David Theroux at the Independent Institute has written an excellent article called Secular Theocracy. You will see many references to C.S. Lewis in the article as well.

It’s funny that after my Washington Post article, I have seen a number of new articles popping up at notable websites such as Relevant Magazine talking about Christian libertarianism. Unfortunately, they rarely seem to link to LibertarianChristians.com or even to the Washington Post article. But more importantly, Christianity and liberty are being talked about together like never before (at least, perhaps not in this generation). This is an exciting development and I think I can safely say that LibertarianChristians.com is a contributor to this trend.

Now for the sad news. We are told that justice should be blind, but we know it never is. Sometimes, though, you cannot help but be mortified by the American justice system. This is what we learned about justice this week:

Run the file-sharing website MegaUpload: get up to 50 years in prison.

Rape and murder one woman: 20 years.

Murder 24 civilians: demotion… and maybe 3 months.

And people wonder why we criticize the State.

Let’s close with a quote from Murray Rothbard:

"The idea of a strictly limited constitutional State was a noble experiment that failed, even under the most favorable and propitious circumstances. If it failed then, why should a similar experiment fare any better now? No, it is the conservative laissez-fairist, the man who puts all the guns and all the decision-making power into the hands of the central government and then says, ‘Limit yourself’; it is he who is truly the impractical utopian."

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

News of the Week: On Secular Theocracy and Sentencing.

Wikipedia, along with thousands of other sites, are protesting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) because these two bills pose some of the most egregious violations of property rights one could imagine. In essence, the federal government would gain the power to censor almost anything at a whim. People were offended when the Feds talked about an internet “kill switch” – Egypt-style – but this is like putting an individual kill switch on every web site hosted on a server in the United States. It is bone-chillingly draconian and utterly barbaric.

If you are unaware of this legislation, please take a few moments to learn more. Wikipedia has a special page dedicated to the protest.

Here is a useful video by one of my favorite YouTube channels that deals with online culture, KnowYourMeme.com.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Today is Internet Blackout Day

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), more popularly known as Obamacare, passed the Senate on Christmas Eve of 2009, passed the House on March 21, 2010, and was signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010. It was one of the most controversial and partisan pieces of legislation in history, with no Republican in either house of Congress voting in favor of the 2407-page bill (H.R. 3590 [PDF]).

The onerous provisions of the PPACA include an expansion of Medicaid eligibility, the prohibition of annual and lifetime coverage caps, the elimination of co-payments and deductibles for selected health-insurance benefits, guaranteed issue of insurance policies without regard to preexisting conditions, federal subsidies for the purchase of health insurance, employer mandates, more arcane insurance regulations, an increase in the Medicare tax on the “rich,” and a tax on indoor tanning services. Perhaps the most egregious part of Obamacare is the “individual mandate” that every American not covered by Medicaid, Medicare, or health insurance must purchase health insurance or pay a penalty.

Within hours of the passage of Obamacare, the attorney general of Florida, Bill McCollum, and the attorneys general of twelve other states (Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Washington), filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida against the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Treasury, and Labor, and their respective department secretaries, Kathleen Sebelius, Timothy Geithner, and Hilda L. Solis, challenging the constitutionality of the individual mandate.

The lawsuit was later joined by the attorneys general of thirteen other states (Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Wyoming), the National Federation of Independent Business, and two individuals, Mary Brown and Kaj Ahlburg.

On January 31, 2011, Judge Roger Vinson of the U.S. District Court in Pensacola struck down the Obamacare mandate, declaring, “The individual mandate is outside Congress’ Commerce Clause power, and it cannot be otherwise authorized by an assertion of power under the Necessary and Proper Clause. It is not Constitutional” (PDF). He said further,

The defendants’ argument that people without health insurance are actively engaged in interstate commerce based on the purported “unique” features of the much broader health care market is neither factually convincing nor legally supportable.

Because I find both the “uniqueness” and “economic decision” arguments unpersuasive, I conclude that the individual mandate seeks to regulate economic inactivity, which is the very opposite of economic activity. And because activity is required under the Commerce Clause, the individual mandate exceeds Congress’ commerce power, as it is understood, defined, and applied in the existing Supreme Court case law.

And because Judge Vinson reasoned that “the Constitutionality of the individual mandate is the crux of this entire case,” and “because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable,” he also ruled that “the entire Act must be declared void.”

The judge then ruled on March 3 that he would honor the Obama administration’s request that his ruling be stayed while the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Atlanta, reviewed the case. He also expressed interest in the Supreme Court hearing the case because “the sooner this issue is finally decided by the Supreme Court, the better off the entire nation will be.”

After an official appeal by the government on March 8, the Atlanta appellate court, by a 2–1 vote on August 12, affirmed the judgment of Judge Vinson in a 207-page opinion that the individual mandate was unconstitutional, but rejected his argument that the mandate was not severable from the rest of the PPACA, thus rendering the rest of Obamacare “legally operative” (PDF).

On September 28, the state plaintiffs (PDF), the National Federation of Independent Business (PDF), and the Obama administration (PDF) each filed a cert petition asking the Supreme Court to hear the case. The Obama administration also issued a statement through Stephanie Cutter, assistant to the president and deputy senior advisor, affirming the constitutionality of the PPACA and expressing confidence that the Supreme Court will agree.

But Florida et al. v. Department of Health and Human Services et al. is not the only lawsuit against Obamacare. Since the PPACA was passed, there have been twenty-five other court challenges to the new health care law.

Besides the Florida case, there are two other cases where the individual mandate of Obamacare was declared unconstitutional.

In Virginia v. Sebelius, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia struck down the individual-mandate provision of the law on December 13, 2010. Said Judge Henry Hudson, “Neither the Supreme Court nor any federal circuit court of appeals has extended Commerce Clause powers to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market.” But the government appealed the decision in the 4th circuit court of appeals, in Richmond, which ruled unanimously on September 8, 2011, that the district-court judgment be vacated and the case remanded back to that court to be dismissed “for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction,” because the plaintiff lacks standing.

In Goudy-Bachman v. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania ruled on September 13, 2011, that the individual mandate is unconstitutional. Judge Christopher Connor wrote that allowing the individual mandate to stand “would effectively sanction Congress’s exercise of police power under the auspices of the Commerce Clause, jeopardizing the integrity of our dual sovereignty structure.”

In six other cases, the constitutionality of Obamacare was upheld. Three of them were also heard at the appeals court level.

In Liberty University v. Geithner, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia dismissed the case on November 30, 2010. On appeal, the fourth circuit court of appeals, by a vote of 2–1 on September 8, 2011, vacated the judgment of the district court and remanded the case back to that court to be dismissed “for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction” because the individual mandate is a tax that cannot be challenged in court until it is collected, which will not be until 2014.

In Thomas More Law Center v. Obama, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan dismissed the case on October 7, 2010. On appeal, the sixth circuit court of appeals ruled, by a vote of 2–1 on June 29, 2011, that Congress has a “rational basis” to impose the individual mandate, and the court upheld the constitutionality of the PPACA.

In Seven-Sky & American Center for Law and Justice v. Holder, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the case on February 22, 2011. The decision of the D.C. circuit court of appeals is pending.

Nine other cases were dismissed by district courts for lack of standing or procedural problems. One of these cases, New Jersey Physicians v. Obama, was also heard by the third circuit court of appeals, which upheld the district court ruling. Two of the nine cases, Baldwin & Pacific Justice Institute v. Sebelius and Kinder v. Geithner, are pending at the appeals-court level.

Eight cases are still pending at the district-court level.

All these cases basically come down to the question of the “individual mandate” versus the “commerce clause.” In general, liberal judges appointed by Democratic presidents view the mandate as constitutional, while conservative judges appointed by Republican presidents view the mandate as unconstitutional. Both groups err, but in different respects.

The commerce clause is the most abused part of the Constitution. It has been used by the federal government to increase its power over the states and their citizens and to decrease the power of the states and their citizens. It has been used to force farmers to destroy crops and pay a fine for growing “too much” wheat (Wickard v. Filburn). It has also been used to criminalize marijuana for medical use even where states approve its use (Gonzales v. Raich). All the commerce clause says is that Congress has the power “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”

During the health-care debates back in 2009, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was asked by CNS News where the Constitution authorizes Congress to order Americans to purchase health insurance. Her response was simply, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” She answered no further, and took another question. Her press secretary then said that asking Pelosi where the Constitution authorized Congress to mandate that individual Americans buy health insurance was not a “serious question.”

Pelosi’s office has issued a statement on the “Constitutionality of Health Insurance Reform” in which she does answer the question:

The Constitution gives Congress broad power to regulate activities that have an effect on interstate commerce. Congress has used this authority to regulate many aspects of American life, from labor relations to education to health care to agricultural production. Since virtually every aspect of the health care system has an effect on interstate commerce, the power of Congress to regulate health care is essentially unlimited.

In the early history of the American republic, as Judge Vinson points out in his decision striking down Obamacare, “The word ‘commerce’ was understood to encompass trade, and the intercourse, traffic, or exchange of goods; in short, ‘the activities of buying and selling that come after production and before the goods come to rest’” (PDF). Not manufacturing, not mining, not agriculture, not insurance, not medical care.

Nowhere, as Judge Vinson further points out, “in Madison’s notes on the Constitutional Convention and in The Federalist” is the term “commerce” “ever used to refer unambiguously to activity beyond trade or exchange.” Any member of the federal judiciary should be familiar with this.

Obamacare is unconstitutional because health care and health insurance are not commerce, are not interstate commerce, and are not relevant to the commerce clause.

According to Madison — the father of the Constitution — the commerce clause

grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court, as Judge Vinson summarized from U.S. v. Lopez (1995), has “identified three broad categories of activity that Congress may regulate under its commerce power”:

First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce. Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities. Finally, Congress’ commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.

But even under the widest possible interpretation of the commerce clause, the individual mandate is still unconstitutional. In the PPACA, Congress has assumed the power to create commerce by forcing individuals to purchase health insurance and to regulate inactivity by penalizing individuals for not doing so. Obamacare moves the country closer to a single-payer system; that is, socialized medicine, something that Democrats in Congress have sought to institute since the presidency of Harry Truman.

When the Supreme Court decides to rule on the constitutionality of Obamacare, it will have to decide two questions: whether the individual mandate is constitutional, and whether it is severable from the rest of the health care law.

There is something far more important, however, that the Supreme Court will not be deciding: whether Congress has the authority to legislate concerning health care in the first place.

Nancy Pelosi’s aforementioned “Constitutionality of Health Insurance Reform” says

Reform opponents continue to spread myths about components of America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, including the nonsensical claim that the federal government has no constitutionally valid role in reforming our health care system — apparently ignoring the validity of Medicare and other popular federal health reforms.

The federal judges who found the individual mandate unconstitutional actually agree with Pelosi on this point. Here is Judge Vinson in his original decision that declared Obamacare unconstitutional:

For the reasons stated, I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate. That is not to say, of course, that Congress is without power to address the problems and inequities in our health care system. The health care market is more than one sixth of the national economy, and without doubt Congress has the power to reform and regulate this market. That has not been disputed in this case. The principal dispute has been about how Congress chose to exercise that power here. (PDF)

And here are Judges Joel Dubina and Frank Hull of the 11th circuit court of appeals in Atlanta, stating that although the individual mandate is unconstitutional, Congress still has broad power to legislate concerning health care:

We conclude that the individual mandate contained in the Act exceeds Congress’s enumerated commerce power. This conclusion is limited in scope. The power that Congress has wielded via the Commerce Clause for the life of this country remains undiminished. Congress may regulate commercial actors. It may forbid certain commercial activity. It may enact hundreds of new laws and federally-funded programs, as it has elected to do in this massive 975-page Act. But what Congress cannot do under the Commerce Clause is mandate that individuals enter into contracts with private insurance companies for the purchase of an expensive product from the time they are born until the time they die. (PDF)

As demonstrated at length throughout our opinion, Congress has broad power to deal with the problems of the uninsured, and it wielded that power pervasively in this comprehensive and sweeping Act. As to the individual mandate provision, however, Congress exceeded its enumerated commerce power.

Because the belief that government should intervene in some way into health care is so pervasive and systemic, the question of whether Congress has the authority to legislate concerning health care was not and will not be considered by any federal court. And that is unfortunate, because strict constitutionalists recognize that the Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government to have anything to do with health care or health insurance.

The Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government to provide a health-care safety net, a prescription drug plan, vaccinations, medical treatment, or health insurance subsidies.

The Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government to ensure that everyone has access to affordable health care or insurance, to eliminate co-payments and deductibles, or to guarantee issue of insurance policies without regard to preexisting conditions.

The Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government to fund clinical trials, laboratories, community health centers, medical research, or family planning.

The Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government to mandate medical licensing or force hospitals to treat anyone regardless of their ability to pay.

The Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government to have programs like Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, or HIV/AIDS prevention initiatives.

The Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government to have agencies like the National Institutes of Health, the FDA, or the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government to regulate hospitals, nursing homes, the health-insurance industry, pharmaceutical companies, organ sales or donations, medical devices, medical schools, physicians, dentists, nurses, midwives, psychiatrists, psychologists, pharmacists, or practitioners of holistic, chiropractic, homeopathic, nutritional, or other forms of alternative medicine.

Libertarians, of course, also recognize that not only are these things unconstitutional, they are beyond the purpose and scope of a government limited to the protection of life, liberty, and property.

The Supreme Court may overturn the individual mandate or the whole of Obamacare, but neither of those actions will restore a free market in health care.

Originally published at The Future of Freedom Foundation on October 11, 2011.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

The Supreme Court and Obamacare

The details on this story are very sparse, and the phrasing of the reports are very upsetting. A woman, Andrea Abbott, was traveling with her teenage daughter (exact age unknown) from Nashville to Baltimore. When it came time to go through the naked scanner, she refused for both her and her daughter. The woman’s "stearn [sic] voice" and "attitude" was an affront to the TSA thug named Sabrina Birge. Birge apparently has the equivalent of an advanced degree in physics and has had access to study the scanners which no other scientist has been given, because she informed Abbott that the millimeter-wave scanner is "10,000 times safer than your cell phone." Either that, or Birge believes everything her superiors tell her despite ample evidence that they lie and don’t protect the health of their own employees.

The heroic Abbott stood fast, stating, "I still don’t want someone to see our bodies naked.” This of course meant that a pat-down would be issued for both her and her daughter, which Abbott refused to consent to. From her own words, she clearly believes the pat-downs to be molestation and she wanted to protect her daughter.

This is where the details get fuzzy because, all of a sudden, Abbott did an about-face and "allowed" the pat-down of her daughter. It seems much more likely that she was threatened and bullied to the point where she was worn down. Knowing that something very wrong was happening, Abbott decided she should record the events and pulled out her cell-phone to do so. The TSA then — illegally, to my knowledge — ordered her to put her cell phone away, so there is unfortunately no video of this injustice. For obvious reasons, this upset Abbott and her "yelling" prompted the brave TSA guys-and-gals-in-blue to feel so threatened that they had her arrested.

No word yet on whether Southwest Airlines refunded her ticket or posted her bail, but, based on their poor track record, I’m inclined to think that Southwest did not show any support for this poor mother. The media has decided to paint this woman as unstable and plaster an unflattering arrest photo on the stories. In reality, all mothers (and fathers) should be this upset when anyone wants to take naked photos or molest their daughter (or son). There is nothing absurd or unstable about that and, if we were to hear of a private criminal requesting this of Abbott and learned that she did not fight back, we would question her character and indict her as a bad mom.

[H/T Boycott Flying]

Update: I wasn’t paying attention this morning, but the rest of the TSA’s statement about the scanner is actually hilarious now that I think about it. Birge said, "No, it’s not an X-ray. It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram." Millimeter-wave scanners do use radio waves, which is a type of electromagnetic radiation. In contrast, a sonogram is a picture created from an instrument that uses sound waves. Of course, I don’t expect a TSA goon to know the difference, but the fact that she lectured the mere ungrateful, disobedient, citizen on the safety of the scanners using this falsehood is telling. Thanks to Bill Faust for bringing this to my attention.

Is it just me or has the world gone completely insane? Or, was it already?

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Mother arrested for not wanting her daughter sexually assaulted by the TSA

Christians and non-Christians alike have long debated the question, “What is the proper role of government?” Everyone has their own opinion, and Christians have varying interpretations of Scripture to support their viewpoints. Anarchists on the one hand say that God is the king of all, and so no human king (or state) can claim authority over another human being. Statists on the other hand defend government as specially “ordained” by God in the same way as the church or family, and thus have divine purposes for their existence. Most Christians fall somewhere in between with a nuanced position.

Charles Gutenson’s new book, Christians and the Common Good, seeks to ask perhaps a better question: “How does God intend for us to live together?” The author believes this question is broader than the narrow one about the role of government because it sets the stage for answers regarding our Christian witness, our relationships with others, and our participation in God’s intention for the world. How we answer this question has ramifications for more than just our personal beliefs about politics. It defines who we are as human beings and as a society.

Gutenson aims to clean up the sloppy biblical interpretation habits most Christians have when reading the Bible so that they can see how the Bible has much more to say about our public life than many Christians assume. The key to this understanding is to read what the Bible has to say about the character and nature of God while noticing that throughout the Scriptures God has intended for people to live out the application of God’s character.

Gutenson argues for three steps for us to discern what God intends for society: (1) examine the manner in which we read and understand Scripture, (2) maintain focus on the Scriptures as the foremost about who God is and what God is like, and (3) determine the implications of the divine nature so we can discern how to live together to God’s satisfaction. The rest of the book flows from these three steps, ending with some practical suggestions for public policy for those in the United States (though the suggestions could be similarly applied elsewhere). Preparing readers for what might seem radical, he reminds us that “a major reason for the increasing irrelevance of the church for today’s culture is the inability both to envision and to demand an alternative way of being in the world” (pg 18). Gutenson also warns us of the temptation for political power in both the left and the right. Both sides of the political aisle have grabbed power at the expense of others or have conflated the purpose of the Kingdom with the purpose of political entities.

On Reading Scripture

One of the biggest advantages of this book is Gutenson’s treatment of how we ought to read the Bible. Most Christians are conditioned to ignore the context of passages or trained to “mine Scripture” for little golden nuggets of truth to apply to our lives. What’s important, says Gutenson, is that we be trained to “appropriate the Bible holistically” (pg 27). Instead of focusing on more narrow definitions regarding salvation, Gutenson believes we have been led away from political concerns. When salvation is only about the individual, public concerns get pushed to the margins or are considered optional for followers of Jesus, when Jesus himself advocated strongly for those at the margins of society.

Gutenson uses a few examples of how many people have proof-texted the Bible and used it as evidence for their own political opinions. He explains how Romans 13 needs to be read in light of Romans 12, which explains how God expects humans to live together. While avoiding advocating that governments enforce Romans 12, he does explain that whatever form government takes it must serve God’s agenda. He also examines the oft-cited passage Luke 20:20-25 where Jesus says to “give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and give unto God that which is God’s.” Gutenson rightly points out that nothing in this passage indicates that Jesus intended to guide us on how Christians should view public institutions. As a general rule, Gutenson warns us that we must “be cautious about concluding too much by reading more into the story than it will bear” (pg 33).

If we take Scripture seriously while allowing for differences between our culture and culture described in the Scriptures, Gutenson believes we can avoid some common errors. When applying Scripture, we must consider the following questions:

• What is the underlying problem or opportunity that God is dealing with in giving this command to the people of that particular time?
• Do similar problems or opportunities face us in our contemporary setting?
• What role might public policies and institutions play in helping to resolve these problems or taking advantage of these opportunities?

Gutenson starts with the nature of God as indicative of how we ought to live together. The Trinitarian belief that God is three persons in one is probably the most dominant characteristic of God’s nature because it reveals the God who interacts with creation. God’s self-giving love embodies interdependence among the members of the trinity, specifically in God’s sending of the Son to heal the broken relationship between the world and God. The incarnation shows us what God is like, and reveals to us “how humanity, as God intended it, is to be and act” (pg 64). It is through Jesus that we see what God has intended for us as human beings, both personally and socially.

Biblical Vignettes

After spending nearly 80 pages exploring how we should read the Scriptures and laying some guidelines for how we discern implications for our public lives today, Gutenson comes to the biblical passages he feels gives us vignettes into the overarching narrative of Scripture. Gutenson explains God’s vision for humanity by touring the Bible from the beginning.

A few snippets:

• Exodus 20 is a set of instructions for how our lives are to be lived together in a way that pleases God. Leviticus 19 shows God’s demands that neither rich nor poor get preferential legal treatment; all are to be treated “equally under the law.”
• In Deuteronomy 15 God promises that there will be nobody in need among Israel when they have obeyed God’s intentions for living together.
• Isaiah 10 warns us that lawmakers have a strong temptation to use their powers to slant the playing field, robbing the poor of their rights. It is an explicit recognition that institutional evil can be built into the laws governing a particular society.
• Jeremiah 29 demonstrates the beginnings of God’s initiative for Israel to be a blessing to its former enemies by permitting it to intermarry with foreigners.
• Ezekiel 16 reminds us that a special revelation from God (like Israel had) is not required for God to hold societies accountable to their obligation to hear the cry of the needy.
• The entire book of Amos reminds us that “to be quiet in the midst of perverse societal structures is to effectively participate in the exploitation of those on the margins” (pg 102).

In the New Testament, Gutenson tours Matthew 5-7, 25, and 26, explaining to us that Jesus lives out God’s intention for us but also speaks out about what God’s expectations are. A classic text regarding the poor, Matthew 26, is discussed briefly. For those most inclined to believe that Jesus wasn’t interested in relieving the plight of the poor since they will “always be with us” (which is in a sense an everlasting statistical fact), Jesus intended to communicate that his followers are and would be the types of people who would always be among the poor, serving them and advocating for them.

When Gutenson comes to the apostolic letters, he gives special attention to 2 Corinthians 8:12-15, which says in part, “The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little.” This passage, Gutenson believes, implies that God intends for economic life to be structured so that wealth disparity does not grow too large. He then uses the book of James to demonstrate the link between faith and works, and more specifically, the tendency of rich people to feel threatened by those who are poor. Gutenson follows up with other passages, but these are sufficient to show where he is going.

His conclusions? Humans must be imitators of God, live in ways that embody self-giving love, and take seriously our obligation to use our resources for the benefit of others. He also concludes that governments are ordained by God, society can be judged by how well it cares for its most marginal members, and God intends for human economies to be structured so that there will be no poor.

With the exception of some of his conclusions, Christians sympathetic to the libertarian viewpoint will have minor quibbles with Gutenson, perhaps disagreeing on some details (Gutenson believes we are a liberal democracy) or on the interpretation of “ordained by God.” What cannot be denied is that the one story of God as revealed in the Scriptures has plenty to say about our public life together, and is not simply a book about individual salvation or eternal destinies.

Gutenson is right that God wants us to live together peacefully, in harmony, and in mutual interdependence. Gutenson does not, however, get into detail about the relationship between governments and society. We have the luxury in 21st century Western culture to assume that governments carry out the will of the people, and thus the question about living together in society is inextricably linked to the state that governs us. But it has not always been so throughout history. God’s intention for humanity may indeed be living together as Gutenson demonstrates. But it is neither explicit nor implied in Scripture that governments must be the mechanism by which people are encouraged to live this way.

Human Governance and Public Policy

Gutenson will have a bit of difficulty convincing libertarian Christians with his suggestions for public policy. He calls them suggestions in order to be careful to not prescribe exact policies as “the right ones” and because his purpose is to foster discussion on what it means to live out God’s desires for human relationships.

What will trouble many readers not automatically sympathetic to his political viewpoints is his belief that our governing structure is a “liberal democracy.” Last I checked, the founders of the United States established (for better or worse) a constitutional republic so that the United States would be a nation of laws governed by a document designed to protect people from tyranny and establish a “general welfare” with specific descriptions on how to do so (whether they were successful or not is another serious question). Remarkably, Gutenson doesn’t discuss at all how the Constitution of the United States relates to how we live together under God’s intentions. Ignoring the most obvious point about how our society is arranged cannot be a mistake. Gutenson, who clearly has spent much energy into the intersection of faith and politics, likely ignored the Constitution intentionally because most progressives would love to disabuse us of the notion of a constitutional republic.

A second troubling aspect of the book is his explicit statements that God’s intentions for government are outcome related. Art Carden has pointed out that “the important question in social science is not really evaluating the moral quality of the outcome, but evaluating the institutions that produce the outcome.” Gutenson does state, thankfully, “that when the powers fail to serve [a kingdom agenda], they become demonic and serve to be destructive of the very things they were created to serve” (pg 128). Yet while Gutenson makes no mention of the United States straying far from its constitution, many are calling it back to that “governing authority” (to cite Romans 13). Even if the Constitution isn’t one’s cup of tea, it doesn’t take too much examination to realize that the Federal Government of the United States has become an institution delivering far more evil than it does good. It should be critiqued and abandoned for social institutions that actually accomplish the agenda God has for the world. Putting faith in government only exacerbates social injustices when the institution itself is corrupt and unredeemable.

Gutenson warms my heart with statements like this about the voice the Church must have in society: “The role of the church is to just be the church, but in so doing the church should both embody and speak critique to the powers that have been corrupted and no longer serve a kingdom agenda” (pg 143). That is why I’m a libertarian! Jesus confronted the empire, showed an alternate way of living together, and demonstrated self-giving love. Implicit in the proclamation “Jesus is Lord” is the claim, “Caesar is NOT!”

Gutenson’s least-convincing chapter is the last. While not completely void of good suggestions, in it he proposes different policies that are supposed to encourage human beings to live together in a way God intends.

While the purpose of this review isn’t to rebut every suggestion made by Gutenson, it is important to realize that the most specific public policy suggestions explored below are ones based merely on good intentions. But policies cannot be backed by mere intentions. Not only must they actually work, they must also achieve their outcomes ethically. Some of Gutenson’s suggestions neither achieve their intended outcome nor demonstrate God’s intention for human beings. In some cases they run contrary to God’s intentions.

The progressive income tax, according to Gutenson, helps to prevent the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few and aims to ensure that taxes don’t prevent access to essential goods and services that the poor among us rely upon. Yet there is no explanation as to how a progressive income tax per se is what ensures such outcomes. The ethics of an income tax on the fruits of one’s labor is questionable, yet even if it were morally permissible, there is no reason to believe that living in mutual interdependent self-giving love requires more confiscation by the state from those who have been successful at producing goods for society. A flat tax can be considered “progressive” because the wealthy pay more because they produce more and make higher profits.

Social Security and Medicare are the sacred cows of the progressive movement. Gutenson cites Social Security’s “remarkable success” in “lifting the elderly out of poverty” (pg 155). Outcomes are dominant in this line of thinking. Little regard is given to the insolvency of both programs while the ethics involved in acquiring the money to redistribute are ignored. Whether we think taxation or redistribution is theft or not, Social Security is a legally authorized Ponzi scheme continued only by pandering to the fears of the people who have become dependent upon it. While the intention is for us to live together in a community of self-giving love, the result has been a society divided by the ones who feel unjustly “taken from” and those who feel entitled to something that is not their own.

Most importantly Social Security is nothing but a veneer of God’s desires for society when at its core it is neither social nor secure. If Christians are serious about ways that we can be mutually interdependent and live in a society that God intends for us, we ought to seek opportunities for such an outcome in ways that bring people closer together rather than allow or cause them to drift apart. The taxes I pay for Social Security do nothing to bring me closer to the elderly folks I’m supposedly helping. If anything it gives me more incentive to not have to care about them!

Minimum wage laws are probably the clearest example of a policy backed by good intentions that does precisely the opposite of that which it intends (even the original intentions of minimum wage laws are suspect). Christian economist Art Carden recently cited a study that shows that minimum wages laws disproportionately burdens young African Americans with unemployment. Carden writes of the minimum wage:

“I oppose minimum wages for a couple of reasons.  First and most obviously, they hurt the poor.  Second, the minimum wage is one of the most visible ways that the anti-economic way of thinking manifests itself in the policy arena.  If we are going to make policy that privileges the wants and needs of the least of these among us, then the minimum wage has to go.”

Carden provides his own sources for his claims here, here, here, and here, and endorses another here. If one is interested in social justice rather than social control, this is a good article.

Access to health care, it is proposed, should be available to all human beings regardless of their ability to pay for the services needed. Gutenson starts this section with “It is hard to imagine that God’s intentions that all should flourish could be satisfied without health care access” (pg 159). Perhaps this is so, and since there is no explicit mention of health care services in the Bible, it isn’t completely out of the picture that God’s intentions are for people to be living healthy lives. We must seriously consider this as part of God’s desire for society.

Yet access to health care, as Gutenson explains (and nobody denies), is expensive. Insurance companies deny claims based on “preexisting conditions.” The uninsured are charged higher rates at the doctor despite being unable to afford insurance. Whatever the injustices of the health care system, Gutenson fails to address the reasons behind why such injustices are prevalent. Regulation after regulation bars competition into just about every field of medicine from nursing to pharmaceuticals. Competition is virtually nonexistent, so prices do not fall. Government grants monopoly privileges to pharmaceutical companies through patents that last for years, while the FDA literally prevents experimental life-saving drugs to enter the market.

The government has distorted the health care industry in so many ways, it is no wonder that prices have soared while in industries like technology where there is virtually nonexistent intervention and regulations prices plummet. If we are to imagine a way to live as God intends, a state solution is the last mechanism that will actually accomplish this.

Estate and inheritance taxes are often justified by Christians as a modern-day application of the Years of Release and Years of Jubilee from the Old Testament. God’s intention is that there not be a permanently dispossessed class of people while the vast accumulation of wealth stays in the hands of a few. Gutenson claims there is nothing inherent about this particular application of those principles in the estate and inheritance taxes, but he misses the point of contention among those who disagree. First, the presumption that without such laws wealth continues to accumulate into the hands of the few is unfounded. Second, most anti-estate tax folks are against it for moral reasons. Third, it is an economically destructive tax that confiscates the fruits of those who have been productive and distributes it to a political class that has no incentive to allocate the capital or resources wisely, efficiently, or in a way God intends.

Another unintended consequence of the inheritance tax is that it unjustly removes capital and sometimes labor from the economy when the stewards of such wealth intend for it to be used for Kingdom purposes. In my corner of the world many entrepreneurs are using their capital to benefit the Kingdom of God around the globe. Not only do these businessmen have to waste energy prior to their death avoiding Uncle Sam from taking God’s money for another kingdom, after their death their wealth cannot be used for the Kingdom purposes God has intended for these entrepreneurs to carry out. The very people who intend to live out their own obligation to use their resources for the benefit of others are robbed from the opportunity to do so by those who have no intention nor incentive to use those resources wisely.

Monopolies are a favorite target of interventionists, and it’s ironic that Gutenson argues for legislation against monopolization of markets when the very reasons monopolies exist is government protection of business interests at the expense of others. What Gutenson claims is “undue market power” must be examined in light of the federal government’s granting of monopoly privileges. Anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws claim to prevent Big Business from harming “the little guy,” but they do nothing of the sort. The source of everlasting monopolies is government protection.

Even more ironic is that Gutenson seems to have no problem with an institution (government) that has a monopoly on the use of force to accomplish the ends by which he claims ought to be God’s intention for us as human beings. I’m anti-monopoly, too; but I apply this to governments as well.

Concluding Thoughts

I have focused plenty on some of the problematic suggestions Gutenson gives near the end of his book. I expected this before reading it, but what I didn’t expect was to nearly wholeheartedly endorse his guidelines for how we enter the biblical text and apply to our personal and public lives. Gutenson gently yet persuasively challenges the reader’s assumptions about Scripture in a writing style superior to most progressive Christian authors I’ve read. Most impressive is his clear and succinct way of exploring how Christians ought to engage culture and think about public life without using rhetoric filled with ideological passion that detracts from what he is saying. Gutenson aligns with God’s intentions for humanity and has done us a favor by exploring the relevant passages in Scripture that deal with God’s intention for humanity.

As I’ve suggested throughout this review, Gutenson fails to address some critical questions about the nature of states and the relationship between society and government. It is not a natural conclusion that “we” are the government, and thus whatever the government does it is acting on behalf of the people. To take seriously what God intends for our public life means we must define and understand what “we” means, whether or not that entails political action, and what (if any) relationship that has with the state. Gutenson doesn’t address these important questions, which may be disappointing for a libertarian reader.

Christians and the Common Good is an outstanding introduction to understanding the intentions of God through the narrative of Scripture. It gloriously dismisses faulty interpretive habits while challenging the assumptions about particular passages or precepts found in the Scriptures. When it comes to the biblical journey, Gutenson has written a wonderful book. But if we are to follow Gutenson’s own standard— “the best policies are ones that are consistent with the life of faith, satisfy God’s intentions, and actually work” (pg 146)—careful economic and historical examination will lead us to reject many of his policy suggestions.

Gutenson writes early in the book that Christians have become irrelevant to the culture because they’ve been unable to envision an alternative way of being in the world. Indeed, this is why the Christian anarchist might suggest that Gutenson reconsider his own theology of the state and society. John Maynard Keynes said, “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.”

Imagining a world wholly different from our own indeed takes a radical vision. But advocating state-based solutions to social problems is neither imaginative nor radical.

Please consider buying Christians and the Common Good at Amazon.com and LCC will then get a small kick-back from the sale. Remember, LCC receives a small percentage of any shopping you do at Amazon when you go through an LCC link. Help keep LCC growing and growing; your support is much appreciated!

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Christians and the Common Good

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My wife and I were visiting a new place for Sunday morning service this week and I couldn’t help but be disturbed yet again at the tendency of Christians to mistake political for spiritual accomplishments.

The pastor told a story about a small church that is located in a “rough” neighborhood. Some parishioners were on the corner outside the church praying for the area when they ran into some drug dealers (I’m not sure how the churchgoers knew them to be drug dealers). The dealers told the prayers, “This is our corner” and the interceding churchmen replied, “No, this corner belongs to Jesus”. The pastor said one of the drug dealers was visibly moved and walked away saying, “this isn’t right what we’re doing. I’m going home”. The rest of the drug dealers stood their ground, so the church members retreated back into the church. So far, an interesting story.

Then, the pastor told us, the police showed up and arrested the remaining drug dealers on the street corner. Everyone listening to the story started clapping and shouting “amen”. The pastor used the story to illustrate the effectiveness of prayer, and the transforming power of the church located in the rough neighborhood.

This was all rather unsettling to me and my wife and as we discussed on our way home. Combined with the abysmal performance of the Detroit Lions, it put a bit of a damper on my day.

The part of the story where one drug dealer felt some kind of conviction and went home was interesting. The faith and words of the Christians on the corner apparently got him thinking deeply about his life. But what about those arrested by police? What victory is there for the church in that? There was no mention of any violent acts by these men. There wasn’t even mention of a violation of property rights (it was never clear if the corner was part of church property). There was only an assumption that these men were somehow “bad” and therefore their arrest was somehow “good” for the neighborhood, and ostensibly the Kingdom of God.

But how did this event advance the Kingdom of God? Is not the point of the Kingdom to transform lives? Is not the point to demonstrate the power of Christ to forgive and to move individuals to break free from the bondage of sin and embrace His forgiveness and live freely and righteously? What did this confrontation and arrest do for these men to help them see their need for freedom in Christ, if indeed they were in need?

Moreover, what grounds is there to cheer “amen” at the arrest of these men? It betrays a notion that runs deep in the church; that political action is analogous to spiritual action.

This same conflation was demonstrated some years ago when members of my church collected petition signatures sufficient to force a strip club to move from downtown to a location outside of town. This was touted as a victory. But in spiritual terms, who won? Did any of the petition signers go down and offer hope and freedom to the men in bondage to sexual addiction? Did they offer comfort and companionship to any of the strippers who were, purportedly, desperate for money and approval? Was a single soul set free? Did the patrons of the establishment have a new respect for Christians after seeing them forcibly remove the business from town? If anything, it set the stage for a more hostile relationship between strippers and patrons of the strip club and Christians. Banning sinful behavior by force of law is no signal to sinners that they can come to the church for freedom and aid.

Christ did not behave this way. Even when given the chance to use the laws of the day to punish a prostitute, He instead offered her grace and left her to make the choice on her own. He did not petition to hide sinful behavior from His sight, but spent much of His time hanging out with the least reputable sinners of society. He offered them hope and escape from damaging behavior, not prison.

When Christians look to laws of man to accomplish goals of the Kingdom they distort and corrupt both. All earthly governments are based on force. The Kingdom of God is based on love, freely given and freely received or rejected. Even the despotic, egotistical, and violent Napoleon saw this clear distinction in his last days exiled on the Island of St. Helena:

“Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I myself have founded great empires; but upon what did these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love…”

Why does the church so often fail to see what Napoleon understood? His Kingdom is truly, “not of this world”, and we shouldn’t reduce it to the activities and tools of earthly kingdoms – force, fraud, pomp, and patriotism.

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Sinful Behavior, Government Force, and the Church

Most of literature I have read on Martin Luther quickly brushes over his “Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms” likely because it is difficult to understand and to explain. Not so with Paul Althaus’ work The Ethics of Martin Luther originally written in German in 1965, but available for us monolingual Americans as well in a 1972 translation by Robert C. Schultz. Althaus’ primary focus is an explanation of Luther’s “Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms” – Luther’s view on the role of government and its relationship to Christians.

It is couched in the understanding of the Doctrine of Justification that Luther forms his Ethics. It is because of the freedom we have in Christ through his death on the cross for our sake that we are not burdened by God’s ethical demands. We are not called to be ascetics or moralizers, but to be free to love God and our neighbor.

Althaus writes, “Thus faith sets the Christian free. He is free to do his work with joy, in contrast to slavish worry, insecurity, and unhappiness of the man who has no faith, doubts how he stands with God, and does not know how he will satisfy God.”

The doctrine of the Two Kingdoms is to Luther’s way to explain the relationship of man to government. This doctrine should be of particular interest to Libertarian Christians as Luther argues for the separation of Church and State (against the Roman model of the times) and for government to be limited to its proper Biblical roles of punishing evildoers and keeping order in society.

Luther’s views can be summarized as follows:

1) Government is to punish evildoers (as the Left hand kingdom of God).
2) The church, The Right Hand Kingdom, is not to be involved in government itself, but in preaching the gospel.
3) The church and the government shouldn’t cross roles. People are never to be coerced into belief.
4) Christians must submit to the governing authorities. Christians should never rebel against a government even when the government commits crimes.
5) A person should never use violence as a person, but it is allowed when used in its office. This “office” can be either in the government (executioner, judge, soldier, etc) or in the family (the parents).
6) Laws should be formed by “reason.”
7) Christians are not necessarily better at government than non-Christians.
There is no “best” form of government.

Althaus also does a superb job explaining Luther’s views on vocation, marriage, and economics. His views on economics obviously predate marginal utility theory by centuries so he shouldn’t be condemned to strongly for suggesting a way of arriving at a reasonable price based on the cost of materials and the risk taken by the businessman. Despite this view, Luther argues “that Christ has not given us specific direction in the area of buying and selling but has left the regulation of this area to reason.”

I recommend Althaus’ Ethics of Martin Luther for its in-depth treatment of the difficult areas of Luther’s ethics. The book wasn’t persuasive enough to convince me of all of Luther’s views on government, but significantly improved my understanding.

Please consider buying The Ethics of Martin Luther at Amazon.com and LCC will then get a small kick-back from the sale. Remember, LCC receives a small percentage of any shopping you do at Amazon when you go through an LCC link. Help keep LCC growing and growing; your support is much appreciated!

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The Ethics of Martin Luther

Anita Acavalos has an article at the Cobden Centre on the provision of science by the free market. Her conclusions are very similar to my own in my paper on Science and the Free Market in the Journal of Liberty and Society.

I love books like Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers that describe how extraordinary people accomplish extraordinary things. The Mises Institute released a reprint book this week in this genre: How They Succeeded. It looks really cool.

There is no law in America anymore.

Austin people are smart. Challenge accepted.

Finally, my favorite comic of the week. As you have probably noted in these links, I’m a big fan of Pearls Before Swine.

Share your news and links in the comments!

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News of the Week: Jan. 2-8, 2011

Thanks in large part to the work of the Institute for Justice and the 2005 Supreme Court case Kelo v. New London, eminent domain (the taking of private property by the government) has caused much grassroots and legal activity. Why we oppose eminent domain:

Eminent domain is theft. Seizing private land for public use, even under the guise of economic development—is a violation of property rights. It does not matter how many people benefit from such a taking or that the government offers “just compensation.” A forced sell is not voluntary—there is no just compensation for an owner when he does not want to sell his property in the first place and has no choice about whom to sell it to. Eminent domain negates property owner’s rights to control its use, benefit from it, transfer or sell it, and exclude persons from it.

Eminent domain is arbitrary. Government actors steal property for “public use.” But what constitutes public use? And who qualifies as the public? If by “public” is meant the majority of people within a given jurisdiction, no individual’s property is safe since a majority can always decide that somebody else would make better use of the property for the majority than the individual from whom they wish to take it. If “public” merely refers to some people within a given jurisdiction, then the group with the most political pull will decide how property is allotted and used. This is nothing but an exercise of force.

Eminent domain stifles the free market. Eminent domain is based on the rationale that an individual (a bureaucrat) or group of individuals (a government board or agency) has the knowledge of how best to allocate scarce resources. This individual or group supposedly can determine how a greater benefit can be derived from that property better than the person to who rightly acquired it by his or her own efforts and by trade. As people such as FA Hayek demonstrated, there is no way that an individual or group can possess the tacit knowledge, or know the subjective preferences, of another group of people.

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Hands Off My Home

Consider two people:

1) Allen is gay and is in a monogamous relationship with a man.

2) Brad married a woman at 24. He does very well for himself over the years, and after building a fortune and a family he divorces his wife at 40 and marries a woman who is 24.

Both men are guilty of breaking from God’s plan for marriage and his intent for human sexuality. But Brad is also guilty of inflicting emotional damage to his kids, hurting his wife, breaking his oath oath to God to remain true to her, and forcing her to choose between late-life marriage and solitude. It’s also worth noting what temptation the men faced. Allen is only attracted to men, so obedience to God might well have meant a life of loneliness. Brad faced no such choice, because he already had a mate. Allen has sinned to avoid a life of being single and frustrated. Brad has sinned and left a trail of emotional damage in his wake so that he could bang a girl with a skinny butt.

Yet where do Christians stand on these sins? Allen’s sin is usually viewed as far worse. “Perverted.” “Deviant.” I’ve sat through many Sunday sermons where the pastor took a few minutes to decry the rampant homosexuality in our society and how it will lead to God’s judgment. Christians go so far as to support making it illegal for Allen to marry. Some would make it illegal for him to have gay sex at all. But Brad sort of gets a pass. No Christian I’ve ever encountered has supported outlawing divorce. Most protestant churches allow divorced & remarried men to attend, and many even allow them to hold positions of authority.

Why is this? Why is one crime seen as a horrific offense against God so dire that it shouldn’t be allowed, and another offense – which actually hurts people – is seen as something so minor that it shouldn’t prevent you from having authority within the church?

This isn’t a hypothetical question. I’m really curious as to why these sins are weighted this way.

Thanks, Shamus, for writing such thought-provoking words! I’d like to share with you my comments on this post:

It’s one thing to consider homosexuality a sin, it is entirely another to consider outlawing the practice of homosexuality. Homosexual individuals have just as much a right to behave in non-coercive ways as heterosexuals. And why? Because they are human beings.

Christians, and in particular evangelical Christians, have a tendency to elevate the status of private sins as the pinnacle of evil while condoning public injustice and aggression in the name of meta-goals such as “preserving the family.” It is ironic that often enough their actions have the unintended consequences of destroying families rather than accomplishing that meta-goal at all.

Christians say, “hate the sin, love the sinner” but rarely practice the principle. Instead, they frequently look down upon and ostracize those they don’t like. Jesus could touch a leper, but some Christians can’t even be in the same room with a homosexual.

On the other hand, some Christians need to learn to hate the sin in their own lives a whole lot more. It is quite helpful when trying to ignore your own personal sin to have a group to demonize. Perhaps this is why some of the most public and vocal anti-homosexual demagogues speak the way they do. We all know of the stories of those people, they preach one thing yet practice another.

We all are living out a life of transformation; may our minds be renewed by the God who loves all and is constantly seeking us. May we take our Lord’s example for ourselves as well, to love all men and seek to serve others in ways that show the love of God.

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How can we have such a skewed perspective on sin?