The State

How Private Generosity Embarrassed the Greatest Empire of the West

History

It was the early 360s CE. Emperor Julian (361-363) paced the floor nervously amidst his secretaries. There was a fresh political problem to deal with and it needed immediate attention. ...

Reflections on the Gulag Archipelago

History

Life is filled with suffering, and suffering is magnified and multiplied by the endless stream of malevolence. I am discovering this first hand as my mother lies in a hospital ...

All States Violate Liberty

Libertarianism

Today’s guest post is by Paul LaScola. Consider the proposition that a condition of individual liberty exists if all individuals are in full control of their own property: one’s life, ...

Economics, Hierarchy, and the Question of the State’s Inevitability

Economics

Among Christian libertarians, as with other libertarians, there are differing views concerning the legitimacy, necessity, and inevitability of the state. For some, this is the worn-out debate between a view supporting ...

Monday Morning Matrix Meme: What is the Government?

Politics

Whenever there’s a school shooting, the answer from the political left is always the same: take the guns away from citizens and give them all to Donald Trump. It’s a ...

Achieving Power, Printing Money, Creating Wealth

Achieving Power, Printing Money, Creating Wealth

History

  If you wanted to become the most powerful person in the world, how would you do it? Work harder than everyone else? Suck up to other powerful people and ...

Sinful Nature and the Question of the State’s Necessity

History

Among Christian libertarians, as with other libertarians, there are differing views concerning the legitimacy, necessity, and inevitability of the state. For some, this is the worn-out debate between a view supporting ...

Monday Morning Matrix Meme: Wars and Rulers

Politics

  People generally don’t want war. In fact, the natural resistance of human beings to kill one other is so strong that even when being paid and forced at gunpoint ...

Do you Believe in Natural Rights or Might-Makes-Right?

Libertarianism

The linchpin of liberty, the most critical concept which people seem to have an extraordinarily difficult time understanding, is the concept of natural rights.  It’s exceedingly simple and easily proven. ...

Christianity and Government Considered

History

Today’s guest post is by writer/commentator Paul LaScola. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he writes to the Christian followers of Jesus’ nascent Church that they should honor the Roman ...

Jesus Wasn’t A Libertarian (But He’s Glad I Am!)

Featured

Christianity is Making a “Social Turn” Christian thought and practice is making a turn toward a qualitatively social faith. That is, the good news of Jesus Christ is widely recognized ...

The Idol of National Security

Politics

Exodus 1:8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 And he said to his people, Behold, the people of Israel are too many ...

Monday Morning Matrix Meme: Legality v. Morality

History

Being born into a nation-state, all of us are trained to equate “illegal” with “bad,” and “legal” with “OK.” And because many times there is, in fact, a direct correspondence ...

Monday Morning Matrix Meme: Democracy

Politics

Democracy is one of the great gods of Western civilization. “We are part of something providential,” said John McCain in his August 2000 speech in support of George W. Bush. ...

The John Baeza Files: Detective Blows Whistle on Drug War, Prison System

Libertarianism

Before he was Ron Paul and Rand Paul’s head of security, John Baeza was a cop’s cop. Coming from a family tradition of public servants, Baeza started his career as ...

Start With Jesus As King

Politics

American Christians just can’t quit our addiction to power. We have no problem with the notion that a majority should be able to use the coercive power of the State ...

How Should A Christian Politician Behave?

Libertarianism

The following is a response to a recent e-mail received by Norman Horn. (names redacted)   Dear , Thank you for your kind remarks and questions. I’ll attempt to answer ...

Libertarianism Wins Hands Down (Over Conservatism)

Libertarianism

Review of Nathan W. Schlueter and Nikolai G. Wenzel, Selfish Libertarians and Socialist Conservatives? The Foundations of the Libertarian-Conservative Debate (Stanford Economic and Finance, 2017), xii + 215 pgs., paperback. ...

Freedom Is the Imitatio Christi

Libertarianism

“The truth shall set you free.” — Jesus Christ The truth, as Jesus demonstrated, is not conceptual but perceptual. That is, it is embodied, not abstract knowledge. The truth can only be ...

How the Government “Works” – A Visual Model

Politics

How does the government actually “work?” In conversations about economics or politics, it is only a matter of time before this issue comes up. I’m not referring to the typical ...

Trump: The Scapegoat Supreme

Appearances

David Gornoski breaks down the unhinged attempted feeding frenzy by the media and its customers using the lens he has provided for the past two years: Trump’s Winner’s brand of ...

Jamin Hübner on How State Accreditation Hinders Education

Libertarianism

Jamin Hübner, General Editor of LCI’s new research journal, Christian Libertarian Review, recently published an academic piece in The Journal of Religious Leadership on the bureaucratic roadblocks to accreditation caused ...

America’s Choice: Splitting Our Baby in Half

History

Human desire is a magnetic force. Whenever a person desires something, the desire takes hold of their whole being. Another person sees that person’s desire for an object as a ...

dying senselessly

Dying Senselessly: Saying What Needs to Be Said About the Military

War and Peace

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Dying Senselessly: Saying What Needs to Be Said About the Military ...

Called to Freedom

Toward a More Augustinian View of Government

History

The following is an excerpt from Jason Hughey’s chapter in the new book, Called to Freedom. (edited for format) With a new understanding of Romans 13, First Peter 2, and ...

The Dying and Desperate Left

Culture

The American Left – which never had a sterling record to begin with – is rapidly deteriorating. In one sense it may seem surprising how expediently the Left has turned ...

Religious Superstition in the Age of Christianity

History

Religious superstition characterized the Greco-Roman culture of the first-century. Here is but one snapshot of home life: In addition to statuary and household altars (which were fixed architectural features by ...

Phony Anarchists

Libertarianism

Reuters is reporting on supposed ‘anarchist groups’ planning to interfere with Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony on January 20th. This falls in line with the popularly-accepted (and completely wrong) definition of ...

The Global Populist Revolt and the Church

History

2016 will go down in the history books as a watershed year for world politics. Between the stunning Brexit vote that rocked the globalist cabal, the rising national populist movements ...

I Pledge Allegiance to the State?

Culture

Theologian Preston Sprinkle wrote a short blog the other day about why he stopped saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Like Sprinkle relates in his own account, it’s probably fair to ...

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