The Libertarian Christian Podcast

Jared Byas does theology and business, and he integrates the two in this episode about what it means to do business with a kingdom perspective. Jared has experience with launching businesses as well as organizational planning and family business consulting. He is also the co-host of The Bible for Normal People podcast, where he gets to work with one of his other passions: theology. Jared rarely ge...

God created a world in which our work matters. Often we fall into the mindset of compartmentalizing our lives into sacred or secular categories, but in the Christian life, everything is sacred and eternally valuable (including our work). In this episode, we are joined by pastor, author and ministry leader Tom Nelson to discuss how we can and must bridge the gap between Sunday and Monday, connectin...

It seems that people are no longer able to have a decent conversation with each other about politics or other controversial topics. Social media exacerbates our tribal tendencies and often we get entrenched in our own beliefs. It often takes the wisdom of one who has had years of experience talking to and discussing hot-button topics. There's no better person for to talk to about this than EconTal...

No matter where we are in the world, Silicon Valley plays a big role in most of our lives. Much of the technology that we have come to rely on for daily use is either designed in, managed from, or otherwise largely affected by the engineers, developers, programmers and executives who live in the Bay Area. Over the years --- and especially within the last two or three --- Silicon Valley has been in...

The popular perception of libertarianism is often skewed. While those on the left tend to think of libertarians as greedy and self-absorbed with no concern for the poor, those on the right --- and particularly the Christian right --- often conflate libertarianism with libertinism. What's worse, many libertarians have contributed to this error by mixing libertarianism with other elements of their e...

What is the biblical portrayal of the state? The Libertarian Christian Institute frequently discusses this question; it has bery important ramifications for how we think about political philosophy. In this episode, we continue our interview series with the authors of Called to Freedom as we are joined by Jason Hughey, author of the chapter on the Bible and government. Jason walks us through the na...

Mass shootings, gun control Protest with a football North Korea, South Korea, Rajoy as Franco No, it’s not a new Billy Joel song; it’s a discussion of some very important current events in culture, domestic and foreign policy, and international news which have happened during the last couple of months. 2017 has seen a lot of extraordinary developments --- some good, some bad, and some downright ev...

The Diocese of South Carolina, once part of the Episcopal Church, seceded from the denomination in 2012 after a complex dispute, and in 2017 joined another Anglican denomination, the Anglican Church in North America. However, the Episcopal Church claims ownership of the diocese's real estate, as well as certain trademarks and intellectual property rights pertaining to its name and branding. What h...

The War on Drugs is one of the most frequently-cited policy issues in modern politics, and it also serves as a clear foil of libertarianism. Whether or not one supports inflicting legislative violence to stop non-violent activity, as happens routinely in the Drug War, is perhaps the most important litmus test of a libertarian. Where one stands on the Drug War also often serves as a firm dividing l...

Sociology, psychology and anthropology can bring us many important insights into our theology, and 20th century scholar René Girard is a testament to that fact. Diving deep into the root causes of sin and social conflict, Girard helps us to see that much of human strife occurs because of our misshapen 'mimetic' desires to imitate our neighbors (including by destroying them to take what is theirs)...

The subject of theonomy (rule by the Old Testament law) and Christian Reconstructionism (rebuilding society with the Old Testament as a blueprint) is sometimes raised in discussions of Christian political theology, particularly from those in the Reformed tradition. Most Reformed Christians would not identify as theonomists, yet interestingly, many who do are also associated with the libertarian mo...

The Libertarian Christian Institute was a big supporter of the book Called to Freedom , released in February of this year and featuring a foreword written by our own Norman Horn. Doug and Nick were joined at the Young Americans for Liberty National Convention (YALCON) in July by two of the authors, Elise Daniel and Jacqueline Isaacs, and conducted this impromptu interview in the hallway. We discus...

Today is the sixteenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Over the last couple of months, we've interviewed three leading foreign policy experts about what has transpired in U.S. foreign policy since that fateful day, what lessons were learned (or not learned), current issues in U.S. foreign policy, and the outlook for contemporary foreign affairs. In this episode, we are joined by: Robert...

In July, Doug Stuart and Nick Gausling attended the Young Americans for Liberty 2017 National Convention on behalf of LCI. This episode is our talk from the LCI breakout session, plus some additional Q&A recorded at the LCI booth. We cover some key points in how to engage and reach Christians with the message of liberty, and also answer some common (and some not so common) questions. Though or...

Nearly every libertarian has heard the classic objection, “But who would build the roads?” This question is so common that it has become a point of ridicule by libertarians to mock weak arguments for why libertarianism supposedly can't work in practice (as if the state's nearly-endless track record of failures hasn't proven its method dysfunctional). In this episode, renowned libertarian Christian...

As part of our summer lineup, we're revisiting several of the most popular and informative talks given at Christians for Liberty conferences in previous years. Though instead of just reposting those talks, we've filled them with some extensive supplemental commentary, so even listeners who have heard the original talks with get all new material. In our final Annotated Talk for the summer, we work...

Theologians have struggled for almost the entire history of the Church to analyze and explain the violence attributed to God in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. As libertarian Christians, this issue is often raised regarding the compatibility of libertarianism and Christianity. Some ancient theologians resolved the conundrum using allegorical interpretation. Many others have argued along...

As part of our summer lineup, we're revisiting several of the most popular and informative talks given at Christians for Liberty conferences in previous years. Though instead of just reposting those talks, we've filled them with some extensive supplemental commentary, so even listeners who have heard the original talks with get all new material. This week, we review Norman's talk in which he walks...

Brian Zahnd is a pastor from Saint Joseph, Missouri, whose own thought journey mirrors that of many libertarian Christians: away from neoconservatism and nationalism, and towards skepticism of empire and the pursuit of peace. Though he doesn't self-identify as a libertarian and we have some differences, Zahnd's work does have substantial overlap with LCI's as it relates to militarism, nationalism,...

As part of our summer lineup, we're revisiting several of the most popular and informative talks given at Christians for Liberty conferences in previous years. Though instead of just reposting those talks, we've filled them with some extensive supplemental commentary, so even listeners who have heard the original talks with get all new material. This week, we begin with Doug Stuart's “Things That...

One of the most common questions asked to libertarian Christians is what we think about LGBTQ, gay marriage, and other related issues. Libertarian political philosophy only addresses the matter up to the point of state involvement: because these things constitute voluntary actions, they should not be regulated by law. In short, the libertarian position on marriage and voluntary relationships is si...

C.S. Lewis is undoubtedly one of the most influential Christian thinkers of the past 100 years, and despite his death being more than a half century ago, his work contains many insights which apply to contemporary trends in philosophy, politics and society just as much as they did in his own time. Today, we are joined by one of the modern liberty movement’s most well-known and effective leaders: D...

It's Independence Day once again, when hundreds of millions of Americans will celebrate a history most of them know very little about. One of the high holy days of what has become American civic religion, it's very probable that the Founding Fathers would greatly lament what it has become. However, what Americans have done to the Fourth of July pales in comparison to the far more important issue o...

One of the most common issues raised by non-libertarian Christians about libertarian thought is marriage licensing. Because the family unit is essential to social order, the argument goes, Christians should allegedly support state regulation of what constitutes 'marriage' and who is allowed to 'marry.' But state power is a sharp and dangerous sword; what happens when the proponents of such a plan...

Today we are joined by Shane Claiborne, an internationally-recognized author, speaker, and activist, and perhaps the leading western Christian voice for the New Monastic movement. While Shane does not identify as a libertarian, there are many aspects of his thinking which overlap with libertarianism. In this episode, we discuss capital punishment in Christian ethics. Libertarians are divided on th...