The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Church & State - Dr Norman of The Libertarian Christian Institute

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

Founder and President of the Libertarian Christian Institute, Norman Horn joined Caleb for an edifying conversation about Christian Libertarianism.   https://libertarianchristians.com/Church and State is brought to you by,  YOU!  Visit us at: https://churchandstate.media where you can support us by donating directly and find links to shop with our affiliates.Get our merch at https://standupnowapparel.com/partner-church-and-state/   Learn how to Protect Your Wealth against inflation at: www.BH-PM.com and tell them Church and State sent you.Support Church and State today by shopping at www.MyPillow.com using our coupon code: “CHURCHANDSTATE”.Our links are on link tree: https://linktr.ee/churchandstate                    Subscribe to our Locals Community (churchandstate1.locals.com)   Follow us on Rumble (@ChurchandState1776) https://rumble.com/user/ChurchandState1776    X(twitter) (@1churchandstate) https://x.com/1churchandstatefacebook (churchandstate1776) https://www.facebook.com/ChurchandState1776   SubStack (churchandstate.substack.com) https://churchandstate.substack.com/     *Help fund our fight against tyranny: Buy from our affiliates and tell them Church and State sent you. *Tune in on NRBTV Tue-Fri 1:30 PM Pacific! Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/prepper-broadcasting-network--3295097/support.BECOME A SUPPORTER FOR AD FREE PODCASTS, EARLY ACCESS & TONS OF MEMBERS ONLY CONTENT!Red Beacon Ready OUR PREPAREDNESS SHOPThe Prepper's Medical Handbook Build Your Medical Cache – Welcome PBN FamilySupport PBN with a Donation Join the Prepper Broadcasting Network for expert insights on #Survival, #Prepping, #SelfReliance, #OffGridLiving, #Homesteading, #Homestead building, #SelfSufficiency, #Permaculture, #OffGrid solutions, and #SHTF preparedness. With diverse hosts and shows, get practical tips to thrive independently – subscribe now!Newsletter – Welcome PBN FamilyGet Your Free Copy of 50 MUST READ BOOKS TO SURVIVE DOOMSDAY

Bokane Valley could become a sanctuary city of a different kind. Nadee, Councilman Caleb Collier, says that this proposal... I'm proposing that the city of Spokane Valley issue of proclamation stating that our city is a Second Amendment sanctuary. Welcome to the fire. Today on Church and State, the Libertarian Christian Institute with Dr. Norman Horn. Hello Christian Patriots and welcome to Church and State where we drive morality and religion over tolerance and apathy. And I'm your host, Caleb Collier, once again, your favorite far-right shock jock, and the show that talks. about politics and religion, Jesus Christ is our referee, so it's always nice and clean.

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I'm a Christian libertarian. I've been saying it for a long time. And as I started searching for fellow believers, right, people who think like I do, I came across the Libertarian Christian Institute. And so I'm bringing on Dr. Norman Horn. He holds a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and an MA in theological studies at Lipscom University. I did postdoctoral research at MIT,

and has been part of multiple startup companies and currently works in the medical device industry. He's won numerous awards for his writing and research in both engineering and theology. He's also the founder and president of the Libertarian Christian Institute, the premier organization exploring libertarian theory from a Christian point of view.

Dr. Horn, thanks for joining us. Hey, thanks, Caleb. It's great to be here. It's always fun to talk to you, and I'm excited to get this going. Yeah, as I am I, as I said in the beginning here, it's so wonderful to meet fellow Christian libertarians because we're kind of a different breed.

You know, a lot of people when they view or think of libertarians, they're like, oh, you know, they're just kind of conservative on some things, but they just want to smoke pot all the time. Yeah, they're kind of a weird mix. They just want to open borders and all this stuff. But there is a Christian element to this. Certainly when you look at the libertarian party as a whole, It's an odd mix of people, but we're on the Christian side of things.

So we always have that Christian morality when we're discussing freedom. Yeah, I mean, we've been in this for a while. Or I should say at least I've been in this for a while. Discovering libertarianism for me happened long before even Libertarian Christians.com got started. But as I grew in my knowledge of both theology and libertarian theory, it became evident to me that it was necessary to make a, both at first a website, where I could start putting these thoughts more to paper or to the electrons in the cloud, if you will, but then also developing more of an organization around trying to promote these ideas more comprehensively in a way that perhaps was not

existent in the liberty movement. There's always been Christians in the libertary movement. Even back in, you know, well, in the last 10 to 20 years, if you were looking at, you say the demographics of even the Libertarian Party. Now, to be clear, LCI is not part of the Libertarian Party. We're a 501c3 nonprofit. But the LP still consisted on average of about 50% Christians. That's non-trivial. And I would say that's probably across the board through the libertarian movement, regardless of whether you're in the LP or not. Because you don't have to be in the LP to be a libertarian. That's for sure. You know, some of us are and some of us are. Great, okay. But regardless, the population of Christians in there has always been rather large. However, I think that the problem has historically been that Christians have not felt like they had a really great way of bringing those two ideas together in a way that really made sense to the people that they talked to. So it wasn't the fact that they didn't have an answer, but they weren't the loudest voices in the room. Usually that's the Randians, quite honestly. And that's. And that's. okay. You know, we love them too, you know, and then hope come to faith, guys. There's more

to life than objectivism. But still, there's good things about Einrand even so. And like, I get it. But, you know, that's where, that's where LCI has tried to come in and fill a gap, is that there's always been Christians in the Libertary movement, but we need an intellectual kind of edifice to build upon. And so what we try to do at LCI is produce the best content that we can to teach Christians about a free society and the principles of libertarianism overall. So that's what we're doing. That's what we're here to do. We do that in all sorts of different ways.

We can talk about that. But there's so much that the church needs to hear. Because frankly, in theology circles, you get a whole swath of different things, not all of it good. And there can be people who are great in lots of different theology venues. but they just don't understand economics well enough to really see that the state is the enemy of God. And that's what we're here to proclaim. I absolutely love that. I'd like to start off the conversation, and we're going to get into a lot of what you were just talking about.

But you were talking about kind of the nuances of libertarianism. Because, yeah, there is some very left-leaning libertarians. There's some very right-leaning libertarians. And then, you know, we'd like to come up with terms. I told you before when we first talked that I'm a minarchist. You know, you were like, well, we're going to change that. But you have like the classical liberal as well, which is not at all what the liberals of the modern age are. More of the Thomas Jefferson vein of classical liberalism.

And then you have like the anarcho-capitalists and you even have the anarcho-communists, which I don't really understand. Perhaps you could explain that one to me. It doesn't seem to make sense. Yeah, okay. It doesn't seem to make sense to me. But can you talk a little bit about the nuances of libertarianism and how, honestly, we really are accepting of different variations of libertarianism? Yeah.

So there are different ways in which people have tried to push this forward. But at its core, libertarianism is really just adherence to the non-aggression principle and working that out in the political arena. It doesn't necessarily make a claim upon all other elements of life. As we like to say, and I've argued this for years, like, libertarianism is not a comprehensive worldview. You need the fullness of Christianity in order to understand real life in its fullness. And libertarianism doesn't bring you to God. Libertarianism cannot save you, but it can tell you how to properly think about justice in society, because it's based on natural law, the things that we can observe from the world,

and that God has, through whether you want to call that common grace or just evident reason, however you want to put that, these are things that we can understand through observation and reason in the world. As such, they are universally applicable, and we can bring that to bear in our analysis of power structures that exists today. And what this tells us, not only through our evident reason, but through the observation of the scriptures as well, is that the state is the enemy of God, that power structures that claim that to have a monopoly on violence, that aggression for them is okay.

Aggression for me, not for thee, is prohibited. That is, so there's nothing different between the state and a criminal gang of robbers. And that's, you know, and that can even be traced back to, like, look, even Augustine said similar sorts of things when he was writing the city of God, for that matter. And I do think that this is very defensible through Scripture as well.

So that's, you know, from just a sheer, you know, evident reason basis, libertarianism is simply the application of the non-aggression principle. And where you take that is, you know, kind of what leads us into different variations of libertarianism, ranging from kind of the left-leaning guys to the more right-leaning to, I would just, We try to stick to kind of a plum-line libertarianism as it pertains to libertarian theory, but then as it pertains to our cultural values and things that we care about in that regard, well, we're Christians. Like that's what we are.

And so we're going to adhere to being Jesus people in this regard. So that means that we're sojourners and strangers in this world and that we look different, that we take captive every thought, that we're being transformed by the renewing of our minds, that we're putting on the armor of God, all those good things that you have, you know, I mean, it's Sunday school answers, but you know what? Sunday school answers are pretty darn good these days in a world that is getting, you know, more violent by the hour, it feels like, when we're, you know, degradation of morals is happening on a daily basis.

So this is how we stand up to the cultural creep around us. we hold fast to scripture. We tell people to turn back to their churches. You know, there's going to be people in your churches that you're going to disagree with with regards to politics, but that does not matter. You need to be there. You need to be interacting with your fellow Christians. And this is when I guess are getting into a preaching mode. I'm sorry, but, you know, that's sort of natural when you get into this sort of stuff eventually.

Absolutely. But yeah, that's what we're all about. Yeah, no, no, it's a great answer. Let me ask you this, because a lot of Christians, that I've had conversations with, when they find out I'm a libertarian. They're like, wait, wait, that doesn't make sense. You can't be a libertarian and a Christian. And one of the verses that they love to point to.

And it's not just them. It's really truly every despot who is attempting to use Christianity to silence Christians. They always want to point to Romans 13, right? Yep. And Romans 13. And I know you've done a lot of research, a lot of writing about how does a Christian libertarian navigate Romans 13? Please, the floor is yours. Oh, boy.

Where do I begin? Well, I think one of my central theses in my theological analysis of the state through the Bible is that when you start with Romans 13, you end up making pretty critical errors. And so I don't even like really wish to address it from the perspective of like, well, let's just look at this passage of scripture and that's it. Because I think that leads you into some nondescript errors that I just like, it's a problem. Instead, I think we need to look at the whole context of Scripture and then come back kind of toward the end of it and see where Romans 13 kind of fits into it. Because when you look at the big old passages, like the really significant ones that help us to understand what is the relationship of the person of God to the state apparatus or to the power apparatus around us, I think you get a different picture. So first off, we turn to Jesus and we look at the temptations of Jesus. And one of the principal ones that was the, where Satan brings him up to the high place, shows him the kingdoms of the world.

Now, okay, yeah, there's some probably some, a bit, whether you want to call that hyperbole or I don't know, whatever. It shows them all the kingdoms of the world. Okay, fine. Whatever that looked like, that is what happened, right? All right? We know that this is a real temptation to Jesus. Why is it? Because Satan said, I can deliver this to you if you will bow down and worship me.

Now, yeah, Satan is the father of lies, but if that is, there's also a half-truth in there when you think about it, right? And that bit is that Satan really could do that. And if that is the case, what does that tell us about the nature of power? What the nature of the power structures around us, the Roman Empire? All of those things seem to indicate that, oh, it actually is the case that even though God is sovereign over all, that there are these rogue entities that are not outside of God's plan in the grand scheme of things

but that are certainly not acting as a vehicle of his goodness that is justified in their actions. And because what does Jesus say in response to, oh, I will give them to you if you will just bow down and worship me.

He tells Satan off. He doesn't say, oh no, hey, no, I'm, I'm, I'm controlling those right now. No, he says, not a chance. Those are outside of my mission. They are not to belong to my mission, not to my kingdom. So there is a complete difference between what is the kingdom of God and what are the kingdoms of men.

So that is a central thesis to who we are as Christians. Is that the kingdoms of men are not what we are part of. and you don't get to say, oh, well, ours is a democracy. Ours is the republic, that means it's okay. That is not how it works. Now, we are indeed part of that. We can leverage our citizenship in the same way that Paul did in the book of Acts. But we are not of this world like that.

To be of this world is being part of those kingdoms. We don't operate there. And so that's like very central to who we are. But it goes beyond that. Like we can go back to the old. Testament, and the Old Testament is replete with examples of kingdoms that are going against God, ranging from straight up the Tower of Babel is the origin story there. One of the things that we should remember about Genesis is that it is a book of origin

stories, especially kind of Genesis 1 through 11, telling us this is the origin of all the things around us, the origin of why things exist, why evil is here. You are part of Genesis 3 and eating the apple and so on. You are part of that story. And the big lesson of the Tower of Babel is that this is the origin of power structures. Namely, that when people want to build a tower to heaven in order to invade it and make a name for themselves, that God says, no, we will have none of that. And so, again, that's the origin.

I call that the origin story of the state. And that's supported through historical theology as well when you think about it. There's certainly references out there that it's not an original idea to me. That's thousands of years old. We just have tended to forget this. And so that's really, like, that's important to remember. And so as you kind of proceed through that, then you get to things like First Samuel, where when the Israelites ask for a king,

And what does Samuel do? He gives them a lecture and says, all right, you want to look like the people around you? Sure, but this is what's going to happen. The king that you want, because you're rejecting the true king, who's God, because you want to look like the nations around you, this is what that king's going to do. They're going to tax you. They're going to take your kids. They're going to send them to war. He's going to drive their chariots over you.

He's going to take your land, the first fruits of all. I mean, all of these things are part of the same. state that we see now. And it's like that's what that's what Samuel says is going to happen. And it's exactly, it is exactly what happens. So that's, I mean, and here's the thing. Like, if you want to look like the world around you, you want to make a name for yourself, you want to invade heaven and become God. Look, like, you're acting like the state at that point. You're acting like government. But if you want to take in the promises of God and be faithful, there's a promise for that.

Just read what he says to Abraham. I think it's what is it Genesis 14 when he takes, there's that little bit there and he says, I will, if you're faithful, it's like, I will make you a great nation. I will give you a name, and I will make you a blessing to all the earth. That promise is for Abraham.

But in a sense it's also for us, because we are to take Abraham as the example there. He remained faithful. And if we do that, then, like, God will make you successful there. You don't need to participate in the power structures that are around us in order to be great. Great man theory is garbage in the eyes of God. And so, like, that's, I think, something that, you know, we have to kind of come to grips with in our analysis of the world around us. So then when we take that in and then we could think, okay, look at what happens through the rest of the,

of Israel's history. And then you finally get to where, you know, okay, now Jesus comes. We have a completely different world around us. The church is existent. And now we come to Romans 13. What are we to do with Romans 13 now that we've learned all this about what are the, what is God's plan and project on the earth? It is not to establish a human kingdom with human leaders who believe that they are the great ones and should be replacing God, but rather it is individual communities and individuals and families who are working out God's project amongst them through simple things, ranging from building families and procreation to economic activity, sciences and engineering, and arts and beautiful construction. I mean, the things that we're

able to do have nothing to do with. the ability of the state to operate. As opposed to what we often hear is like, well, wars make you great. Well, let's listen to Yoda there. War not make one great. You know, that's a, that's a, you know, we can get there. But what does Romans 13 have to say about that? Well, even in the context of Romans itself, Paul has been talking about the immense freedom that you receive by becoming a believer.

by putting your faith and trust in Jesus. And as such, you could get to the point where you might say, well, gee, I understand the function of the powers that be around me. But I should be able to just do whatever I want. And even that's answered even in Romans 6, where it says, shall we do evil to good may result by no means? Let it not be said that that is who we are. And so, you know, when we get to Romans 13, though, then, what does it say? Well, okay, that's where God reminds us that, look, all these things that are happening around you with State. Guys, there's no authority that's there but from God.

Like, the only reason that they exist is that God allows it to. And God will use it to punish evil. That's a guarantee. And we see that. We see that repeatedly through the Old Testament, too. And we didn't, we didn't allude to that specifically. but that is what happens as well. God uses Assyria to punish Israel, then uses Babylon to punish Syria, then uses Greece to punish Babylon, and then uses Rome to punish Greece.

I mean, like, this is what happens, what is explained in the Bible to us. So that's what the kind of the overarching point of even Romans 13 is, is that these are not outside of God's plan. So where are you to fit with that? Well, that's where we have to act like, what does it mean to act like Christians in the face of that. Prudence. So you look at that and you go, all right, I am not, I'm not here to cause a revolution off the bat. And maybe there is, maybe there's an appropriate place for that, but that's not our default. But rather we are to act as the church. And what does that mean? Well, okay, that's explained through a whole lot of other scripture too. And this is, you know, I'm kind of talking through this at a different pace and even a different kind of, you know, timbre even than what I've written about at times. You know, I kind of get straight to the point in certain other things. But what I've come to, like, it's different when you're writing and you're trying to, you know, do exegetical work on a specific set of scriptures and so on. But this is more of a preachy type of thing, I suppose. But, you know, ideally, if you look at what we've written,

written, and we try to put multiple interpretations in LCI's work so you can kind of see these are the ranges of things. But if you read specifically what I'm writing, I tend to default to Romans 13 does tell you the way in which the Christian should act in the face of state action, which is to recognize that prudence is kind of your first virtue there, that you don't necessarily need to go off and even be civilly disobedient for just for the sake of it, but rather look to being, how do we be a light to the earth, salt in the earth in the face of state action.

We don't want to be persecuted except for the name of Christ. So we try to live a quiet life, if you will, in the face of that, as Paul says elsewhere. I think it was Paul who said that. But those are what our values are in that respect. So we teach, we live, we produce, and we, you know, help, and we just act faithfully. And if you do that, look, state action is going to be the least of your worries. No, you bring up some fantastic points there.

And, I mean, obviously, when we look at the ancient Israel people, they wanted that king. Before that, they had a republic. It's really the first example we see of a republic, or at least a representative government, through Moses. Yeah, and it was working. It was working pretty well, and then they decided they wanted a king, and they, as I say on the show all the time, they chose Saul because it was tall, and that didn't work out very well. But even when we look at Genesis, when God first created this world, there was no government. It was him.

He was with us in the Garden of Eden, with our ancestors in the Garden of Eden, and it wasn't until the world fell that we first see the development of government. When we look at governments, when we examine them, what are governments made up of? Governments are made up of people. And what does the Bible tell us about people? That we're desperately wicked. So it's a fair assumption to say that government is, in fact, evil. And we can look through history, obviously, and say, yeah, here's another example of government being evil. Oh, wait, here's another example.

Oh, wait, there's legions of examples of government acting out in evil ways. Yep. Well, and I'm going to definitely recommend both to you and to your listeners to read the work of David Lipscomb, the namesake of Lipscomb University and his book on civil government, which incidentally a gentleman in the Liberty Movement named Ed Stringham and I have put together a reprint edition of that particular book, plus a lot more of Lipscomb's work. Historically, it's coming out at Vanderbilt University Press later this year. we're really excited about it. It's going to be awesome. And part of Lipscomb's main point, I would, I suggest in our introduction to that book that you'll love this because, like, Lipscomb basically indicates in his introduction to his work that what he's doing is, in contrast to people of his day, which was written around, it was first been in a book form in 1889, but the original essays were written 20 years before that. 25 years before that.

And he says, in contrast to the other ways in which people are going to try to analyze government, maybe from a sociological edge or an economic edge or something. I'm going to do it from a biblical theological edge. Now, he doesn't say that in those exact words, but that's the thrust of what he's doing. And that is, and he starts with genesis. And the fact that men are wicked and that God uses, God uses, God uses these things in order to punish wickedness and things like that's where I derive a number of ideas as well. I think it's a highly unappreciated work or underappreciated work is perhaps better worded,

that we've even forgot about in my own theological tradition. Lipscomb comes from the Church as a Christ and the Stone Campbell Restoration Movement. You know, and Lipscomb came out of Middle Tennessee and Nashville, name's sake of Lipscomb University out there now. And I'm excited about the book because it's cool, but I'm more excited for even just the ideas and getting them out there in a new and perhaps improved way with commentary and ways in which people can understand it better.

It's kind of a bit more scholarly than some of the stuff that we do. Well, it's a long story behind that. It's like a tenure in the making work. But good stuff, though. But it resonates really well with what you're saying. And even you describe yourself. I've never heard the word before. I like Bibliatory.

It is pretty great because the function of biblical theology and what we're trying to do at LCI, what we want people to appreciate through both our work and what they should be going back to the Bible, verifying, learning, and just growing in that way is truly appropriate and important for who we are. And like that's, you know, in some sense, like we, you know, a meta, met a point for a second. Like, right now, people are searching for identity in a way that I think is just, like, it's both the world's oldest project, but it's also kind of newly weird in our current milieu. And guys, like, you can't neglect that the way that you can, you should be forced. informing who you are is through the words and the words of Jesus. Like, take on that identity.

Let him be your mentor, your model. When you take that on, it will change who you are, and it will change the way you relate to the powers that be around us. And there's nothing more important than that. I would agree, and I hate to cut you off, but we're hitting that hard break. We're going to come back, though, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to have another great conversation, and we're going to address some of these issues that maybe Christians,

with when it comes to libertarian principles. This is Caleb Collier with church and state. media. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're not sleeping on my pillow, do you even patriot? I got to tell you, this is the most wonderful stuff from a man who's given it all for your freedoms. Whether it be the pillow, the sheets, or the slippers, I absolutely adore my pillow. My pillow has the greatest products around. I know when I want to shuffle around in my bathrobe and slippers and yell at the neighbors, of course I'm buying from my pillow. I need you to head on over to Church and state. Media, scroll over to shop, because every single time that you purchase any of these products using the promo code church and state, you ensure that we keep our message out on the air.

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Also, please, once again, hit the donate button for us. Keep us alive. Keep us having conversations like this. They're important ones. And you don't hear a lot of this type of content anywhere else. And so if you appreciate us, hit the donate button. All right, with that, let's go back to our guest. And I hate cutting people off.

You know that about me. But I would echo what our guest was just saying. You have to have your identity in Christ first. That is first and foremost. You can have discussions with conservatives, with Republicans. You can say I'm a libertarian and I don't agree with this. I don't want to get in any more wars. Like, come on, can we stop attacking people?

Like, that seems like a very Christian principle. The only way you get there is if you have that faith, that belief in Jesus Christ. And so it's fundamental to what we're doing here for myself and for my guest. Now, I want to turn this conversation to, so, areas that Christians struggle with. And I already have the idea of exactly what I want to do. And it centers around drugs because a lot of Christians are going to struggle around this. And oh, by the way, as I was looking at your shirt, side note here, as I was looking at your shirt, and I love your shirt here. But you got the opposing empire since 8033. I love that. It's got

the fish with the crown on it. You know what might be a good symbol for Christian libertarians? A lionfish. Oh, I'm glad to look into that one. Kind of going with the porcupine, right? With the fish, with Jesus, right? So we got the lionfish. It's still got the quills. Like, just, this is how my mind works.

Anyway, let's go back to drugs. Okay, this is something that Christians are going to struggle with. They're going to say, no, drugs are an evil. When we look at what they do, the side effects, how they literally destroy lives and families, like clearly there is an example. here to, or an argument here to be made for government stepping in and declaring drugs illegal. And obviously, when they're made illegal, nobody will use them. Wait, what?

I think that's how it's supposed to work. But anyway, let's discuss this from a Christian libertarian point of view. Yeah, I, the drug war to me is a non-negotiable from a libertarian point of view. And I'll tell you why, because it is endemic to everything that we, every point that we try to make from an economics point of view and from an individual liberty point of view are in like encapsulated in why the drug war is wrong. There is, and I'll just say it like straight up, there is no good argument for the drug war. I will maintain that until the day I die, because it's true. There is no good argument. Even if you were to, now, and I'll grant that

drug that hard drugs and all these things like they're bad for you they are many many of them are going to be straight up sinful for you to participate in that is i'm not trying to say like this is all great i'm i'm endorsing you to go do lSD tomorrow or something like that is not what i'm trying to do okay uh i have never even uh i've never taken i've never done marijuana or anything like that i don't care to and it's i i think even that could there's a different set of arguments there but even so it's like i'm not doing this because i just want to go smoke pot or something like that no i that's not the point uh but rather that everything that the government does purportedly to reduce drug use or somehow curb

the negative effects on society from drugs they do on that anything they do under the auspices of those sorts of things are completely backfiring never work and are unconstitutional and immoral from the outset. And why is that? Well, like, there's no good argument for this. So, like, we can, we, I've written articles, like, I think I've said, like, the, there's a listicle out there is, like, the six reasons why the, the drug war is the dumbest, foreign, or foreign, the dumbest domestic policy that's ever been conceived.

And they range from things like, the fact is that the drug war is unconstitutional, that it's an abridgment of personal liberty, that it results in a ratcheting, up of the state, that it doesn't actually accomplish the goals that it even sets out to do, that it is, I mean, there's other things in there too, and I'm not going to get all to them. But the reason that Christians, I think, make this mistake is that they conflate personal morality with that which should be executed by a justice system. There is all sorts of good reasons why Christians should support and try to help people get out of drug problems.

There is no good reason, though, for the state to step in and abridge the individual liberty that is that, I mean, if we, if we purport to support individual liberty, then that should include the ability to do things that are potentially harmful to us. That's a reality. If we're just say, well, if it harms you, then we should prohibit it. Well, that's a justification for all sorts of things that we're like, are we going to stop playing football? Are we going to tell people you shouldn't play sports or you shouldn't run too much or you shouldn't drink too much water? I mean, like you can come. You shouldn't eat too much food because obesity is an even bigger problem from a health point of view than hard drugs these days, but you don't see us trying to do the outlaw that.

And if we did, you would hear Christians up in arms about it because nobody wants to give up a potluck. Especially the Baptist, Dr. Horan. I mean, come on now. They're going to get mad about that one. Yeah. They might resort. dancing at that point. I mean, that's a terrible joke.

That didn't make sense at all. I got it. But any of these things that we would say are actually realistically bigger problems, but it's because people are exercising individual liberty, and yeah, they're responsible for that. Well, guess

what? So are drugs. But there's also other reasons why we shouldn't support the drug war, ranging from, like, the fact is that, like, even like, I told you already. I don't want to smoke pot. I don't do marijuana or anything like that. But you know what? We're a hundred years behind schedule of developing realistic treatments using, you know, drugs like THC or molecules like that that could theoretically help people. And we're not doing any research whatsoever because of the

way in which we have prohibition. Like that's that that's just stupid. You're absolutely right there. I've interviewed so many doctors over the years that have specifically been treating cancer and T-8, well, marijuana has an effect, has a very positive effect in treatment of cancer, and we don't go near it as a country because it's illegal. I'm, like, I'm, it may or may not. I'm like, I don't have enough knowledge to say whether or not it really is that. But you know what? The fact is that we don't know because we haven't done the research.

We have hypotheses that we have been unable to test because the government says no. Come on. Like that's, you know what that is? That's barbarism. That's superstitious. And we as Christians are not to be superstitious like this. We don't believe in that sort of crap. And so instead, we are, like, Christianity is why we have modern science.

That's a reality, guys, get with it. And despite the fact that there are, of course, those atheist scientists out there who want to tell you otherwise and things like that, like that's garbage too. The fact is that it is because of Christianity, because of our faith that we have shared for thousands of years now, that modern science has been part of the increase of human flourishing in a way that it inherited for never been seen. You know, it's like, it's not magic, guys. It's human ingenuity. And when you try to abrogate that through the forces of government, you are going to make mistakes. The whole, like, this is the Deirdre McCloskey in the bourgeois series that she wrote years ago. It's like kind of adamant about this, is that when you change your perspective,

about human dignity and innovation, which comes from, frankly, the Christian worldview, it changes the world. And that's why we are so prosperous now. And that's a good thing. And we should be heralding and trumpeting that. So, you know, that's, incidentally, you can kind of dovetail that into another major thrust of what we do at LCI, which is that we want to support ideas that bring forward human flourishing. And that means the free market. We're not just against government force. Of course we are.

But we're also pro-market operations and trumpeting the good things that people do in the market to bring forward better human life. And that's amazing. We should be making that argument just as much as the anti-state argument. That capitalism is great. That free markets bring forward human flourishing. That that that, that socialism is stupid and so on. And, you know, that freedom is what makes this possible. No, I 100% agree with you on that. And, I mean, I think it's hypocritical when we say, you know, some drugs the government says are illegal. Other ones that get completely behind.

They both have side effects, ladies and gentlemen. Like, you look at the pharmaceutical companies. Like, every one of them has drugs that have horrible side effects, but the government says those ones are okay, but these ones are bad. It makes zero sense to me. As long as you mention them. the commercial that, you know, the result in, you know, in diarrhea, hives, and oh, by the way, you might die. Yes.

As long as you say that and you speak like the micro machine guy, you remember him, because the side effects are always just real quick, and then it shows the happy faces again because they're taking the drugs. Now, we're unfortunately running out of time. I know I'm going to have you back because we're going to be doing a lot together. Yeah, I think so. I think so. But I want to bring up the libertarian Christians, sorry, libertarianchristians.com.

Chris, if you could show this to our audience right here. Look, I love this website. I got to tell you, they sent me one of their books. This book is phenomenal. I've been reading it like crazy. It answers all the questions. You can get this book right there. You can see it.

Faith Seeking Freedom are right there, but a lot of different books, a lot of different podcasts. And Dr. Horn, I'll let you have some last words on the website here. Oh, well, thank you. So Faith Seeking Freedom is kind of one of our little flagship products. Caleb has the advanced reader copy. of the second edition, if you will, that's coming out this summer. We're out in June, and we're kind of debuting it at Freedom Fest in July in Las Vegas, Nevada. We're really excited to be there about that. And that is a kind of Q&A version of like so many of the things that

we talk about here. The idea is that we want to, you know, it to be a kind of conversational way of approaching the intersection of Christian thought and libertarian ideas. But we also do a lot of other things. Like the short little book, What Do Libertarian Christians Believe, or Strangers with Candy from Mark Cardin, or if you're interested in history, look at the anarchist, Anna Baptist by Cody Cook, or if you want to look at Christian libertarian analysis of COVID, look at a house divided, which is one of the best works of public theology of recent years that I've seen, just absolutely phenomenal stuff. And then we have all these free e-books that we put together.

For anybody who wants to come in, at the cost of your email address, you can get any of these e-books. And these are great, guys. And a lot of it is just curated content that we put together over the years, and we want you to have those available to you. All of this is meant to help educate you about what it means to be a Christian and a free society and why we support that. These are all meant to help you learn.

And so come and join us. Like, it's a great thing to be, man. And it's so exciting to be part of this movement now in a world which we just see so much degradation of our culture, degradation of Christian values and just so many awful things. But to see the hope that Jesus brings, you know, is starting in your church, in your worship and all that. But then also in understanding that, like, God created a win-win world for you to live in, if we will just find. follow through with it. Let's build that up. Yeah, no, I absolutely love that. And I cannot endorse Libertarianchristians.com enough. Like, I want my audience to go here and join our side. We have cookies. Like, it's great here. We make really good cookies. We do. We do. Yeah. All right. Well,

Dr. Horn, it's been awesome having you on. I'm going to go ahead and close us out. If you'd hold on one more minute post-production to say our goodbyes. I'd appreciate it. But again, thank you for your time here and for all your work. Like, it truly does benefit. society. Thank you so much. Caleb, it's an honor to be here with you. Thank you so much. Thank you for what you're doing. And I'll look forward to all sorts of fun things with you in the future. Oh, yeah. It's going to be a great time. All right. Well, there you go, ladies and gentlemen, libertarian Christians. We exist. And not only do we exist. We have the knowledge and the wisdom to back up our belief system. And if you're interested in that, if you're curious, then I can think of no

better place for you to go than Libertarianchristians.com. So please go check them out. Church and State is brought to you in part by Colonial Life, Spokane, Independent Agents, finders insurance, and mark37.com. I'm Caleb Collier. I was born for a storm. Welcome to the fire. This is Caleb Collier with Church and State. Are you tired of your device spying on you?

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