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Aug
01

What makes a Christian libertarian different?

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Scott and Kelly each submitted questions via the new FAQ page that are worth pointing out to everyone. Why not ask your own question?

What do Christian libertarians generally view as legitimate duties of the national government? Does this differ at all from “standard” libertarians?

Christian libertarians look at government in the same manner as other libertarians, but also use Scripture, Christian theological reasoning, and the Christian faith tradition to support such views. For most Christian libertarians, our aim is to show how natural rights and libertarian political theory coincide with proper ethics from a Christian perspective. Regarding the duties of national government, they consist of little to almost nothing. If government has any purpose at all, it is to protect the rights and property of individuals, and this only with the explicit consent of the governed. At most, this would include a court of final authority and protection. This would be considered the minarchist perspective, but many would go so far to say that any government that maintains a monopoly of force in law and protection will inevitably choose to abuse its power and become tyrannical. That is, even minarchism is doomed to failure in the long run. Many Christian libertarians believe this is consistent with the witness of Scripture as well, from ancient Egypt, to Babylon, to Rome, even to Israel when they had a king (see 1 Samuel 7).

Norman Horn

Norman is the founder and editor of LibertarianChristians.com. He holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Arts in Theological Studies from the Austin Graduate School of Theology.

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  • Douglas Douma

    Norman,

    Could you elaborate on “consent of the governed”? Would any legitimate government only govern over those who consented? In this case, is it really a government at all, or just a market service?

  • http://www.libertarianminds.com Steven Handel

    Even anarchocapitalists still believe in “government,” only they want laws, courts, and defense provided for by the market. Check out David Friedman's “The Machinery of Freedom.”

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  • http://www.facebook.com/srfinley Scott Finley

    Norman, Do you know of any systematic work showing basic compatibility of the standard Natural Rights libertarian ideas with Biblical Christianity. I feel like it should be pretty easy to start with the basic premise of Man's life and body being a direct gift from God and deriving basically the same ethical system as Rothbard does in “Ethics of Liberty” for example. I've been thinking of trying to write up something myself, but I'm not confident I've found everything thats out there…

  • http://libertarianchristians.com Norman Horn

    There hasn't been anything recently dedicated entirely to that effort,
    but the idea of natural rights being understood from Christian faith
    is not new by any means. It even goes back to the Catholic scholastic
    theologians, like Thomas Aquinas, if I recall correctly.

  • Douglas Douma

    Scott,

    My article (The Proper Origin of Rights) on this site attempts to do what you are asking about. However, rather than starting with life being a gift of God, I focus on Christian Ethics.

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