believe is biblical, which in fact is not.

One of those issues is authoritarianism. The centralized authoritarian structures such as the papacy does not exert nearly the power that it did in the past, obviously, but the European forces during the reformation did not reform all the much in the area of authoritarian thinking. The "priest" which is in direct violation of scripture, especially Hebrews 7, was simply replaced with another non-biblical office of the "pastor." While there are some authoritarian teachings in the New Testament regarding "apostles," there is none in terms of leadership within the local churches. The local churches were led by "elders" selected from within the community. No priest (Christ is our High Priest), and no pastors (Christ is our one pastor). Every individual in the church has direct access to God without these authoritarian intermediaries.

If anyone is interested in learning more on this, here is an article just published for Christmas: http://created4health.org/devotionals/Only-One-Pastor.htm

 

[givemeliberty2010]

I'm a Reformed Christian who is not a Reconstructionist/Dominionist, but since I am aware of these issues, I have to disagree with you. Reconstructionists are non-interventionists and the vast majority of them are Ron Paul supporters or Constitution Party guys.

Which proves what? Being non-interventionist or a Ron Paul supporter doen't make one a libertarian.

 

[tremendoustie]

People of any background can be libertarian. I'm not exactly a libertarian but fairly close and I'm a Muslim. The idea that we have our own choices, consequences, and responsibilities resonates with free minded people. Some don't buy into it and that is because they prefer others to deal with the problems. That is their right and choice, but very dangerous thinking. I wish we could stop doing the grouping thing. I know politics is infused with this group mentality disorder that comes from our past. The beautiful thing about libertarian ideals is that they are so truly universal and without discrimination. That people with completely different spiritual beliefs can be truly one on the view of the role of government and personal responsibility. This is a beautiful thing that I hope doesn't become another tool for the religious right.

Of course! The question wasn't, "If you're libertarian do you have to be Christian", but, "If you're Christian can you (or must you be) libertarian".

I'm very happy that people of all different faiths, and no faith, can respect each other's rights, and I hope someday to live in a society where that's the norm.

 

[givemeliberty2010]

The Bible is almost completely apathetic about politics and the role of government--the relationship of free will and matters of the "spirit" to free will and matters of non-violent physical activities.

 

[Czolgosz]

labels =

 

[jmdrake]

+rep on the thread. Great article!

 

[tremendoustie]

The Bible is almost completely apathetic about politics and the role of government--the relationship of free will and matters of the "spirit" to free will and matters of non-violent physical activities.

Really, it comes down to two options:

1. Whatever government you find yourself under, God ordained it, so they can do no wrong, normal moral standards don't apply to them, and you should just obey (has huge logical problems .. e.g. what counts as a government, what about Hitler, etc, etc).

2. The same moral standards apply to the behavior of folks in government, as apply to average people's behavior (has huge sociopolitical ramifications).

I'm in the latter group. I think most Christians either don't think much about it, or split the difference.

 

[givemeliberty2010]

Really, it comes down to two options:

1. Whatever government you find yourself under, God ordained it, so they can do no wrong, normal moral standards don't apply to them, and you should just obey (has huge logical problems .. e.g. what counts as a government, what about Hitler, etc, etc).

2. The same moral standards apply to the behavior of folks in government, as apply to average people's behavior (has huge sociopolitical ramifications).

I'm in the latter group. I think most Christians either don't think much about it, or split the difference.

I'm in the latter group, too, but I think some statements in the Bible come close to endorsing the former's view.. I also don't think the Bible's authors ever expected the role of government to be a point of contention among believers.

 

[BKom]

I'm a Reformed Christian who is not a Reconstructionist/Dominionist, but since I am aware of these issues, I have to disagree with you. Reconstructionists are non-interventionists and the vast majority of them are Ron Paul supporters or Constitution Party guys.

I understand that you'd want to disagree. And I'm aware that some reconstructionists are Ron Paul supporters, and that bothers me to no end. In fact, maybe the most famous current reconstructionist is Gary North. Gary actually worked in Ron's congressional office a few decades ago. And that has always bothered me as well. And yes, many are members of the theocratic constitution party, which is completely misnamed if you've ever read their charter. If they are constitutionalists, it's their view that the document applies to them, but not to anyone whose religion disagrees with them.

"Christian Reconstructionism arose as an ideology among conservative Calvinists. The movement in its modern form was founded in the United States of America, popularized by Rousas John Rushdoony, in his work The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), though to an extent it had its beginnings in the colonial governments of early New England (especially that of the Massachusetts Bay colony). Other past and present Reconstructionist leaders include Gary North (Rushdoony's son-in-law), Howard Ahmanson, Jr., Greg Bahnsen, David Chilton, Gary DeMar, Kenneth Gentry, and Andrew Sandlin.

Reconstructionist believe in free markets, but only in economics. Christian Reconstructionists make no pretense of subscribing to the pluralistic ideals of religious tolerance (derided as "Political Polytheism", by author Gary North, in a book of that name), because this would require them to accept a non-Biblical source of ethical standards. They envision a future in which non-Christians will eventually be relatively few in number and surrender the public square to Christian rule."

Let me know if any of the above is incorrect. Then tell me they're not dominionists.

 

[sailingaway]

Always glad to have this discussion when it comes up.

Over the years, I've found the Acton Institute to be a great resource:

http://www.acton.org

welcome to the forums!

 

[Akus]

I think libertarian is the only political philosophy that lines up with Christianity.

I was going to say something to that effect but you stole my thunder.....