Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1137: A Christian Libertarian's View of Economics, War, Foreign Policy, and Immigration: Doug Stuart

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

In this conversation, we talk about a libertarian view of economics (etc. Austrian Economics), war, foreign policy, immigration, along with gay marriage and abortion.  Doug Stuart is CEO of the Libertarian Christian Institute and host of the Libertarian Christian Podcast. He holds an MDiv from Missio Seminary and currently lives with his wife and three children in Lancaster, PA. Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

If Theology in the Raw has blessed you or challenged you or encouraged you on some level, then I would like to invite you to consider supporting the show by visiting patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. You can support the show for as little as five bucks a month and get access to various kinds of premium content like monthly Q&A podcasts, the ability to ask me questions and dialogue with other Patreon supporters. Gold level supporters are able to participate in monthly Zoom chats where we talk about pretty much everything. Those chats can get pretty wild sometimes and I absolutely love it. So join the Theology in a Raw community by signing up at patreon.com forward slash Theology in a Raw. Hey friends, welcome back to another episode

of Theology in a Raw. My guest today is Doug Stewart, who is CEO of the Libertarian Christian Institute and host of the Libertarian Christian podcast. He holds an MDiv from Missio Seminary and currently lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and three kids. So this podcast came about because, you know, I've been doing a lot of thinking and writing about a sort of Christian political identity. Now, most of my thinking in this area has been on kind of within the text, thinking about the Old and New Testaments and how the people of God have thought of themselves politically speaking. Like, what would the political identity be of the Jewish exiles living in Babylon? What would the political identity be of early Christians living under the authority of the Roman empire? So that's where, and this is where I get my whole

like exiles and Babylon theme, trying to think of ourselves as politically distinct from the empires that we are living under. So most of my reflection has been within the text of scripture, within sort of Christian theology. But, you know, obviously people are asking me and are going to keep asking me, okay, well, how does this look today? What does this look like for our political identity today? And that's bringing me into an area that I know much less about. But I always do like to kind of land a plane theologically and come up with practical implications of any kind of part of the theology that we're wrestling with. So over the last, I would say, year or so, I've spent a lot of time just kind of,

well, no, last several years, really, but more recently last year, you know, listening to a lot of podcasts where I'm getting people talk about different political perspectives and the left, the right, whatever. And I would say in the last six months, I've done, I kind of got lost in this vortex of listening to and reading about a lot of libertarians. I knew, I didn't know very much about libertarianism other than just the basic kind of idea, but I found myself very interested in some of the things that libertarians are talking about, as you'll hear on this podcast. One of the big ones for me is the military-industrial complex, and libertarians are very nervous about that, very skeptical about it. They're very skeptical about manifestations of empire and how Christians should not be into the empire. They're also skeptical about governing authorities. There's just kind of a suspicion there that is woven throughout libertarian thought as I've been learning.

So all that to say, I really enjoyed listening to Doug Stewart on his podcast. He is a Christian, he's a libertarian, and just a really sharp guy. And so I wanted to have him on the show where I can kind of get kind of a one-on-one course in what does it mean to be a Christian and libertarian? Some of you are going to love this podcast. Some of you might hate all things related to libertarianism. Some of you, I think most of you will probably be like, huh, that's interesting. That's curious. I might want to learn a bit more about that. So this is me coming at this conversation as a learner, as a curious person. I think I have some resonance with quite a few things that libertarians say. And I also have some maybe critiques or nervousness

or things that I just don't know enough about. So that's what this podcast is all about. And I had a really good time. We kind of got off the rails a few times talking about foreign policy. Well, off the rails, or maybe it was on the rails, depending on what angle you're coming from. So without further ado, let's please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Doug Stewart. Doug, thanks so much for being part of Theology in a Raw. I do remember being on your podcast a while back, several years ago. So it's now fun to have you back on. We were talking about peace back then.

Yeah, right. I've been, yeah, consuming a lot of content from libertarians recently. And I often find myself very much in agreement on a theological level. Like I try to not, I don't get too wrapped up into modern political stuff. I pay attention. But whenever I do hear libertarians talk, I'm just thinking, that sounds very theological. That sounds biblical. Oh yeah, that's where I would get there from a theological position,

especially when it comes to immigration, war, and so on. I don't know hardly anything. Anyway, I'll stop talking. I wanted you to come on because you're well-versed in this stuff. I wanted you to help us understand what is libertarianism and maybe what isn't it. I think there's maybe a lot of misunderstandings of what it is, but I would love to hear your

backstory, how you even got into it. Yeah, well, this is an honor to be on your show, Preston. I've been an off-and-on listener for, I think, since you've started your podcast here. And I, you know, I jump in and out and listen to, and I've always loved your conversations because you're a very curious person. And it's very clear that you're curious about libertarianism and I'm here to help you and your audience, especially if those who are libertarian curious out there listening, I can probably help. I have a journey that I can share here in a moment. But yeah, no, it's really great to be on here. So my story started basically, I was, this was, if I really go back to when I started doubting my conservative political beliefs, because that's kind of where I grew up, it was like, you know, I couldn't

comprehend how any Christian could vote for a pro-life candidate or a pro-choice candidate kind of person, right? That's kind of the milieu that I grew up in. And when, and I, you know, I grew up believing that America was founded as a Christian nation. I mean, you can kind of wrap all of that into one another, you know, into that package, that stereotype that people typically have. But when 9-11 happened and we had a very overtly, I'm a Christian conservative president, I was thinking, hmm, I wonder if the Christian response really should be turning the other cheek, like Jesus said, and forgiving our enemies. And I remember that was like the first seed of maybe American foreign policy isn't very

Christ-like or isn't very Christian. And several years later, I was in college at the time. Several years later, I'm out of college. I'm trying to figure out what I believe politically. I have a little bit of a anti-establishment streak in me. So I'm kind of like, well, I think I'll just go see what the other side has to say. And I'll explore that side too, you know, because my parents were Republicans, I'm going to go listen to Democrats and, or just progressives or liberals at the time. And so that was, that was kind of what I did. I went out and I listened to some talk shows. I read a few books like of the Jim Wallace, who's a head of Sojourners, or was at the time founder of Sojourners, I suppose. So I started down this road, and

theologically, I was also, I would say, going a little bit more left. I mean, I don't know if you remember the Emergent Church movement, the original deconstruction movement before it became more fundamentalist in spirit. It was a lot more open and curious about like, well, maybe there's a new way to think through this. I went to seminary during that time. That was a lot more open and curious about like, well, maybe there's a new way to think through this. I went to seminary during that time. That was the, you know, the whole, the word missional was a huge word, buzzword back then. It probably still is in those circles. And so at that time, I'm also like becoming what most people would think of as more left-leaning, right? And it's like, oh, well, if we're going to be a Christian nation or if we're going to

have a social value set that is reflective of the Christian faith, well, we got to feed the poor. And we have to make sure that people are taken care of and medical needs and all the stuff that you hear that most people on the left today are espousing. But something didn't quite sit right with me because every single time I would hear somebody, uh, propose something in particular, I was like, that just doesn't seem right. And I was trying to figure out why, um, why didn't it sit right with me? What information did I not know, um, about, uh, the world? Uh, what field of study would assist me a little bit in understanding why can't that really work out? And it turned out, and I think the kind of the Holy Spirit kind of nudged me like, hey, you need to learn some economics, because what that does is that teaches you, or it'll help you understand in

some ways, how people interact with one another. It doesn't tell the whole story, of course. I mean, you have psychology for part of that, right? But economics can tell, even on a large aggregate level, how do people behave when they are required to interact and how do people interact, right? So that led me to studying a little bit of economics. It turned out that the Austrian School of Economics was kind of like where I kind of found a home. And the idea is just basically that people are human agents.

Humans are agents and we're individuals. I would, you know, import my own biblical theology of we're all made in God's image. As individuals, I'm made in God's image and God has given me agency to make a choice, right? Just like he gave Adam and Eve, just like he gave the people of Israel when they left Egypt, you know, choose this day whom you will serve. left egypt you know choose this day whom you will serve so we have agency what does that look like and so you i i can't really wax eloquent for too long on the economics piece but in terms of the story um that led me to understanding that basically uh if if we're to have a moral and just society we have to have free people um and so that led me into basically libertarianism and every time you know just like what you said a little earlier, every time I came across ideas, they didn't really seem incompatible with what I already believed about the scriptures. And again, I was going to seminary and some of these ideas were floating around and people were pushing back and stuff. And it just always came down to, yeah, but I can't tell you what to do. That is, God has given you agency over yourself. And I just, I don't feel right about not minding my own business, right? So that was kind of where I was. I think I told you before we started that libertarianism kept me from becoming a leftist, you know, a leftist progressive, because once I realized that, like, I didn't want to be a conservative because the values there just

didn't sit right with me. It seemed like it was way too focused on individual morals and personal behavior. And then on the left, it's more like social morals in a lot of ways. It's like, oh, well, how do we behave as a society, which is an interesting phrase in and of itself. So I ended up being a libertarian. So I'm kind of stuck in the middle. So I get hated on from all sides. kind of stuck in the middle. So I get hated on from all sides. Stuck in the middle. Would you say that libertarianism is like in the middle between left and right? Or is it working with a different grid if that even? Yeah, I think it's what you're, I think it's sort of what you're analyzing. It used to be true that people would say, well, I'm a fiscal conservative and I'm socially liberal. And that really doesn't apply anymore. That kind of

was true maybe of libertarians, even if it was too brief of a phrase. Obviously, the bumper sticker phrases don't capture the whole of theology, right? I would say no on the whole, because at this stage, it's very clear to me that if you analyze where people are politically based on the power dynamic that they espouse between government and people, you have authoritarian and anti-authoritarian. And so, I mean, I guess it depends on what you're analyzing, right? If you're analyzing, are we in the middle in the sense of like, deliberatarians hold views that both sides tend to agree with? Well, yeah, but that's just a Venn diagram organized differently. Can you explain Austrian economics to people that

have never heard that phrase before? Yeah. The best place to find about Austrian economics is probably the website mises.org and libertarianchristians.com, which is the website of my organization, Libertarian Christian Institute. uh, we talk about a lot about Austrian economics, but the, the essence is basically that humans act and you can extrapolate based on people acting in their own interest. Um, and that there's also the subjective theory of value, which is, um, sort of, it's an interesting phrase because some people have misunderstood it to, to sort of stand in for like subjectivity, like relativism kind of thing. But it basically is that humans are going to value different things. I forget what the word is, ordinately. So, you know, you have these hierarchy of needs and orders

that you want to have. So like, I want to have a great conversation with you today. And so I have prioritized that during this time in our day over something else. And that also applies in the market with things with respect to like what people are buying. So that's probably the basic overview that basic introduction to it. How's it different than just if I, and if I say I might use some phrases that just are stupid and show my ignorance here, but like, what is it? How's it different than like free market capitalism? Is it basically just let people do whatever they want to do economically and let the market run its course or with no little to no government yeah austrian economics is going to be

like what is the study of human behavior um it's going to be like how do we how do we study the interactions of human behavior one thing that stands out about austrians is it's more methodological uh than it is like let's analyze math in sort of a math kind of way like okay well like macroeconomics you know the standard thing thing people think about when they think about economics is not really what austrian economics is about it actually is in many ways about the study of human behavior and how they interact free market economics is i mean i guess in theory you could be an austrian economist and also not advocate for free market economics um i don't know of any that exist. It just doesn't seem to be what,

yeah, the values of somebody who would embrace the Austrian school are going to be free market advocates. And I think it's important. I'm glad you used the word free market capitalism because the word capitalism has sort of gotten a bad rap. It has a lot of connotations that people associate with our modern economy and some of the things that go wrong with it. And so when you say free market capitalism, you have now an inroad to talk about what does it mean to say that we should be free and have a free market? So maybe put it from a different angle so that people can understand. Where where would it, where would Austrian economic situate itself say between capitalism and socialism or democratic socialism and free market capital? Like what are the similarities and differences between those? Cause I think those are categories

that most people are somewhat familiar with. Yeah. Yeah. As I understand democratic socialism, well, let me, let me start with like your standard, like capitalist defense, which is basically, you know, we should have private institutions, which I agree with. That's what libertarians affirm and that we should let people order their own lives. Um, I conservatives give lip service to that, but they, they still want to, they still want to control people's lives, uh, in just different ways. Right. Um, but the idea of capitalism is you have private property and as long as you don't aggress, uh, um, someone else's property or person, uh, then you are free to do as you like, which is kind of a redundant thing. Because like, if you're free to do as you like, and so are everyone else,

so is everyone else, then the limits are, the limits are you can't do anything that prohibits people from doing as they like in terms of peaceful way. So that, you know, one of the phrases that we often use is like anything peaceful. If it can be done peacefully, it's permitted. If it requires violence, especially overt violence obviously, but if it involves violence, that's not permitted. And that's kind of the basic starting point for it. And so that's kind of the defense from a libertarian view of a free market capitalism. capitalism. What, what democratic socialists, as I understand it, I mean, the ones that aren't like far left want to like literally have the government own everything, which I don't know anybody really truly advocates anymore. Um, sounds like it sometimes when they talk, but, um, they,

they want to have highly regulated markets because they don't trust that people can just make the right decision. So it's very paternalistic. It's very,body-ish. You know, C.S. Lewis calls these kinds of people moral busybodies. And so that's kind of the difference there, at least as I understand it. not hurting someone else, we're happy to let that happen. And there's other questions that I know that comes up for Christians when it comes to how do we treat the marginalized, which we can talk about. But that's a different question than what is the default base relationships we should all have in society. That's kind of where I was going to go. So I would imagine, and if you listen to my podcast, you know that I like to think out loud and push back. Yeah. Not because I necessarily have a valid pushback, but just I constantly imagine what would the

counter argument be? What would the critics say? I would imagine people would say, well, wait a minute. If you just let a bunch of sinful, greedy, money hungry humans do whatever they want, obviously, say not in violation of somebody else's freedom, you're, you're going to end up with loads of economic inequality, especially when you're dealing with marginalized people or people that, you know, are, have a, are born on a very different starting point. You know, the son of just Jeff Bezos, you know, to say you do whatever you want. And then the son of, you know, somebodyfather was a slave and is still living in generational poverty.

Those are two very different starting points. So it really isn't equal. I would imagine somebody would say that. Yeah. No, and that's one of the most common critiques or pushbacks that libertarians often have. often have. I mean, first, it's not true that we all start off equal and that the only thing that makes us unequal in terms of outcomes is our hard work or behavior. Libertarians and conservatives and people who believe in sort of meritocracy, which I would make myself one of them, are often criticized as sort of, or I should say, caricaturized as believing that like the only thing that matters

is whether or not you have hard work. And so, you know, the left, especially the hard left are basically saying, well, look, you could work really, really hard and still be poor. And people can be like Jeff Bezos. I'm not saying he doesn't work hard. But people have this impression that he just is sitting on a yacht and just calling shots, right? Like just doesn't, quote, unquote, work hard. And whether or not, you know, those those things are true, it's not true that the only thing that matters is whether or not we work hard. However, when we relate to one another in the economy, we are compensated, whether it's through monetary value or other things, based on what we can provide and cooperate with to provide with other people. And so we don't all start at level playing field.

But we, we are at a point where in human history, I would add, that we've all gotten very, very wealthy compared to 200, 300 years ago. And I, I think it's an outstanding question as to whether or not it really matters that there are billionaires in the world when all of humanity generally has for the past 50 to 100 to 200 years benefited on the order of 20x. And that's actual math by Deirdre McCloskey. And so, in fact, I think it might be more than 20x now that I'm remembering it. But yeah, I think it's an open question as to whether or not that's actually a moral problem because it belies or it betrays the view that there's like this fixed number of dollars or fixed amount of wealth that's out there. And that's not really the way it works. Wealth gets there's there's more that can get created and we can all be lifted up um part of the inequalities though are really not a matter of

free markets per se and inequality has always existed so i'm not sure we can blame that on the free market we can say that maybe maybe in theory you could have someone say that like free markets don't do as good a job at ending inequality as it could. And I would basically push back and say, well, what's the government doing to keep that from happening? That's kind of been my approach. Yeah, yeah. And I do think, while I fully agree that lots of inequalities, we're not just all starting

from a blank slate, I think some people are naive to the very multi-layered complex layers of, of, of inequalities. I mean, what about like personality? What about good looks? What about height? What about the, you know, tall, tall chiseled, let's just say athletic person of color who has a booming voice, a likable personality is funny versus the short pudgy, rich white guy or whatever, you know, like that, you know, everybody can't stand or whatever. It doesn't have any, you know, there has no kind of personality or, you know, bad reputation. And like a George Costanza, is that what you're imagining? That's exactly what I was thinking. But I mean, there's just

so many other factors of, we don't even think about like people are born with certain personalities or just, or even wit. People who are quick wit are quick on their feet and likable. Yeah. Yeah. That has to contribute into, you know, inequality versus somebody who just doesn't have that. Like you're going to get stuff done. You're going to build relationships and networks. Anyway, I don't want to get into the sociology of it. I just, I want to admit that, yes, there is inequalities, but I think those are so much more extensive. And when you get down all the way down to it,

it's kind of like you throw your arms up and say, there's no such thing as some utopian where we're going to create a society where everybody has the same exact sort of equal starting place. I could be full of crap right now. I just, this is me thinking out loud. Like maybe I've had those thoughts myself as somebody who is not tall and as somebody who is not chiseled and, and somebody who's like,

like an introvert. Um, you know, I don't know if you know much about Jordan Peterson's, uh, personality test, the big five. I don't know if it's his per se, but I know about it. He advocates it. He advocates it and that people who are low in assertiveness actually don't get as far as people who are high in assertiveness. Well, okay. Well, what does that have? What about that inequality? Right. And so, or tall people tend to earn more money over their lifetime. Nobody in Congress is calling for a, you know, some sort of glass. This is funny. Glass ceiling for people under, you know, the height of five foot or six foot or whatever, whatever number. Is that true? Tall people earn more on average than shorter people?

Is that it? I want to avoid saying I read that somewhere, but I know I read that somewhere or heard it on like an actual economic sort of environment. It wasn't like I just saw this headline and it was some fluky survey or something like that. No, I think that's actually the case. Attractive people are going to get further in life, generally speaking. Not always, but generally. Because people like to be attracted to what they're engaging in, right?

So your answer to the inequality, I think those are almost exactly the way I think about things uh it's like well what about this and what about that and the idea that you can just simply have one particular measure of any disparity um and it can be explained by one thing colonialism racism uh you know yeah sexism and all of that um is kind of honestly it's really's really naive. And it's like immature to like, believe that that's like the only thing that can matter. And so I, you know, to bring in the Christian element here a little bit, one of the things that is important to realize is if we didn't have government, let's just say we have like the anarchist, I would say

a state of anarchy. That's not quite what I mean. If we have an anarchist world where there are no governments who can compel people with the use of, with the threat of violence, I don't think it's obvious that we wouldn't have some sort of domineering by what we would today call corporations, right? Like there's still going to be some sort of concentrated power that ebbs and flows in some way. The question that the Christian ought to ask is what do we, what sort of environment and institutionalized set of institutions do we want to advocate that would mitigate that as much as possible? And I think free market economics is the one that does that the best. Because if you are somebody who endorses the existence of a state, even if you're sort of in libertarian worlds, they call this minarchism, where it's like, well, it's just the

night watchman state is the referee or, you know, sort of policemen kind of mentality. I like the image of a referee. It's like, hey, we all know the rules. We all agreed to live by them. And I'm just going to call you out when you violate it, and there's going to be a penalty. That's kind of the minarchist view of the state. Whether or not that's workable is one thing. And then you have the anarchist view of the state, it should be order without institutionalized violence. And so to say as a Christian that we believe that there ought to be a support of an institution whose sole existence is on the threat of violence is deeply problematic from a Christian point of view. From a practical point of view,

I guess you have to make concessions along the way and work with what we have and the context that we're in. So that's that's kind of the yeah i think that's the basic overview of like what a libertarian christian would would roughly believe i know that raises like a million questions for everybody and there's people pounding their dashboard while they're listening saying no no that can't be or or even people who are on my side saying oh you should have said this other little thing yeah it's more clear or something whatever that that's what kind of i mean because i do have an anti-establishment um i think it comes from my christian beliefs um i hope so maybe it's a personality thing too but that kind of

fundamental distrust of yeah people with a whole lot of power at the top of any kind of institution. Like I just, theologically I can get there really easily, but in just practically, I just, you know, have this kind of like when,

when, when people in with the ton of power and high positions say something, I'm always like, yeah, maybe, you know, no, we're,

we're out for the poor. We want to care for them. Yeah, maybe I'll put that in the back of my mind. You know, like'm always like, yeah, maybe, you know, no, we're, we're out for the poor. We want to care for them. Yeah, maybe I'll put that in the back of my mind. You know, like I don't, I don't, why are you handing all these favors to these politically connected corporations? Well, cause every time I peek behind the curtain, I'm like, Oh, so that's, what's really going on, you know? So, but let me, um, so anyway, that, that, I think that, that, that seems to be a pretty firm thread throughout libertarianism. And just to acknowledge there's different thoughts within libertarianism. It's not like there's any one thing, but the fundamental thread is this kind of distrust

toward these higher up authorities. And again, I feel like theologically I can get there really easily. Um, I do have the, so what about, don't we, here's the counter argument. Don't we need the, the government, don't we need these higher ups to care for the marginalized? Like if you don't have somebody at the top reaching out to those who are falling, you know, in the cracks who are being taken advantage of by the, we'll just use his name again, the Jeff Bezos is what he's always kind of like the poster child of everything gone wrong in capitalism. Um, like, well, I mean, there are issues with Amazon

worker conditions, you know, there's questions with Amazon's worker conditions. You know, there's questions about it. So sure, we can use that as a proxy for bad corporations. That's great. So don't we need governing authorities, people at the top taking care of those who are marginalized? I mean, this would be the biggest thing. Like if you care for the poor, then you will be a democratic socialist or somewhere on the left economically. Yeah. So the operating principle I have is when we ask a question, and I have a friend, a close friend of mine, who would call himself a democratic socialist. He went to seminary with me. And he would say, well, there's just got to be a mechanism that

would sort of mitigate this, right? And in my mind, the question that I always ask as a Christian, and also as a libertarian is if this can be done without the use of threat of violence or actual violence, then that is the more just method for this to happen. And so the trade-off is, okay, let's form a government or let's make the government that already exists, the state that already exists, just tell Jeff Bezos how he has to behave, right? And if he doesn't, they can threaten him with fines. If he doesn't like that, I mean, obviously, it's not going to get to a standoff. It's all legal. But at the end of the day, at the end of the road,

the government really only has, we have more guns than Jeff Bezos to compel him to obey. I mean, that's the logical necessity or the logical outworking of what happens when there's conflict between somebody who's an agent of the state and an agent of a citizen, right? Or there could be another alternative, might take a little longer, but it's actually better and leaves everybody else in better condition and it doesn't use a threat of violence. And that's what we would call competition in this particular case, right? I don't mean to suggest, and again, Amazon's actually the conversation my friend and I had was specifically over these kinds of things.

It's like, well, I just had somebody deliver something at Amazon for me today, right? And so that worker may or may not be happy with their pay or pay conditions or whatever situation they might be in. Let's just assume for the sake of argument that there are a good number of Amazon employees out there who are just like, this sucks. I don't really like the conditions that I'm in. And this is just unjust and immoral. And you and I could sit here and analyze their condition. And both of us could even be hardcore anarchists in favor of free markets and be like, wow, that is sad. We don't like that situation either. Well, what are we doing about it? I don't think the answer is to simply say, well, let me tell the people who I can – when I don't

actually have a response, but I'm going to outsource my opinion to someone else who thinks they ought to run Jeff Bezos' company better and tell him what he has to do and force him to live and do certain things at quote unquote, the point of a gun, referencing what I just said earlier. It would be better for me to advocate for something that gives those people even more choices. And so, yes, it seems like Amazon is just simply too big to be taken down.

But we said that about Walmart 20 years ago. And now Walmart is fighting for its life. Not really, but it's fighting against the likes of Amazon and they've had to adapt. And so it would not be surprising to me in 20 years when our kids are our age, they'd be like, oh, yeah, I remember the days when Amazon was in its heyday. And now it's just a company that's this other thing or whatever it might've been. And there's going to be a new Amazon on, on the, on the rise. Um, and so, uh, what's the answer to conditions that are less than and such in circumstances and situations that are less than what we would be ideal. So let's,

what do we do with the marginalized is the real question, right? What we do is we advocate for ways in which they can be lifted out of poverty with the help of people who are caring for them and loving them. Because I guarantee you that Jeff Bezos can write them a slightly larger check, but that's not the vision of peace in the New Testament or the Old Testament and the New Testament, right? That's not the vision of peace Christians are looking for. And fine, I don't want to undervalue the betterment of individuals if given a handout. That's fine. But the better way and the long-term way to growth that's sustainable is to have them have opportunity.

What's the way to have opportunity? Create jobs for them, right? So you and your, let's say, Preston, you and your church wants to help the poor in your community. My guess is that there are business owners in your community who can hire people. And if some of those people aren't really hireable in those industries or whatever, they could train them. Or somebody else can offer training to help them become hireable and those kinds of things. And so those are the kinds of things that I wouldn't say the church should be doing, although the church should be doing that. I don't, I'm not

the kind of person who's like, well, you know, Jesus, this is true. People will go up and say, well, Jesus didn't say that the government should do this. It said that individuals should do it. Yes. And I also think that individuals can, can group together in ways that are beneficial to people who are, who are on the margins. Um, and I, wouldn't it be nice if the marginal, if there were fewer margins, like fewer on the margins, um, it, it's almost like I look back over the last 200 years of economic history and we've, we've, we're, we're rapidly advancing at eliminating absolute destitution, uh, poverty in terms of destitution. Like we're within a decade or two of that.

When was the last time you saw a commercial of like, for the price of a cup of coffee a day, you can help these poor people in some other part of the country that you and I probably grew up with watching on TV? That doesn't happen as much because we found ways to help them. And it's been mostly free market capitalism. So the long answer is we advocate for freedom because that is what is overall as a philosophy better than simply compelling people who have more than we do to do our bidding. I'm sure there's follow-ups to that. Well, it was either you or somebody in my sort of journey into libertarian thought through podcasts and stuff that they address this very thing that, you know, people say, well, NGOs, churches, people do step up and actually meet these needs. Like if the government just kind of removed its sort of intervention, it's not like people are going to be left on the margins. Like people actually do step up. Am I getting that right? Is there data on this?

There is data on it. I wouldn't be familiar with it at my fingertips here. But the one thing that... Here's the pushback to people who will say that, right? The pushback from typically the left and even the right, because the right isn't going to get caught red-handed not caring about the poor, right? They're going to act like they care about the poor. And some of them do. I'm not saying they don't. But the pushback to this is, well, I don't think that that would actually happen. In other words, there's not enough effort and energy and knowledge for people to actually see that if the government just got out of this whatever thing is helping the poor, that other people would actually would step in. that other people would actually step in, right? Where there's not enough churches who are others-focused or focused outside themselves,

and they're not just doing building projects. There's not enough churches that are out there doing those things. Okay, let's just assume that that argument is correct. That just reveals the actual problem. The actual problem is that you have churches not willing to actually step up and help. And the only reason that they, and even in the face of this hypothetical government literally gets out of the way so that everyone could volunteer to do it, that, well, if you believe that people aren't actually going to step up and help our fellow man, help those on the margins, if you don't believe that there's churches in America and around the world who will step in and help those who are on the margins, that's a very different problem. The problem

isn't those people aren't being fed. The problem is we have Christians who don't care about it. And so if – and I argued with somebody from Surgeoners this. It's like, look, if your gospel, if your good news to the poor, citing what, Luke 4, I think. I decided bringing good news to the poor, I think it was when Jesus was quoting Isaiah, right? Yeah, yeah, Luke 4. I forget the reference. Yeah, that was when Jesus was quoting Isaiah, right? Yeah. Yeah. Luke 4. I forget the reference. Is that? Yeah. That's what I thought. Yeah. Synagogue. It's like, if this good news to the poor isn't powerful enough

without the threat of violence, you don't have good news. You just have threat, right? So if the gospel is powerful to transform lives and to transform human beings, then we don't need the government to actually accomplish that. This episode is sponsored by HelloFresh, a healthy, affordable, and super easy to prepare meal kit delivered right to your door. With HelloFresh, you get farm fresh pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep so you can skip trips to the grocery store, save a bit of money, and have fun preparing real food at home. And honestly, I know it sounds like sales pitchy, like, ooh, real fun, but it seriously actually is. I remember the first time I got a HelloFresh meal kit in the mail and my son and I, we were in charge of preparing it and we did. It was like super easy. The directions were so clear. And my son and I,

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Check out why HelloFresh is America's number one meal kit. Check out why HelloFresh is America's number one meal kit. This is the point that I argue in my book coming out next year, that the church, as the kingdom of God, it is a political entity. And we have the resources, the framework, the worldview, the motivation, the spirit that actually can accomplish the very things we're kind of expecting the government to do. And you have an example of this in the second century when the church was fairly still small and persecuted. You had a quote from, oh, who is it? Is it second century or fourth century? Anyway, when you have a pagan leader saying, you know, these Christians are not only taking care of their own poor, but they're taking care of ours too. Their internal goodness is actually spilling outside the walls of the church and they're doing it. So I don't know.

Because the biggest pushback is even I know people are going to say when they read my book, well, it's kind of utopian. The church isn't doing that and it won't do that. And I give enough examples to say, well, there's open your eyes a little bit. There, there's some incredible things that churches and Christian organizations are doing to meet the needs. I give an example of one that is, uh, helping with, uh, Oh, I forget the name of it. Gosh, blanking on it. I had the leader on my podcast while back, um, helping with asylum seekers. Because right now, again, I didn't even know this, but the government approach to asylum seekers are just completely broken. Like, yes, I think it's something like, yes, come into the country, wait a few years until you get status so you're legally, you can be here. But until you get status, you can't really work. It's like,

well, what are they supposed to do for two to five years while they're living? They can't work, but you can be here. Well, how am I supposed to survive? two to five years while they're living? They can't work, but you can be here. Well, how am I supposed to survive? So this organization, amazing organization, steps in. And I think it's called DASH, the DASH network. Steps in, a bunch of Christians, churches, basically helping care for and get housing for asylum seekers. And they're doing amazing, amazing stuff.

And it's like they stepped in because there was this gap in government policy that just was totally broken. And rather than waiting to vote the right person in who's going to quote unquote fix it or whatever you know um they just said well we can do that we have the resources to take care of people you know so yeah yeah so i don't know i i anyway i'm just agreeing with what you're saying but we're we're still hung up on economics there's a few other areas i want to get to yeah it's fine we can talk about it the big one for me that was well it's the because i don't know enough about economics to even say everything you're saying is i just i'm absorbing but um the foreign policy milit the kind of anti well the the awareness of the military industrial complex and all the negative effects of the militarism of the empire, if I can put it

like that. To my mind, libertarians are pretty spot on with this stuff. I think that historically the right, the neocons or the militaristic people, but then we're, I think through Obama and onward now, it's like the left is like, I feel like I'm, when I hear the left now, it almost sounds like I'm listening to George Bush all over again, you know, with the Iraq war and stuff. And anyway, so I'm like, I don't, I think militarism is kind of a bipartisan thing. I hear Hillary Clinton talk and I'm like, Oh, so you're a female Trump. Okay, good. Yeah. Actually, Trump trips me out because he was a – is it true that he's the first president that didn't start it? Didn't get us any new conflicts in this entire situation. I don't even know if that's true or not.

But hearing him talk, he seemed a little more isolationist than I was expecting because he's such a militaristic personality. Typically, your America first people are going to be that way. The problem is the, um, their commitment to being quote unquote America first also means it sort of entails things like defending America's interests abroad, you know, which is very nebulous. Right. And like, it could be like, well, whatever we say it is, but yeah, no, you're right. Um, you know, Trump doesn't get enough credit for that, even though like, it's not like he pulled out the troops like ron paul would have done so what is a bipartisan effort yeah give us an overview a quick overview of a libertarian approach to militarism and foreign policy well i just since i made a seinfeld reference earlier i'm gonna make another one that uh there's this meme that i just recently saw uh that had george

costanza and i don't know if you're familiar with the show but it was there was this party that the costanzas were wanting to go to and they weren't invited they were not wanted there and so the quote is they don't want us there so we're going and that's basically American policy in a nutshell I do remember that episode I've actually I mean this is like totally right yeah I mean just so for example that it trips me out well Well, yeah, it was 80. We have military bases and not we, but America has military bases in 80 countries or something. Like we don't have, I mean, Lebanon doesn't have a military base in California. Syria doesn't have a military base in Colorado.

Why would we have military bases in other people's countries? Dude, we live in Babylon. That's the thing, right? Like Christians don't realize that as much as I think part of it is that the mainstream culture is sort of so pluralistic that for many Christians who maybe enjoyed the benefits of having at least a nominal Christian type society in America, um, in terms of certain mores and things, uh, feel persecuted. So they don't have this understanding that like, basically America is a modern day Babylon. Right. And so, um, we have to learn to understand that we are citizens of the kingdom of God, right? Not citizens of, uh, United States of America. And I don't mean that you can't say, oh, well, I like living in America, that we can have that conversation about what it means to be a patriot and things like

that. But I think America doesn't realize how Orwellian, the way in which we talk about national defense has become, you know, it used to be called the War Department, and it probably still should be called the War Department rather than the Department of Defense, because that's really all it's for, right? It's made for war. So whether you say we should view our citizenship as primarily of the kingdom of God or only of the kingdom of God, depending on whether you're more like Anabaptist versus something else. I think we need to consider that we are outsiders when it comes to what do the kingdoms of this world, how do the kingdoms of this world operate and what do the people in charge want to do, right? And so even as American Christians, we are sort of numbed to the fact that we're

are sort of numbed to the fact that we're Christians of a different citizenship, and we don't properly evaluate it because we're tribal people. I mean, it's just part of how we are, right? Not that there's military might behind the state of West Virginia, but I grew up in West Virginia and I have a deep affinity for my quote unquote homeland. Right. I would have a little less deep affinity for the United States of America if I were, you know, like somebody like Edward Snowden unable to actually return to his home country. That would be a huge loss for me emotionally, personally and psychologically. Right. Despite, you know, if I were in his shoes in terms of like being wanted, but just not able to come back, that would be a big thing. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But when it comes to evaluating the actions of our government, it should be very much on the table that Christians should be able to critique the government based on what it thinks are what the church sees as proper behavior. And proper behavior is not that we can bomb other people just because we feel like there's a threat or because someone else made is not that we can bomb other people um just because we feel

like there's a threat or because someone else made up lies that we don't know yet are lies because that's just kind of how it works um so we we can speak truth to power um i we've used the phrase having a prophetic voice uh which is um something that takes it takes imagination, um, to do because it's sometimes very difficult to get outside the frame that we've been told. It doesn't matter what news source you're like. I go to the gym in the morning, uh, and you know, typically there's a bunch of TVs and there's ESPN and there's CNN and there's Fox news. And with the exception of whether what, what president they're covering at the time, the news is pretty much all the same. It's coming from the regime. It's coming from the milieu of

empire. And so I think the more we evaluate the concept of empire as Christians, the more that we will see our actual role in positioning with respect to the empire. I mean, your book's called what? Exiles? Is that what it is? Yeah. The Church and the Shadow of Empires. So yeah, I'm very much resonating with what you're saying.

And have you read A Farewell to Mars by Brian Zond? You know, I have not. But it's funny how- It'd be a really good companion book for yours. Well, that and postcards, uh, from Babylon. Um, yep. Is that, I mean, I, it's funny. I, I almost, I'm recently reading postcards and I'm like, it almost looks like I'm plagiarizing this book because there's so many similarities even to how we say it, but I literally didn't read it until I wrote my book.

No, it's good. That's a tough thing, man, to have your own say and then just be like, wait, Zahn just said almost the same thing? Mine's more of a biblical theology, or his is a little... I mean, it is that, but it's more taking theological themes

and applying it to today. So his is almost like what I hope my book would set up, even though we wrote ours backwards, but yeah. And reverse order. Yeah. I think, I think Christians need to realize that we are exiles. Um, and we are, or at the very least, maybe not exiles, which I think that metaphor actually works, but if you're not willing to go that far, you are just foreigners in a strange land, and that land happens to be a physical land and not a spiritual land, and we operate on different principles. So that's kind of where we are. Most of us at the Libertarian Christian Institute, we really don't have this like rah-rah America patriotism that's deep in our bones, but we do recognize that there are things about the American

experiment and the American experience and some of the values that do come from Christian sources and are actually to be praised. Empire is not going to get everything wrong. I mean, that's very rare, but to literally get everything wrong. But yeah, our citizenship is in heaven. And so that's... Yeah, yeah. So how would you summarize then the libertarian approach to foreign policy? Is it... I use the term isolationist. Is it that? That America should basically govern itself and not get involved with all these kind of

foreign proxy wars and everything? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I would summarize it as we are – in terms of war, we're anti-war. That's the biggest way to think of it. Defensive – not retaliatory, but defensive use of military is probably the only legit use of a military, which means we could probably bring 95% of our troops home. we could probably bring 95% of our troops home. You're right. We have so many bases around the world. It's like the other day, there's a meme that's gone around for decades or an image.

It says, look how much Iran wants war, or Iran really wants war. Look how close they put their country to our military bases. It's just like, yeah. Like, why do you think that they, this is so ridiculous to me. And I realize that right now we're dealing – we're a month in from the Israel-Hamas war right now. Israel-Palestine, however you want to call it.

And there are deeper animosities and sentiments that are not quite related to America. This war isn't quite always about us. The world doesn't revolve around America. Um, but that's, that's what most American dignitaries think. Yeah. And then, so yeah, the libertarian view is anti-war. I'll tell you a quick story. Uh, during the Obama years is when I became a libertarian and there were some people who I worked with at the time who were really, um, like really into Obama. And, um, when Trump got elected, they were like, well, I guess we can go back to protesting war again. I'm like, are you kidding me? We've been here for eight years. Libertarians preaching against war, calling Obama out on the people he killed American citizens that he

authorized a drone strike on. Uh, yeah. And not a peep from you guys yeah uh i forget what the uh shoot also here i think yeah yeah he he was a lot to look that up and get the details but i just i just remember that being being part of the he was hawkish and yeah the drone whole program and everything. But then other stuff behind this, the more I dig behind the scenes, and this is where every time I look behind, I go and do a little research. I'm like, well, what's going on in Yemen? Why are we siding with the Saudis and what's going on? I'm like, oh my word.

Is the United States, this is, again, Scott Horton and others have gone into great detail on this, but it's like i think the united states is complicit in attempted genocide on people in yemen is that i mean nobody even talks about it because nobody cares about yemen because for various reasons but it's like oh my word there's some dark sinister stuff here somalia and other things every time i peek behind the curtain i'm like how come this isn't talked about i'm like oh because the empire doesn't want to show its true colors well up until this whole israel homos thing lately it seemed like the right was turning a corner

with them being anti-war and questioning you know involvement in ukraine and yeah and things like that um but yeah i mean here's the thing since since 9-11 i mean at the time 9 9-11, I was kind of like, well, okay, yeah, we have weapons of mass destruction. They have weapons of mass destruction. We got to go. You know, that's where I was at the time in my development and understanding of foreign policy. of the president as to whether or not – I mean, yeah, the foreign policy actually changes a little bit, but it doesn't really. Like war keeps going on no matter who wins. And so that is one of the biggest prophetic critiques of empire that libertarians have done. One thing, I don't know if I've mentioned this, but we – yeah, I did. I said we should – libertarians should – or Christians should have a prophetic voice against empire. And honestly, in terms of like political movements in the United States, the libertarians are the only ones that are actually you know got got its hands and everything around the globe right and so um to be prophetic against empire like the libertarian scott horton

dave smith uh ron paul uh no look ron paul was on stage with a bunch of republicans saying we should turn the other cheek like j, and the crowd booed him. And then he's just like, we should have a foreign policy of peace. And it's like, and Christians are not up for that. And I'm like, why? This is totally a Christian perspective that we should not be enabling war. But our interests are conflicted. But, you know, our interests are conflicted.

One other thing was a while back when I read Stephen Kinzer's book, Overthrow, where he documented all the time or some of the times, some of the many, many times when the United States, I think typically CIA, was involved in overthrowing a democratically elected leader in another country because that leader didn't serve the interests of America. I mean, we can go back to several Latin American countries or Guatemala. And I mean, I go back to Iran in the 1950s, you know, um, overthrowing the democratically elected leader, installing the Shah who oppressed his people. And, you know, I've talked to people from Iran or, um, or like, why would you guys do this to us? You know, this is long before, you know, even 79 or especially 9-11 and stuff. But like, yeah, just see, again, seeing like all the sinister self-serving ways in which the empire has been in, like really hurt and damaged other people like extensively, um, to then come back and hear, you know, the rhetoric of the empire is like, Oh, people are just that they're just, they, they're jealous of our freedom. They, they attack us because they don't, they're, they're jealous of us being free people. Like, does that even make sense to you?

Like people in Iran are just, they're just over there stewing like, Oh, these Americans are so free. We need to go bomb the hell out of them. You know, like really? Does that make sense to you? Yeah. No, that's, it's, it's really stupid need to go bomb the hell out of them. You know, like, really? Is that any sense to you? No, that's, yeah. No, that's, it's really stupid. They don't hate us for our freedoms.

They hate us because we're, their country was put next to our military bases to cite the joke earlier. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of like, we keep poking people. They're going to fight back. That's the way it is. When I say we, our government is.

But if for any other reason than to be join the anti-Empire anti-war movement uh that's why Christians should be libertarian that's one that's like one really compelling reason especially nowadays um you know I had a relative asked me about what I thought of the whole Ukraine invasion uh this was the last summer at this point um or maybe it was this summer i don't remember it was before the israel thing because now we're talking about that now um and i was just like we have to avoid world war three there is there is like nuclear weapons are are out of the bag right so we're not going to uninvent that we can't we can't have world war three this would be ridiculously terrible and and such catastrophic. And so whatever has to be negotiated, and I know people don't like that because it's like,

oh, you're going to pacify a dictator. No, not saying we pacify people per se, but we have to avoid World War III. And I don't think the Christian principle is that power over and power dominance is the MO that Christians should be advocating for. It does seem, as I pay attention to kind of modern politics, it does seem to be the and power dominance is the MO that Christians should be advocating for. It does seem, as I pay attention to kind of modern politics, it does seem to be the libertarians that are the most skeptical of the military-industrial complex. Would that be correct? Because again, it does seem to be kind of a bipartisan. Sometimes the left will have more rhetoric around peace, but it's like, again, you kind of look and see the actions and it's like, well, I don't. Well, if they had stayed consistent during the Obama years and critiqued him by his own standards or by their own standards, I think I would be like, okay, yeah, I agree that you're also anti-war, but they aren't.

You know, reference the story I just said earlier about my coworker. reference the story I just said earlier about my co-worker. Libertarians have been consistent for the better part of 40, 50 years against war and against conflict and against a foreign policy that agitates. We should just say it that way. It's one thing to say, well, we shouldn't get into conflicts that are going on somewhere else. It's another thing to also say, we're helping cause those conflicts. Um, and so the military industrial complex, I mean, libertarians are all about, you know, people make it not all about, but like one of the things we're very much in favor of is people making profit off of things, but not profit off of war because now you're destroying things. You're not actually creating value. You're literally destroying

value and people. Um, and so there is no. And so there is nothing Christian. There's nothing, I would even say, from the founding standpoint of America, there's nothing American about that. There's nothing Christian, certainly, about profiting from war. And is it, so on that note, because part of the military industrial complex is the economic piece peace that America actually financially benefits greatly when there's war. It actually helps America's economy when there is conflict, when there's war. That's the argument. Would you say that that's highly debated or is that pretty much true? that's highly debated or is that pretty much true or i've heard in the most sinister moment the most cynical statements i've heard is hey you know if there's not a conflict we'll go find one

or create one because we need that for america needs that for its economic prosperity i'm like that might be a little too far i think but where is it i don't know um well um yeah no it is highly debated because you have the economic school called Keynesianism basically saying that you can sort of come up with a reason to either band together and create value or not create value but create economic churn or economic activity. I should probably the best way to put it. people like me who are in the Austrian camp is like, well, hold on. If you were jobless and you had the ability to fix windows, you wouldn't go around your neighborhood and break your own windows or just you wouldn't go outside, break your own windows to create work for yourself and call that prosperity. Right. And you wouldn't certainly do that to your neighbors who not not forget the property rights violation there. But it's like you're not creating value for your neighbors.

You're actually destroying something so that you can work. That's just – that's not prosperity. Now, if all you're caring – if all you care about is like, hey, we just want people to have work and jobs. Well, sure, that's a short-term solution that you could actually do. But like you don't even have to destroy things for that to happen. You can just send them money. But I think it was Milton Friedman who was, I don't know if he told the story or if he was actually the person in the

story. I can't remember off the top of my head. He was in China and they were, they were, they were building, they were building something. And he was like, they were like,

well, why do you, why don't you have bulldozers? And he's like, oh, well, because we want people to have manual labor, we want to create more jobs. And he's like, well, why don't you have bulldozers? And he's like, oh, well, because we want people to have manual labor. We want to create more jobs. And he's like, oh, so that's why they're using shovels.

He's like, well, why don't you just give them smaller shovels and you can hire more workers? Oh, well, that would be ridiculous. The point is you can't just create work. That doesn't create wealth. Action and work. What creates wealth is people trading value for things they they want to volunteer exchange with one another um and so you can't do that with war because that's just breaking something to fix it like fixing things doesn't doesn't make the world a better place it's not prosperity um you have to actually have new things and new new resources um or new things

created out of existing resources so um yeah i think that's a really honestly a stupid argument um uh yes in some ways. A lot of times people will go back to like, hey, back in the 50s when all our troops came home, we were able to have a boon in the economy. Or they'll point to the fact that like the economy was booming because of we all focused on the war, the war efforts. That's really kind of a myth really. I mean, yes, people were active. People got paychecks. And there's nothing – I don't want to undervalue that prospect. But from a America is wealthier because of this argument, no. Some individuals are better off in the short term, but we all trade it in the long term. I got a couple more quick categories. Immigration. What is the libertarian or range of libertarian views of immigration?

Well, the range of libertarian views on immigration are a lot more narrow than the broader politics because for the most part, when it comes to borders, we believe in the free movement of people. And we believe that borders as arbitrary thing, like people have human rights, right? And so if I want to cross over the border, I'm in Pennsylvania into Maryland, that's called free association and freedom of movement. If I want to go into Canada, oh, wait, I can't go into Canada because their government doesn't want me to without all these parameters. Why can't we just agree to do things the way that Maryland and Pennsylvania have or Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the way that Maryland and Pennsylvania have or Pennsylvania and New Jersey, if anybody ever wants to go to New Jersey. So the default view is that you have freedom of movement. The question that tends to arise with many libertarians is, what happens if you have either a large influx of

people come into a particular territory or region or area, what does that do with respect to the question of the non-aggression principle, which is, you know, they, their property might be aggressed upon and so forth. What do you do with something like that? And the answer people often come up with is something like private borders. It's like, well, we just need to enforce private property rights and therefore people can defend their own property and or community or whatever. Um, and that's, that's where you, you get in, it gets a little dicey in terms of the conversation about like, well, what do we do with what's happening at the border now? Uh, what about national security? Those kinds of questions. Um, I would say that generally speaking, this is more of a civil governance,

uh, sort of policing issue than it is a national security issue generally. But I'm in favor of what, I don't want to use the word open borders because everybody has their opinions about what that means and they have their vision of what that means as in like, all right, we're just going to erase the lines and then we don't care. That's not really what open borders is. But if you want to come here peacefully, here meaning America or here meaning, for that matter, my property. if you want to come here peacefully and interact with me and offer me something to trade, I think you should be allowed to come here. And I think that it doesn't mean you should be a citizen. It doesn't mean you should be allowed to vote. It just means you should have the freedom of movement and to make something better of yourself if you want. It's really ironic to me that typically the people who are most against immigration are the people who think that people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and do better.

Like the meritocracy-minded, which is typically conservatives, are typically in American Christianity the least pro-immigration. And that's just backward to me. It's like, well, hang on. You've got this family. They just happen to be born five miles outside the wrong sphere. Okay. By no fault of their own, they're born five miles away from this border where they could actually improve their lot in life very significantly. And you're telling me that, oh, too bad. They were born in Mexico or wherever. I guess if we're dealing with America, that's five miles. That's fine. So really, that's not very Christian. It just I don't know. And I know the counter argument to that. The counter argument to that is if I'm Doug, I'm advocating for this sort of

policy. What that means is that all my other friends have to deal with all these immigrants. And I take a step back and do what I said earlier about like, well, what do you do if the government got out of the way? And the real problem is that the church isn't willing to help. I get around it, or not get around it, sorry. I deal with it this way. Why are you a Christian? Why are you, dear Christian, not in favor of this person making themselves a better life peacefully, helping their family survive or even just thrive? Why are you against that? Freedom of movement should be what we're looking for. This is a potential for you to not, I mean, this is a potential for you to actually let somebody better their lives without really requiring much on you other than to maybe sell them things or hire them, right?

There was a moment, this would have been 2006 or 7. I remember I was living in Delaware at the time, and I went to a car wash. Actually, yeah, I went to a car wash, but the car wash wasn't just like a regular car wash. It had that, but it also had a bunch of Hispanic, I think, young men outside also hand-washing cars. I knew from experience that that was always going to get your car cleaner. I remember my wife and I were talking about it. We were like, I wonder if they're legal or not. And it occurred to me at the moment, I wasn't quite as libertarian as I just described in terms of my views on immigration, but I was kind of like, there was a moment where I was kind of like, well, wait, why should I care? Like I'm helping them have a better life. Like their immigration status is irrelevant to me as a Christian,

um, because that's again, different, different citizenship. So, uh, that's my view on things. You will hear libertarians who will advocate strongly for something called private borders, which, um, gets into the, it's kind of a weird, um, argument and stuff. I have some episodes on my podcast where I discuss this with, um, uh I discuss this with different people in the libertarian movement. Jeff Dice from the Mises Institute, he believes in private borders. I'm a little bit more worth like Brian Kaplan, who wrote a really cool book that's a graphic novel called Open Borders. And it kind of makes all those cases for things. I really, I've never actually, uh,

delved into the libertarian view. And I just knew that they had kind of a very different kind of approach than, than the majority that, that makes a lot of sense to me. I, I, uh, I often it's,

I, whenever I hear Chris, not whenever, but often when I hear Christians talk about immigration, they, they just, they, they're only thinking in kind of modern political

Babylonian categories. I'll hear arguments like, well, if we let too many in, then that's going to let a lot of bad people in. Or, okay, well, tell me, what's your verse? What does that even mean from a Christian perspective? Do you think that the Jewish exiles in Babylon, if some like Assyrians were like getting into Babylon and some of the Assyrians might've been drug dealers, or do you think the exiles would, like, they're like, Oh, this isn't my country. Like we're in exile here. Like we're living under the empire and well, wait, but if we get too many immigrants in from other countries into Babylon, then Babylon's economy, well, they won't be as

excessively wealthy. I'm like, when do I care about the wealth of the empire? And let's talk about that. Where did that wealth come from? What other countries are affected by the excessive wealth of the empire? If you only think about immigration through strictly Christian categories, if you only think about immigration through strictly Christian categories, the whole conversation becomes just kind of silly a little in, to some extent. And I'm not saying we shouldn't also like, yeah, I mean,

I just think we need to keep these conversations almost separate. Like how should we as a Christian in exile in Babylon think through how Babylon handles it, immigrants, whatever. And then if you're going to ask me, okay, if you're working for Babylon,

what would your policy be for the – well, okay. Then I have to put on a whole different mindset then. I mean – Yeah. The question comes down to like how do we vote. And honestly, I would just – that's where people – I say, well, okay. So fine. I want to have more immigrants.

What does that mean? That means I just vote for people who want more immigration? Well, that means voting for someone who's pro-choice. I can't do that, right? That's where people get hung up on the whole voting question. And that is, you know, again, we have to realize that, first of all, there's more to voting than just your president and your senators and your house representatives, right? Like congressmen. But, and there's also more to political life than just voting, okay? So you can, you can become an advocate for immigrants who are

already here because they have family that they need to be connected to. You could just have a heart for immigrants. But at the end of the day, people do want to know, well, what does this mean? How can I do this? And I want to see the church have a spirit of welcoming and open arms toward those who want to come here peacefully. I want to say Americans do that. I know that it's not very popular on the sort of non or minimal immigrant right to say they don't like this. They would say, well, America is a nation of immigrants, which is true. And part of the reason that America is quote unquote so great,

insofar as that we can call it great in certain sort of secular ways, like in terms of prosperity, is because we've let people have freedom of movement. So that's the thing. I don't have to be pro-America to believe that America is doing something right when it comes to how does it conceptualize the lives of individuals, whether it's citizens or those outside. If the United States government by default treats people as free and treats people as made in the image of God, which is what Christians believe, and if we have inalienable rights, which is what our Constitution has, there's nothing like pro or

anti-American. It just happens to align in truth, right? And so to be able to acknowledge that America is doing something right is not saying that I'm like rah-rah America. And it also doesn't mean that I'm like anti-American just because I spent the better half of this conversation espousing things that could be considered anti-American. And you know what? I'm like anti-American just because I spent the better half of this conversation espousing things that could be considered anti-American. And you know what? I'm a Christian first. And even if I love America, which in some sense I would say I do, you know, Preston, I'm pretty sure that your wife wants you to critique her because that's the loving thing to do, right? And be constructive,

obviously. But if you never, ever, ever critiqued your wife and gave her any feedback whatsoever, would that be loving? No, it wouldn't be. Okay. You have time for two more questions? I don't know what your time frame is. Yeah, I'm good. What would be the number one misunderstanding that people have of libertarianism? Because I've heard whenever I talk to some friends of mine about to i'm like ah this this framework i i i find some resonance with like yeah but they'll say some things that i'm like oh if they believe that then i don't know if i could get on board with that or whatever but um yeah what are some misunderstandings you often

hear i mean one of one of the misunderstandings is confusing libertarianism with libertinism which is a a sort of ethos of just people are allowed to do whatever they want um no matter what the like outcomes um and in in one sense it's like well yeah we believe that people ought to do whatever they want but to a limit and there are you know parameters around that and libertinism in at least as i understand it is a little bit more of an an ethos of um personal personal like, personal like morals and ethics, um, and that people ought to pursue kind of a hedonistic, you know, pursuit kind of thing. Um, that's, that's one, uh, libertarianism. Uh, well, one of the, I would say the most frustrating, um, misunderstandings of libertarianism

is that libertarianism is a little bit more monolithic than it, like they think it's more monolithic than it really is. So, you know, you and I, but use this as an example, you and I know that within Christianity, there are, within Orthodox Christianity, there are a number of denominations and they all have their own sort of spin, if you will, on theology, on praxis, on all kinds of different things, right? And so if you're talking to somebody who wants to be, who's thinking of being a Christian or is attractive to Christ and, or attracted to Christ and wants to become part of the church, well, what if they don't like the Methodists or the way the Methodists do something or the way the Lutherans do this or the way the Catholics do that or whatever it might be. And it's like, you know, there's a church flavor out there for

you that is going to suit your taste. And I don't mean to be consumerist about it in that way, but you and I know that the church as a whole is not monolithic and libertarianism is very much like that. And so I, you know, most of our conversation was talking about empire and being prophetic against it. And that is my angle on why I'm a libertarian. The Democratic Party, the Republican Party, or just people who think on the right and on the left, conservatives and progressives, do not think that way about American empire. They just – they don't have the frame to think that way. The left alleges to, but they don't. The left alleges to, but they don't. There are others who believe in individual liberty and are libertarians because they are strongly about property rights and prosperity and profits and sound economics.

There's a lot of different debates within libertarianism. There's a lot of different ways in which libertarianism gets espoused out there that some are going to – some people, some people are going to get turned off by one, one or one way or another. Um, and so, um, it's not a monolith. Uh, we don't all believe the same things. A classic example, pro-life and pro-choice libertarian party as of a year, as of a year and a half ago, the libertarian party doesn't have any as have any, uh, opinion on the, the role of the state when it comes to abortion. You are free to be a pro-choice libertarian and a pro-life libertarian and still be a member of the Libertarian Party in good conscience. And I would be a pro-life libertarian. But yeah, there's just a variety there. So biggest question, well, does that mean I have to endorse insert sin here if i'm a libertarian the answer is no because you know your personal beliefs and what you think the government ought to be able to do to people who uh violate your personal beliefs

are two different questions is it same thing with gay marriage like i know there's both and within libertarianism um like some i guess i mean I mean, so abortion, gay marriage, but then also like a lot of these kinds of moral slash cultural issues, it seems like libertarians are basically kind of like you do you and the government should stay out of your business kind of thing or. Yeah. I think a lot. Yeah. Well, it's hard to get the government out of marriage because there's a, there's an advantage to the government being in marriage. Um's a there's an advantage to the government being in marriage um and there's an advantage to the individual and to the government um but the our position my position would be that the the government should not be in the business of marriage i don't know you know who tony jones is he he he and his uh his i guess it's his second

wife now but they did not get married this is their personal um vantage uh personal theology is that they believe that gay marriage should be legal they didn't get civilly married until gay marriage was legal in their state they got married at a church and they waited to get like officially government married whatever that's supposed to mean until uh until they had equal marriage rights or whatever but to me that is just one illustration i'm not saying he did the right thing or wrong thing and they have the right police. I don't mean that. But they understood, Tony and his wife, I think Courtney, understood the difference between what is a church marriage, what is a, in the eyes of God, and what is a marriage that is endorsed by the government. And so if we can begin to think of it that way, then, you know, I don't think we have to worry about what the state does.

I like that distinction. Okay, so let me summarize. So when it comes to economics, I don't know enough to have an opinion either way. I'm still getting my mind around that. I feel like I've got a pretty firm grasp on kind of biblical economics, how that applies to the modern nation state. You know, that's outside of my pay grade. Foreign policy, love, love the libertarian approach to foreign policy and things like the military industrial complex being anti-war. And also in how you described it, I kind of like the kinds of questions and ideas that libertarianism has towards immigration.

of questions and ideas that libertarianism has towards immigration. So I'm sympathetic. Here's my one like pushback. And I think I mentioned this in the email ahead of time. In listening to the libertarians, and when I listen like Christian versus non-Christian libertarians, of course, I'm going to have different expectations. But even with, when I listen to libertarians talk, they seem a little too excited about being libertarian. I remember, you know, I'll hear someone like Tom Woods, you know, talk very much like us versus them feels like, and I really, he's got some great ideas, love his podcast, but it's very much like, we think this, no, they, this. And then when I hear, yeah, several, I guess a lot of libertarians are just,

to me, a little bit too excited about libertarian as an identity. So for me, it's not so much Republican, Democrat, libertarian. I'm going to choose this identity as opposed to the others. For me, it's like kingdom of God first. Everything else is just like a really distant second. Even though I get, I would see a lot of resonance with how I think about being a Christian, living in society, the skepticism towards empire and so on. So I think there's gonna be a lot of resonance, but I don't, for me, the identity piece, I'm like, ah, I just don't want it to be one more kind of add on to my kingdom identity. Is that a fair? Well, I mean, I think you're just making the case for why being a Christian libertarian is the best way to be a libertarian. I mean, I say that obviously to sort of start off as a little bit humorous there, but I know that for –

To add one more thing, like I heard a lot of libertarians talk about becoming a libertarian with almost conversion-like language. In fact, they would even say when I converted to libertarianism, which again, if you're not a Christian, I'm fine with that. I get that, but I've heard Christians almost use that kind of language. I'm like, I don't know. I think the reason – well, I think part of the reason for that is that there is sometimes the road to Damascus-like experience. Our eyes were opened to what was happening with foreign policy. Our eyes were open to what was happening in the economy with the Federal Reserve or whatever it might be. Our eyes were opened and therefore I have this new insight that has helped me transform my views. And so on that level, I mean, yeah, I mean, in some ways it

is a conversion. I don't know if you can get around that really, because if you're changing your mind about something, you've been quote unquote converted in a certain way. But I know what the critique is. It's like, well, is this just kind of a pseudo sort of tribal religion kind of vibe? Sort of, in one sense, in the sense of like, we all like to be libertarians and we like to be called that. There's that spirit of being different. But with respect to the infighting, the tribalism, the we're right, they're wrong. I think a lot of times, like if you're listening to somebody like Tom Woods, I mean, he's very much about having the right view, educating the people who want to be there as sort of like, he's not really, he's not really there to quote, convert people. He's there to speak to the church already. Right. Um, and so, uh, he, he, yeah, he's just there to, to, to speak to his people. Um, and so I, I think the, the spirit to which people approach, how do we converse about these topics is going to obviously make a different impression on other people. If someone has a spirit of just like

helping someone along and teaching them new principles or whatever, it's going to be a slower, slower, but even more gradual way of getting somebody to be, to buy into libertarian principles if you're just out there engaging in arguments and so forth. Um, but yeah, I don't know if that answered your question as much or if I forgot something there. It's not, yeah, maybe more of a reluctance I have or nervousness I have just because I do think, yeah, like you said, we're tribal creatures. And so we're constantly looking for tribal identity. Who's our group? Who's the in group? Who's the out group? Yeah. I'm nervous about echo chambers, you know, um, even though we all love them. I wouldn't, when you're around a bunch of people that think like you do it just feels good right so i don't want to you know be naive to that

but then i'm also i think that's where the christian piece really tempers the tribalism as a libertarian for me like as much as i really feel good when i go to freedom fest or you know i want to go to pork fest which is another libertarian conference it's like oh that'd be really good to be among my people and it's great right i mean it's just like being at a christian conference right um or or your denominations conference if that's the way it is so you feel good around people who who are like-minded and think that way but the christian piece of it is it's like you know what there's a lot of types of libertarians and i also know that not every republican and not every democrat or whatever left-wing independent or right-wing independent or alt-right person or whatever, they have thoughts that I probably align with, all of them,

right? And so the conversation about how do we all manage to live together in this situation is just a long conversation. And I will take truth where I can find it, um, and analyze that in light of the scriptures. Um, but, uh, yeah, I,

I kind of, I do, if I weren't a libertarian, I would have exactly the same already. Right. And sort of kind of looking back and having that experience, I would probably have the same critique you do or the same reluctance or hesitancy because you put a label on it and now you have to adopt

all of that all that entails whatever stigma that is i just yeah i i my main passion is i want i want christians i want the church to see its political identity as being a citizen of the kingdom of god that the being a citizen of the kingdom isn't your spiritual identity and then you also have this kind of political thing like being part of the kingdom of God is your political tribe. And that, you know, that's kind of 30,000 foot or whatever. But I think it's actually kind of important, you know, like I've even made a concerted effort. You've even caught myself a couple of times here not using the plural pronoun to refer to my American identity. I don't want to say our troops because I don't think Paul would have called the Roman empire, you know, the Roman military, our military, like our, our, what do you mean?

So, but it's, it's crazy how even me, who's very concerned about that. I often find myself attaching my identity to my, the country that I happen to be born into through no choice of my own. So anyway, I'm constantly nervous for any sort of political identity to be competing with the kingdom of God. Now, again, to come full circle, I see a lot of resonance in some of these concerns between even a random secular libertarian and a Christian theology. But anyway, yeah, just something that has popped into my mind. But yeah, man, thank you so much for being on Theology Round. Where can people find more about your work and anything you want to advertise? I mean, you got loads of resources on the Libertarian Christian Institute website.

Yeah. Yeah. Best place to get all of what we're doing at the Libertarian Christian Institute, which is, you know, our mission is to equip Christians to promote a free society and, you know, make the Christian case for libertarianism or make the Christian case for a free society. We like to go with that. Is libertarianchristians.com. We have the number of resources that we have there is pretty astounding given that we're a pretty small organization on the one hand. We have a Christians for Liberty Network, which is a list, which is a basically eight shows. Most of them are just podcasts. Some are, one is a YouTube show. We have eight shows that we have from various theological perspectives and various sort of angles on how my show,

The Libertarian Christian Podcast, is just an interview show, what we're doing right now, where it's conversation. We have the Biblical Anarchy Podcast, the Reform Libertarians Podcast, Faith Seeking Freedom Podcast, which is based on, I don't know, if this is on YouTube, I'll hold up the book here. It's called Faith Seeking Freedom. We have a book and we have a Q&A podcast. We do have a couple books out there and audio books that you can download. So, yeah, libertarianchristians.com or you can also go to christiansforliberty.net. Those are two places that you can visit and see all of our stuff.

You can sign up for our newsletter. We'll send you when we have new episodes and things like that. Great. Thanks so much, Doug, for being part of Theology in Raw. I really appreciate it. Yeah. It's a pleasure to be here, man. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.