August 8, 2016 Show with Jamin Hubner on “A Christian Libertarian’s Reflections on the 2016 Race for President of the USA”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio

platform on which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues

facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron so one

man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we

converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another

wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear

from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host Chris.

Arntzen.

Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity

living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you a happy Monday on this

eighth day of August 2016, and I'm delighted to have a guest on the

program today that I have never before interviewed.

His name is Dr. Jamin Huebner, and Dr. Huebner is an American theologian and

author from South Dakota.

He is a graduate of Dort College where he received a BA in theology.

He is also a graduate of Reform Theological Seminary where he received an MA in religion, and the

University of South Africa where he received his THD in systematic theology, and

currently serves as the Director of Institutional Effectiveness and Founding Chair of

Christian Studies at John Witherspoon College in the Black Hills.

And we are also going to be discussing today a recent event that Dr. Huebner spoke

at, the Christians for Liberty Conference, which was just held over the

weekend, and we're looking forward to discussing that.

And the primary topic today is a Christian libertarian's reflections on the

2016 race for President of the United States.

But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron,.

Dr. Jamin Huebner.

Well thank you Chris, I really appreciate the invitation and I think this should be

some fun, and I hope it's for our listening audience.

Yeah, and I am confident it will be.

And before we go into the heart of our.

Subject.

Today, I'd like our listeners to understand a little bit about your own religious background, what kind of

a religious atmosphere you were raised in, and when you came to Christ,

obviously an abbreviated version of your testimony, and how you came to be

fascinated and actively involved in libertarian.

Politics.

Okay, sure, incredible blessing

of being born into this world in the United States and

with two Christians, and right there, that's a lot.

Yeah.

You know, and they're

supportive of me generally, and throughout my life,

in a

pretty small way, into

theology, and I was thinking of going into a

career in

music.

You know, my family

supported me, but on the other hand, and I

didn't know.

It was faith, and we, you

know, I tried to keep my expenses low and

continue that whole thing.

I mean, when I really became a

Christian, I didn't really have the, you

know, there's two or three

in my teenage and early

creature and problems.

I can't

really be God.

Anyway, I mean, that's, you know, that, it's...

On the other hand, you know, I've always had a very curious kind of mind, and

you know, as I

continue to learn and look at the different areas, and so that has really, you

know, varies internally.

It's a big world, and there's a lot of ideas, even within

Christianity.

You know, everybody's a work -in -progress journey, and we go through different

phases, and what God has done to me,

and that's how I got into,

you know, I mean, you can't really escape politics living in the United States.

I mean, find the biggest

hole in the ground.

At least I am.

So, for good or ill,

relationship, everything that goes into the

leaders and the, and that goes all

the way

in manipulation.

You know, I grew up

in, you know, in

the field, on the farm, and sort of adopted, you know, a

neoconservative perspective.

If you could,.

If you wouldn't mind defining that for our listeners who have heard and

understand liberalism to a degree, they understand conservativism to a degree, and I've

noticed that many people often don't really understand the genuine definitions or

origins of those points of view, but if you could contrast a neocon from

an authentic, in your opinion, historically conservative.

Individual.

Okay, well, that's an interesting question.

I guess different people would take different approaches, but I guess mine would be

the, let me just, who

wrote a book called, I

just read that book last year, I think it's an excellent book,

is basically libertarianism, with the exception of probably his views on foreign

policy, and so that would entail an extremely

limited, you know, view of government regarding not just what the government does, but the purpose and the

nature of the government, which has sort of evolved over time.

And, you know, a lot of different ideas about free markets and economics

go into that, and that has kind of shifted from the

60s, maybe early 70s, I wasn't

born, I wasn't alive during that time, so I don't want to be too presumptuous, but

from what I've heard, and that has sort of, you

know, evolved to the

Amark war,

and interventionists, you know,

I mean, we

can parse out things like that.

Largely, neoconservative divested, the

president really emphasizes and understands human

beings as free, and can

really, you know, only works with force, and that's part of its nature, and

that's a problem.

It's gotten out to a point where, well, some of the rhetoric is left,

slogans and the ideas remain, but the so -called limited government fiscal responsibility.

I mean, as far as I'm concerned, I haven't seen that

from either party.

Yeah, I mean, wasn't George W. Bush more irresponsible fiscally than his

predecessor, Bill Clinton?

Well, that's a great point, and that was what really got me disillusioned with the neoconservative model

was, here we supposedly know all our dreams would come true, and the

world would be at peace, and what happened with Bush?

Well, we invaded countries, we bailed out a bunch of corrupt banksters, and

the debt, you know what I mean?

So, while my parents and my friends and the sort of bubble I was in and grew up in,

we believe in, you know, limited government.

The more and more I looked into it, and I was actually a political science minor in college for a while, and

the more I really looked into these things, just the, I don't know which metaphor

to use, but

what even the government is, even on definitions, what the state is, what our relationship should be

to different organizations and social entities, and he

was talking about how there's really only one party in

Washington, but it was

true.

And like the left -white dichotomy

and dualism, as

far as the East is from the West, when you really get down to it, you think about it, you read about it, you

understand all the different variables, and see what happens in Congress and so forth,

the differences are, you're seeing that recently with some of these great

Republican leaders endorsing Hillary, and that doesn't surprise me too much, but,

so, I mean, one of the basic assumptions in contemporary politics in America is

parties, and libertarianism

questions that assumption.

It says that actually, well, there's so many memes,

and one of the memes I love, it has pictures of both parties,

in case you haven't figured it out, if I buy on you, both parties will start illegal wars,

both parties will, you know, are owned by banks, both parties will continue the drug

wars, and it goes on and on and on, and it was things like that that really kind of opened my eyes,

that, you know, oh my goodness, this is, the parties are owned, and they're owned

by people higher up in other,

really, the election system

is more of an offensive people, so.

Yeah, my friend William Grigg, who is a Christian

libertarian, I believe he said that the parties are in the same crime

family, they're just different cartels, or something like that.

Yeah, there you go.

Something to that effect.

And I'm going to give our email address here for anybody who would like to join us on the air with a

question of your own for Dr. Jamin Hubner about a Christian libertarian's reflections on

the 2016 race for President of the United States.

Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N

-Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, city and state of residence, and country of residence if you live outside

of the USA.

It's been interesting lately how I've been getting overseas emails

with questions from my guests about our political race for President, so even from

Scotland recently.

But anybody is welcome to join us, no matter what your beliefs are, you don't need

to be a Christian.

You could be atheist, agnostic, Muslim, Jewish, Swedenborgianist, or a Christian,

we look forward to hearing from you regardless.

And so, now you've become fascinated or

drawn towards further investigation of libertarianism, and how did that

lead you to be fully entrenched in it, if you will?

That's a good question.

I guess, yes, in one, I've already

been with the,

and another was, well, one was economics.

I've always been interested in economics, and I'm half into economics right now and

helped to teach it at a college level.

And really, the only kind of group that gave

any substantial weight to sound economic thinking were libertarians.

I mean, you know, the political route,

maybe we should do something about, and creating

all the

standards in Massachusetts, and the printing of

the current 100 years, and 2008

bubble, all that can be traced back to currency,

and fractional reserve banking, and making problems, and

hardly anyone mentioned these things.

I mean, when you have an entity like the Federal Reserve that controls the entire currency.

Of a country, that's a lot of power.

That's a lot of power.

And when the U .S. dollar, the Federal Reserve

note, these and

most politicians and parties don't critique that, it's because they need a central bank to print fake money,

and these currency, and these notes, so that they can spend them, spend those notes through borrowing,.

You know, to the people who have elected them.

So libertarians are the only people who really started thinking that was

part of, you know, the idea that debt is

bad, for instance.

You know, that we can't, a huge cave,

a cavern of debt is, you know, you'd think would be pretty common understanding of things.

And you know, it always kept, well, should we lower income

tax, or should we

even have.

Income tax?

Right.

Income tax, no American paid income tax prior to 1913, they held on to 100 of their

income.

It was started to fund World War I, it was temporary, hopefully for only a couple years,

you know, these big problems, and here it's today, and it doesn't just exist, it's huge,.

It swallows a third of what we make.

And it's just incredible.

Yeah, I didn't even become aware of this until

about, I don't know, seven or eight years ago when I discovered the

documentary that Aaron Russo produced called America, Freedom to Fascism.

Have you seen that?

I have not, no.

Oh, that's an excellent documentary, specifically on the income tax

issue, and you will be fascinated because he actually, Aaron Russo, by the way, is

a movie producer who produced 48 Hours starring Eddie Murphy, and

The Rose starring Bette Midler, and he

was being accosted, if you will, not physically, but he was being

harassed in a friendly way by those who were aware of what

you are speaking about now, about the origins of the income tax system, and he

finally, thinking that they were nuts, he was being barraged by so much

information and so many people that he decided, I've got to really look into this myself, and he found out that

much of what these people were saying, if not all of what they were saying, was true, so he did this really great documentary, you can see it for

free on the internet, America, Freedom to Fascism, and he interviews

an attorney for the IRS, and the guy actually stopped the

interview mid -stream because he didn't realize he was going to be

exposed for the hypocrisy and deceit that the IRS is built upon,

and it's kind of interesting how the Constitution is a very small

document, and he and Aaron Russo brought out the IRS tax code and it was like the size of

three phone books put together, but if you could, I'm sorry, I

interrupted you there, but I just thought I'd do it.

Oh, that's fine.

Yeah, that's interesting, I'll check that out, and that brings up an

interesting point in just, I mean, I have the privilege of being

in the academic world and going through different studies and research projects,

so I've kind

of

developed it,

you know, because it's banking, it's

finance, and you know, it's always tempting for people to just dismiss it all,

you know, or accept it all without any kind of qualification or thought, and then who

knows where that might lead in this important aspect, but anyway, in finishing

the answer,

because of economic caution, and then there was

another big shift, it has to do with just under what

government is, I mean, if you talk to different people and you ask what the government is, you get, you know, a dozen different

definitions, and you would think that, well, we all sort of know what it

is,

but it's a really fascinating.

Book.

You know, they put a definition to the state in a way that

light bulbed for me that,

you know,

if a, you

know, if you decline our offer, we'll

punish you.

It's like, wait a minute, whoa, I mean, it's, you know,

when the government makes an offer in education, food,

housing, immigration, national defense, you turn

this down, we'll.

Punish you.

We'll fine you and make you steal,

sell, if you decline, long enough, anyway, and so this realization that the state is

the only entity, it is the only social organization

assumed, you know, otherwise, well,

otherwise what?

We won't have, you know, all the things, and that was kind of a

final turning point, realizing that, you know, oh my goodness, why

do we believe this is just okay, because, you know, the use of force is, that's just violence, is when you

initiate force against.

Someone, that's violence.

And so, it kind of opened my eyes to the, that we

lived in, violation of liberties that Americans

originally, you know, acted upon, you know, that are, that are continually violated.

I just read a story in the Rapid City Journal about a 17 -year -old girl from Sturgis who was coming back from some mission trip or

something, and TSA asked if she could be molested.

And for what, for what reason?

Well, for national security, of course, as long as, you know, and what

can happen to government agencies?

Well, there's no accountability.

See, in the free market, we could do something,

write reviews on Amazon,

or, you know, on the Internet or whatever.

Well, we can't do that with the government.

Right.

It's like, if our rights are violated, we just have to, that's it.

I mean, it's just, the abuse of power is just a systematic thing that they can continually.

Get away with.

So, there's no mechanism of correction.

There's no accountability.

And so, anyway, yeah, I mean, just realizing the

nature of this

thing to me, and then, wait a minute.

Jesus hated these.

Voluntarism, it just permeates the New Testament.

And even when it comes down to giving, like under

compulsion, you know, the New Testament writes

spirit, not under compulsion.

And that's always, that's kind of part of the New Covenant, is a community of voluntarism, of

freedom and liberty within the law

of Christ together.

Libertarianism is the

shared goals and values and assumptions of peace.

Oh, yeah.

Well, what do you do with the fact that the scriptures are clear that we are

to pay taxes, we are to render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and so on?

And, obviously, believe me, there's a part of this conversation that is going to be devil's advocate, because

I realize that much of what the United States population

believes their taxes are going to, are just not going to

fund those things.

People think that there would be, without our income tax, there would

be no more highways, roads, bridges, schools, the

military would cease to exist, and all that.

A couple different questions there.

The first one about, you know, the New Testament and relationship to the state.

It's very interesting.

Well, there's really nowhere, as far as I understand, that

when, I mean, I'm not,

I mean, it's really interesting when that question came up.

Is it with Caesar?

Well, what's so interesting, you know, Jesus doesn't say,

you know, give your property,

and it's yours.

In a really interesting and subtle way, Jesus says, give this Caesar what is Caesar's.

And, of course, he was doing three and four different things by that one phrase.

And, of course, you know, teachers of the New Testament for centuries.

But an interesting point to make that he didn't just say, well, yes, you should

just, you know,

just work

with him.

The government back then had an approved

word on that list.

If you're a counselor,

you know, the government has this list of the approved things, the approved

businesses, the approved war factories.

Well, it was the same back then with religion.

Judaism was the Jesus

guy.

Why Christianity is not atheist.

The Incarnation fit these other pagan mythologies and Greek goddesses.

It just didn't seem to fit very well.

So, that made Christianity eventually, you know, became illegal.

Atheistic, or not approved,

and not Jesus as Lord.

Okay, we don't see Jesus as Lord.

Caesar, the emperor

of the entire, just

the deity of Christ,

troning the head of the government.

It was as treasonous and as, it made them enemies of the state as much as was possible.

Because it was Augustus Caesar who, he was worshipped as divine.

And now all of a sudden, there's this group of Jews and Gentiles singing songs about

Jesus of Nazareth.

And saying Jesus is Lord.

Praying, even, to Jesus.

Really complicated things.

And then another thing about early Christianity that made them very, had a very unstable,

totally different society, totally different way of operating, was the Resurrection Doctrine.

Because, you know, Resurrection Doctrine was not,

and by Resurrection Doctrine, I mean

That was not extremely common and widely believed.

When Jesus came back, they didn't believe him.

They had to be, they demanded evidence.

But didn't the Pharisees, didn't the Pharisees strongly believe in the Resurrection,

not that they believed in Christ?

They did.

That's the one thing that the early Christians and the Pharisees had in common.

The very big thing that they had in common.

The Sadducees didn't believe in the Resurrection.

And for that reason, we're in cahoots with the state a bit more.

Because when you believe that people come back from the dead, the use of force loses its power.

I mean, think about it.

Well, we know how that plays out.

Yeah, I believe Jesus is Lord.

What are you going to do, kill me?

I'm coming back from the dead.

I mean, Jesus has conquered the grave.

And so, the Resurrection Doctrine was revolutionary, in N .T. Wright's terms, and

belief started to not feed.

And for a second reason, the Old Testament prophecy,

the nation of Israel.

So, talking about Resurrection was one thing.

You know what I mean?

It was really these basic teachings

in the society that they were presenting, which was not based on

force, but turn the other cheek.

And it was based on voluntarism and freedom.

All these things, it was a whole new way of looking at the world.

And as David Bentley Hart points out in his really good book by Yale University Press, Atheist

Delusion, he talks about

where Jesus was being mocked.

The greatest irony.

Because here's the king of the world.

Here's God in the flesh.

People think that, you know, because suppose the big deal, you

know, being the emperor or the head of the government or some official is a big

deal, you know, the question is what is

really being changed?

It's really subtle and in a

way sort of anarchic in the ways

of the government and military and different things.

You know, in the Christianity, and that's why it really became

AD.

So, anyway, that's what I would just say.

We go back then and read Romans 13.

And could you stop right there?

Because we have to go to a break.

Oh, yeah.

And obviously Romans 13 is where the whole idea of a Christian paying

taxes is really coming from here.

And if we, if you are listening and would like to join us on the air with a question, in fact, we

already have several people patiently waiting, well, at least I hope they're patiently waiting to have their

questions asked and answered.

You could join them as well by asking a question of your own by emailing us at chrisarnson at

gmail dot com.

Chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

And don't forget to please give us your first name, city and state of residence and country of residence if you live outside the USA.

We'll be right back with Dr. Jamin Huebner right after these messages.

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in for the full two hours today, our guest is

Dr. Jamin Hubner, Director of Institutional Effectiveness and Founding Chair of Christian

Studies at John Witherspoon College.

He's addressing a Christian libertarian's reflections on the 2016 race for President of the United States,

and we are starting off our two -hour discussion, and have been for the last half

hour or so, or actually close to 40 minutes, by getting more of a background and definition of what Christian

libertarianism is, and of course, Christian libertarians, as I've

discovered, are not cookie -cutter individuals.

There are disagreements even amongst them, just as there are any group of people.

And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com

chrisarnsen at gmail .com and give us your first name, city and state and country of residence if you live outside of the

USA.

For those of you waiting to have your questions asked, we just ask for a little patience right now until we

get into the heart of the topic.

Before I even go any further with our discussion, Dr. Huebner, can you tell us what

a Director of Institutional Effectiveness does?

You know, I wish I could, but I really can't.

No, you know,

the octopus arms of the government in higher education.

You know, I think I actually learned a lot, and

I never would have expected, and then

reflected on that and thought, why don't you?

But I did a couple times.

But at any rate, you know, it's an

administrative sort of

thing.

Could you describe, for our listeners, what John Witherspoon College is?

Sure.

And of course, in this interview, I'm just speaking on behalf of myself, not of the college or any church.

I have my own views.

But yeah, it's a really interesting and exciting project here in the Black Hills,

about 25 miles from Mount Rushmore.

And it's weird that there, like, is no Christian college

in this, you

know, sort

of finely, like,

really great Christian...

You know, when you start a Christian college from nothing, you don't expect to have, in your

second year,

you know, one of our professors is

the world's expert on

words.

And, you know, a professor of humanities

is in the country.

So, like, the people are great.

Most of our students are homeschooled, and they already come in knowing how to read and write, which is

more than you can...

I mean, that's like a blessing these days, because

they have

writing skills.

Not as many as we would like, but yeah,

it's really been a tremendous accreditation as well.

I got three doctorates, and he was the president of the Criswell.

And,

you know, you

know...

Now, you got your M .A. from Reform Theological Seminary.

I've interviewed a number of the faculty, in fact, the current president, and

even the former president of RTS.

I've interviewed him on my program.

I happen to be theologically reformed.

Do you retain that theological position?

And what is that...

How does that fit within John Witherspoon?

Well, the college is non -denominational, so we have, you know...

I think most are probably...

I don't speak on behalf of the college, but, you know, we have evangelical -free, Presbyterian, Baptist

professors, and we've had students who are Catholic, you know.

So it's non -denominational, but I still largely

identify with...

You know, I find myself more in line with a pretty nuanced, you might say, like, neo

-Calvinism.

One of my favorite theologians is Herman Bovink, and some others.

And so I'm not one of those guys who's like,

you know, the Westminster Standard is the greatest thing since sliced bread, you know what I mean?

Or to question the Westminster Standard is basically the...

But I'm just not as dogmatic, you know, as a lot of people who identify in that

particular circle.

Yeah, and Herman Bovink was a Dutch theologian, wasn't he?

Yeah, yeah, he took Abraham Kuyper's place at the Free University of Amsterdam.

So you think the three forms of unity are the greatest things since sliced bread, then?

Well, you know, in terms of confessions I have about

PCUSA,

there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds,

just amazing how many there are.

And they're really cool, and they're really

great, and I wish we would have heard about them earlier.

And one is this 1983 Statement of Faith, because it was when two

Reformed denominations got back together, and two churches got back together,.

And that's often not the case.

Usually, when a creed or confession...

And that really kind of changes the tone, I think, when you actually read

through different creeds and confessions.

That was one of my favorites I learned about recently.

You know, I've had a new appreciation for the Nicene Creed of 381

and some others in different ecumenical ways.

I was just going to ask you who John Witherspoon was.

Well, Witherspoon, he was the only pastor to

sign the Declaration of Independence.

It was New Jersey College back then.

And he was of Scottish descent and

moved to the States.

Frankly, he's one of the only Founding Fathers where you can say with certainty, okay, this guy's

a Christian.

He believes in the Jesus Christ Lord and the deity of Christ, and he's

not ordeas for things like that.

And he also wrote some interesting works on money.

He wrote a treatise on money and economics and things like that.

So yeah, he's a pretty interesting guy and he had a bounty on his head and apparently some guy got killed because they thought he was Witherspoon.

Poor guy.

Well, let's return to the subject at hand now and I want to read Romans 13

1 through 7.

And then you could return to what you were saying when we left off at the break.

Romans 13, this is the Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans, beginning at

verse 1.

Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities

for there is no authority except from God and those which exist are established by God.

Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God and they who have

opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.

For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior but for evil.

Do you want to have no fear of authority?

Do what is good and you will have praise for the same for it is a minister of God to you

for good.

But if you do what is evil be afraid for it does not bear the sword for

nothing for it is a minister of God an avenger who brings wrath on the one who

practices evil.

Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection not only because of wrath but also

for conscious sake for because of this you also pay taxes for

rulers are servants of God devoting themselves to this very thing.

Render to all what is due them tax.

To whom tax is due.

Custom.

To whom custom fear.

To whom fear honor.

To whom honor.

And that is Romans 13 1 -7 if you could respond to that and pick up where you left off

when we had the break.

There.

Sure in case people

didn't

have it and

without getting into repeating myself and all that one of the things that

is necessary to know actually what it means.

One thing that is interesting in hermeneutics is a person can do

things by saying things.

You know the classic example of that so called speech act theory

is in marriage when you say I do well

you are not just saying something.

You are not just by saying I do.

You are actually assigning

yourself a really important question

in interpreting any text of scripture.

Certainly Romans 13.

Ok here is what.

Is said but what is all.

I'll come back to what I was saying about the

cultural context.

The early church was in a very very tight spot can you imagine being

Jesus was condemned by not just the government

leaders his own people the Jews and of course

scattered and but after the resurrection there is this new discovery and things start getting

going.

And what are their.

Options in terms of preaching the gospel and spreading the good news.

And how does this relate to the proclamation of the resurrection

and the gospel that Jesus was mourned.

And the relationship of the church to the state.

Well I mean I guess the church could

basically say to the emperor and to

the establishment and the authorities you have no authority.

The Jews sort of did that.

You have the Maccabean revolt centuries earlier.

And then the Jewish revolts.

And that of course first of all it's not the way the kingdom of God armed

revolution is not

embodied.

And leadership

and people who killed them changed the world.

And now it's becoming.

It's not just going

to because they would get crushed first of all

they're going to get smashed.

And who's going to be there then to tell the story.

And actually I would look called here

is not and the collection of essays by New Testament scholars.

And they look at empire criticism in the New Testament.

Because there's a lot of debate about how much the early church criticized the government.

Some people think you know they're reading in people reading too much into it.

And maybe it's more than we think because you can't just write a letter on the

black list.

And you know you're going to be in trouble.

Criticizing you know it's not just criticizing the government.

They criticize the government.

Well in the language of

power

they take form in the embodiment of emperor and different things like that

anyway.

Yeah it's an essay in there by Michael Bird and he writes on Romans 13.

It's pretty good.

And he has a quote.

And he says this.

He says survival is one of the greatest forms

of survival is one of the greatest forms of survival.

And so in that

light we then look at the church's other

doing everything the government says.

Which sort of sounds like what Romans 13 implies.

Obviously it doesn't.

Because the Christians did not.

They certainly didn't burn incense to the emperor.

They didn't do all kinds of things.

That the government required.

Right.

And that would have involved if you take it to the 20th century Christians turning in Jews.

Things like that exactly in Nazism in the Barmen Declaration all that right.

It's a similar thing because it was so clearly a

real deep violation of a person's conscience and of the kingdom of God.

So you have those two.

The Christians aren't going to do either.

They're not going to get crushed through an armed revolution and just resist.

And they're not just going to submit what

you have then.

Chris is it's not just in Romans 13 because we have to view all of scripture in light of each other.

It's not the only place at all

but the thing to remember is

this is like a certain Rome not

your ordinary village not your ordinary town in the empire.

And these Christians I'm sure are very very tempted to overthrow

their lords and the various people who are

Paul gives his instruction.

In that context.

The criticism that's baptism is you have Paul saying these

things which really sounds like we.

Just sort of there's no kind of resistance there's no kind of critique

in the first chapter of Romans.

In chapter 1 verses 1 -8.

He basically there's a really interesting essay on that.

He basically.

In a very subtle way and not so direct

as much as Romans 13 hits the

emperor of the empire against

as being defined like all of the different attributes and

various introductions.

Just so happens to speak a lot of the claims

and so all I'm saying is this is that when we read passages like Romans 13

we have to see them within a larger context.

How that's going to work out is going to be different with each situation.

We don't have a Roman empire today.

We have a so -called democracy in the United States government and so the ways of defiance

and the ways of obedience are going to take maybe different incarnations.

So back then that meant.

You don't have

to get

everything right as it were.

It's sort of like the slavery thing.

Paul doesn't say slavery is wrong.

1 out of 5 people in the empire were slaves

in a different cultural context.

It's not only.

And that gets

into what you talked about when we know that some of our taxpayer money is actually going

towards abortion or maybe wars that are totally unjust illegal

and killing.

I have no problem.

I would never condemn a Christian for not paying abortion.

Now what kind of binding conscience issue that would invoke.

What are the lines to be drawn.

It would depend on the case case basis.

Hopefully that at least opens up that.

A little more.

There seems to be the difference that I understand in my limited understanding.

There seems to be a contrast being made by those who are libertarian

against those who are both Republican and Democrat

that both of these parties although the Republican Party would

insist or many of its voices would insist that they are for a smaller or

limited government that they actually are in favor of a government

that is far too large but just for different reasons.

And it seems that the Republicans have chosen

to limit the freedom of speech and other freedoms and

liberties that Americans have just for different reasons than the liberals and the leftists

have.

And of course in this day and age it's ironic that those who would call themselves

liberal are more in the spotlight of trying to remove the freedom of

speech from citizens where that seemed to be the caricature at one time

of the more conservative individual who wanted to stop certain songs from being

played on the radio stop the production of certain lyrics

on record albums and of course that would be in today's world CDs, MP3s, whatever you

want to say and it's ironic though that Al Gore's wife was actually a

champion to get the labeling of record albums

enforced with a content warning and she obviously was not a Republican.

But today you have those who have

been identifying themselves as liberals which has always been associated with

everybody having an equal voice in the public arena of ideas,

now they're trying to just silence everyone who disagrees with them.

But that is where there seems to be a

dishonesty or even an unconscious.

Misrepresentation of.

The size of the government that is desired by especially those on the Republican end because they seem to

really want a government that is just as large as the Democrats do.

Now am I, did I misdefine things or how would you respond to what I just said?

Well I think a lot of what you said is true there about these double standards

you know I think you're right, both of that.

I don't know the extent of the speech thing as much as the the size of

the government which is a little more easy to identify, the

number of laws passed and things like that.

So I think there is a double standard that's a part of

each party and that's a reason why a lot of people

are at least hesitant.

And we could go back to a

ping pong example, well

we're all for this you know but in reality you know we're not

the left is,

and get rid of the poor and being for the little guy and

you know not knowing that it eradicates

wealth from an economy faster and more efficiently than any other system known in the world

and creates incredible poverty.

Especially now in the 21st century when the most violent century

behind us is right behind us

80 million people are in their grave from being killed

by government and to

think that it will bring

peace on earth or help the poor.

And you know we see no indication of it

and you know in my perspective the only legitimate

individual which

says that initiation of force is wrong.

Let's pick up right on that thought when we come back for our next break and if you'd like to join us

on the air our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com and I promise I'll get to those who are waiting to have their

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I apologize for keeping you waiting so long at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns.

And if you just tuned us in, our guest for the full two hours today, which we have already been through

over one hour of, is Dr. Jamin Huebner, Director of Institutional

Effectiveness and Founding Chair of Christian Studies at John Witherspoon College.

We are discussing a Christian libertarian's reflections on the 2016 race for President of the United States,

which we actually haven't delved into yet, but we've been getting some important background, so we even understand

what a Christian libertarian is.

And again, we cannot cookie cutter that phrase, but there are some probably vital things

that all Christian libertarians would share in common.

We are accepting emails, and we still have several of you waiting with questions,

but our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

Chrisarnson at gmail dot com if you have a question for our guest.

And let me go to one of those questioners.

CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, wants to know, is your guest a

pacifist?

And if he is against revolution, how does he think that the

ideals of libertarianism could ever flourish in a land such as America, which was

under the yoke of tyranny before the patriots who founded our country

as a free nation did have a revolution against the British throne?

Okay, well, the first, I am

much more sympathetic to pacifism than I was ten years ago.

Theologians like Stanley Hauerwas, Divinity School, has written

extensively on the subject.

Really entertaining to read, he's pretty funny, but he's kind of known

as the, these days.

And he's got a lot of, you know, interesting things to say.

I don't agree with the way he defines capitalism and different things.

I think the basic idea behind pacifism is just an

extension of what Jesus says with regard to

what Jesus does.

I mean, he endures violence.

So, if a person was to come up and threaten you with your life, and

do they have the right to defend, I would say yes.

My shotgun is not very far away from this room, in fact.

So, if they're a person

who believes that that wouldn't be effective, and

that dying is something that's more Christian, I'm not going to argue.

So, I'm open for persuasion.

And on a national level, you know, I'm not opposed

to national defense.

We would all be Muslims in about five years if that wasn't the case.

Sure, and right.

And I don't think, however, that really any of the wars since World

War II were illegal, of

course, regarding a lot of different

things.

Yeah, a lot of people don't even realize that the last war that was officially declared by

Congress was World War II, wasn't it?

I think I shouldn't be quoted on that, but as far as I know,

none of the wars that Americans have fought since World War II are even close to being legitimate.

And for that reason, I don't

just sort of like worship the military, you know, like have this awe

-inspiring moment when I see someone in uniform at an airport, because I think God

will hold people accountable on an individual basis.

Well, I was told that this is for national security.

It's going to fly across the world.

Not that I credit to the extent that wars

are not legitimate.

We're now in a process as a country, basically,

legitimizing violence.

Or in SWAT team raids of people's homes, looking for a plant, or all

these other forms of violence now, it's just like we're becoming dissent.

So in short, am I passing the

ideas there?

The other question, I don't remember the wording of it.

Yeah, the revolution, basically justifying.

How could you be opposed to revolution if the freedoms that libertarians long for

and the liberty that libertarians long for would never be available to us if there was not a revolution

where we were...

Well, I never said it wasn't against revolution.

I always said it wasn't against an armed revolution.

I am a huge fan of success.

For the same reason that I have the right to walk away from an ice cream parlor that says, we'll give you $5

for this ice cream.

I say, that's too much.

I'm going to decline the offer.

All things can be voluntary.

They should be.

There's no reason why any entity, any social group, a church, a school,

whatever it is, we work on the basis of mutual agreement, association,

and a common set of basic expectations.

With the European Union, I realize that's not the equivalent of

state secession.

However, I don't remember any war taking place.

And there's a lot of countries in the last 50 years, little tiny ones.

You'll see them in the Olympics.

When they come in, there's like 20

countries, really tiny.

They're all being represented.

In the last 100 years that have been created, and there was no massive war, there was no

genocide, there was none of these big problems.

So the idea that secession is going to require armed revolution, or that secession is

going to lead to violence or lead to war, I don't see...

In fact, I think it's highly improbable.

Secede, I actually mentioned it and everybody started clapping.

I didn't expect that out of 10 ,000 Texans.

You know, if Texas was to secede, I mean, nobody really knows what would happen, because

unfortunately our Constitution is an extremely...

Although we all know America...

I just don't see a big civil war happening, you know.

And because the last time secession took place there was the Civil War, that for some reason every time

that there's going to be this effort...

Yeah, I know that there are, especially some of my brethren in Christ,

more from a theonomic background who view Abraham Lincoln as a

tyrant.

Still, because he took violent means to stop seceding

states, and that created a stronger federal government than ever

existed prior and was ever the vision of the Founding Fathers.

Yeah, Thomas D. Lorenzo's book is a

good book.

I haven't read all of it yet, but I listened to interviews of the author, and yeah, it's shocking some of the

things.

But then we realized, oh, that's right.

Everything we know about the government's leaders and presidents,

why are the governments biased there?

There's another really good book recommendation, if I could.

It's called Recarving Rushmore.

And I don't remember the name.

It basically reviews all on the basis of the

three criteria of the American values of peace, liberty, and

prosperity, and ranks them.

It's really interesting.

Just the way that people think about leadership and how they always glorify the violent

presidents, the wartime presidents, the people that did the hard work of keeping peace.

And the government was pretty small and did very little, and things were prosperous.

You don't hear anything about.

Yeah, that's sort of interesting, too.

Well, we have in Luke 22

something that every lover of the Second Amendment, who is a Christian, loves to read.

And that is Jesus Christ himself saying, But now whoever has a money

belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword

is to sell his coat and buy one.

Obviously, there's a reason Jesus said that, and there seems to be

among libertarians, and in case our listeners are misreading

your definition of libertarianism when you were discussing nonviolence,

I have met quite a number of libertarians who, although they think that the United States

is involved in inappropriate and even illegal

military activity overseas, they are not at all opposed to our borders being

protected by the military.

And also, obviously, that every citizen should be armed if

they choose to be, and being able to protect their own wives and children and

so on.

Of course, yeah.

Yeah, well, that

amendment, and I

wanted to have my AR -15 a couple of years ago, but I didn't get one yet,

and a Glock 45 with a laser, so I guess I'll

just have to be content with the 12 -gauge Beretta, so I'll leave the

envy for others.

But, yeah, I don't know of any libertarian that's

opposed to owning any kind of weapon.

The thing is, the whole discussion is framed in the wrong terms.

It should be framed in terms of profit, because at the end of the day, that's

the only real effective, consistent way, in my view, and I think in the libertarians' view,

that it can be carried out either in an anarcho -capitalist society or a minarchist

society, all based

on saying, well, should people be able to buy guns, or should they be able to do this?

The question to me is the same as should people own a car, should people be able to own a house, or

own any other thing.

If there is

such a thing, so

long as they don't violate the rights of others.

That's libertarianism 101.

People are free by default, they can do anything they want, so long as they don't initiate

violence on another person.

You know, the thing with gun control, it has really nothing to do with guns, it has a lot more to do with control,

and, I mean, not that some laws might prevent some children from getting shot,

you know, maybe they would, but at the end of the day, what type of society do we want to

live in?

If it's going to be a free society, well, if we don't want to be in a free

society, let's make all the laws,

and pass all the laws we can, to be a utopia.

And, of course, you see that with minimum wage, and all economic laws, they're supposedly supposed to...

The assumption behind these types of laws, like price control,

poverty can be eradicated by making it illegal.

Well, if that was the case, I mean, poverty would have been eliminated hundreds of years ago.

You know, you...

And this goes back to a really important observation that libertarians make, is that the

state, in modernism, you know,

supposedly God is dead, we're all smarter now, we're getting beyond that stuff,

buildings, the, you know, the prophets,.

The scriptures,.

You have all the aspects of religion in the state of them.

And so, people, they don't realize, especially, usually those on the left, but some, you know,

neoconservatives as well, is that they're assuming a God -like status of government, that, like, if we

just pass a law, it will bring it to pass, just as if God, in Genesis

1, or some of the prophets, you know, God will, He said this, He's going to bring it to pass.

And people treat Congress like that.

Like, if we just pass a law, then it will create the states of affairs.

And the world just doesn't work like that, and the government's not God.

We have to go to one final break, and we'll be back after these messages, so we look forward to getting to

more of your questions right after this final station break, so don't go away, we'll be right

back with Dr. James.

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen.

If you just tuned us in for the last 90 minutes and the next half hour to come, our guest

has been and still is Dr. Jamin Huebner, Director of Institutional Effectiveness and

founding chair of Christian Studies at John Witherspoon College.

By the way, the website for John Witherspoon College is johnwitherspooncollege .org

and Witherspoon is W -I -T -H -E -R, spoon.

So that's johnwitherspooncollege .org.

And just in case we run out of time before I remember to ask you this, Dr. Huebner,

do you have any other website or contact information that you'd like me to announce?

I don't think so.

I mean, I...

Okay.

And we have a listener in Mastic Beach, Long Island, Tyler, who says, Do libertarians believe

that such sins as homosexuality and adultery should be punished with jail time by the

state.

And if not, does it contradict our Christian worldview to allow people to

live in sin without in love bringing it to their attention?

I guess I don't know any libertarians

from a theonomist perspective.

Generally speaking,.

In the New Testament law,.

I'm not a theonomist, so not that, you

know, we just throw anything like that.

In the New Covenant, the New Covenant in Christ,

again, is distinctively defined as being a community of peace and voluntarism.

There's nothing to suggest in the behaviors of Jesus, the teaching of Jesus, the early church, the New Testament

documents,.

The early church,.

That should try and harness.

The power of the state.

Forcing people into doing things.

And now,.

Responsive force, if we mean bringing people to justice.

And, you know, for crimes like whatever,.

You know,.

The principle of non -aggression and peace and libertarianism says that we shouldn't initiate.

They initiated force against me, so I can tackle them to the ground and get my laptop

back.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Or the police can catch them.

And, you know,.

Fine them, put them in jail, whatever.

It's interesting, it's interesting that somebody who's an intellectual like you, the first thing that you can think of to

tackle somebody to the ground to for is the laptop, not the

kidnapping of a child or anything.

Actually, I meant to say a particular collection of books from my library.

If they come in and steal my, yeah, yeah, yeah, great detest.

Well, anyway,.

Yeah, the, the extent

that is, I think, limit, well, it has to be limited because we can't, we obviously can't,.

Like, you know,.

I hear somebody lie on the radio.

What am I,.

What am I going to do?

I hope nobody does that to me.

Or me neither.

Yeah, right.

So,

and.

I think property rights and that actually

is the foundation of the old,.

You know, do not steal.

Well, the assumption there is property rights.

And I think property rights undergird.

Of life,.

Economy,.

And.

It's, it's,.

We haven't mastered even enforcing or protecting.

So,.

If we can't even do that,.

If,.

If a government can't even do that, if society can't even do that,.

If,.

If even churches maybe can't, can't do that within some mutually agree contract with their,.

You know,.

Throwing people in jail or having trials,

that's a long way,.

Way.

I don't think it would even be desirable.

To try.

Well,.

It's just like a lot of the conservatives who were very happy.

When.

George W. Bush was pushing Homeland Security

laws into place,.

That,.

That conservatives were the first to be upset when Barack Obama was using them for

different reasons and people are very short -sighted when they want these certain

powers the government to have, they forget that one day they could be used against them.

Exactly, exactly. You're absolutely right.

Yeah,.

There's so many examples like that.

And,.

And it's hard,.

You know, coming from an agricultural,.

You know,.

All, all this,.

This, you know,.

Republican,.

So -called conservative,.

You know,.

Constituents.

Criticize subsidies,.

You know,.

Whether it's subsidizing, you know, schools or,.

Or.

Subsidizing this and that, but when it comes to,.

You know,.

Farms and, and prices.

And, and,.

You know,.

Agriculture,.

Well,.

They need the subsidy and they depend on it and so they're, they're for it.

And so,.

You know, a basic problem of human nature and mainstream politics is that people don't realize that.

We have Arnie in Perry County who asks a question that somewhat relates to

Tyler's.

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, says, I have met many theonomists

and Christian Reconstructionists who are libertarian, but the two

ideologies seem to be.

In.

180 degree polar opposite to each other.

I can't understand what the attraction is.

To,.

To libertarianism.

By.

Reconstructionist Christians.

Um,.

I think I probably agree with him.

I,.

I don't see them as being that much.

Because, again,.

The libertarianism, libertarianism.

Is known for.

Is,.

Is wanting peace.

Consistently.

So when, of course, against me,.

That's a problem.

Including when.

The government does that.

Everybody says they don't like violence, but the libertarian difference is they apply it.

To everyone.

They say, you can't, you can't just initiate force.

Frankly,.

That,.

That's at least what should be known about, you know, the very,.

For theonomy,.

Which is the initiation of force on very particular,.

Like,.

First of all, Christians are supposed to, to get control.

Of the government.

And,.

And step two,.

Enforce.

Really high.

Ethical standards.

And, uh,.

In,.

In Israelite ethical standards on the entire population.

I think,.

Uh,.

That's very good.

Either.

But,.

But he's also right,.

Though,.

Even in my experience, I have met personally, and know personally, a number of theonomists who

are gravitating towards libertarianism and were big supporters of Ron.

Paul,.

Years ago when he was the.

One running.

Instead of his son,.

And,.

Or before his son, I should say.

And, uh,.

There is, there must be some connection,.

Though, that,.

That we can't.

See.

And perhaps,.

You know,.

I think, I mean,.

I think the connection,.

For one,.

Is that they're both minority.

Movements,.

You know,.

And so,.

People who aren't getting mainstream that share war stories.

Being, being the.

Exceptions,.

Uh,.

Maybe draws them together.

And there is, there is another thing that just occurred to me, what one theonomist said to me, is that,.

Uh,.

They have said that, that biblical.

Law is.

Restricted to a much,.

Uh, smaller circumference.

Of issues.

Than,.

Than leftist totalitarianism.

Would be.

Involved in.

Well,.

Never

compared theonomy.

With.

Communism.

Before.

That's.

New to me.

So,.

But if you compare,.

Yeah,.

Theonomy with.

Full -blown.

Socialism or communism,.

Where the state.

Owns the means.

To produce and, uh,.

Calls this attempt to achieve some utopian,

I'd guess,.

Yeah,.

Libertarianism.

Would be.

Attractive insofar as it does.

Perspective.

So,.

I, I, I, I, I,

I,.

Yeah,.

That's a.

Good question.

Uh,.

I haven't.

Followed.

The very beginning of the program.

I try to find the deepest cavern in the earth, go into that, and so

on.

I haven't followed him, things like that,

you know, some, you know, basic...

I think it's safe to say, if I'm going to just give

a comment, he was not quite as consistent, probably made

more compromises.

I do, however, his efforts in

at least trying to achieve some of his

ideas and his father's ideals and the concepts of libertarianism.

I do think, probably, he would, you know, if he would have been on the ballot, maybe I would

have...

There's a decent chance I would have voted for him instead of Gary Johnson.

I mean, of course, there's the whole abortion thing,

and as a libertarian, I have no idea how Gary can

support the very definition of barbaric initiation, of course.

I think it's scalpel, and cut off the limbs of a child before it's even born.

If that's not the initiation of thwarts, I don't know what is.

Well, he must not believe that these are human beings in the womb.

Well, that's right, and it's interesting because some of the most brilliant minds, like

Marx and libertarian thought,

really, if really poor,

succeeded as a parasite, and,

of course, using the term parasite like that is novel and

completely unjustified, and so...

And evil.

Yeah, yeah, sure, and so, I mean, in

short, I think Rand probably would have been a little bit better.

I might just still write in Ron Paul, even though he's...

Which candidate's victory do you believe would cause more harm to the

population of the United States, if not the rest of the world?

Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?

That's a very perceptive question, and I was asked that last weekend, who

was trying to justify for Trump or whatever,

and by the way, I don't make any recommendations to anyone to either vote or not vote, and

not who to vote if they were to vote, and I probably won't be voting this election.

The ethics of voting and so forth.

Oh, who would do the most harm?

I think, it's so hard to tell because I think Trump is

actually, than people realize, I think Hillary is

fairly predictable, has a bigger track record, and it's pretty certain what type of...

And things like that.

I'm not sure, because it depends on how you define harm, I think economic

harm in terms of physical violence on the

streets with police and soldiers, I think probably Trump.

But physical violence in the womb would probably be Hillary, even though, and I'm

speaking for you here, and I shouldn't be, but there is a difference, I think, between somebody who

may not do anything of great value to stop abortions, and somebody

who is so excited about them occurring.

Perhaps.

I mean, yes, abortion is a really, in fact,

they're real people, and

I guess, you know,

when you have the world's greatest armies, you're currently no limit to

the amount of foreign violence and militarization internally of the police

in sight.

So I think the harm there, again, you can define harm in different ways.

The economist in me, you know, is disgusted with any form of

reasons, and, but then, you know, the...

Right.

And of course, the difference between even an illegitimate war and

abortion is that even many of the illegitimate wars that the United

States has participated in involved enemies who hated us

and were barbaric, as opposed to a

child, I mean, if you remove the theological

issue of original sin or total depravity, we're talking about innocent beings here.

We're talking about fragile, helpless, harmless beings being ripped to pieces in the

womb, which is, I think, there is a stark contrast there.

Well, sure.

And numerically, there's more of them.

If only all the people that the United States military killed were those people.

I'm afraid, and that a huge portion of the people who die in

the drone bombing and starvation through various refugee

problems and all of that have nothing to do with hating America, except they hate America

because they're getting killed.

And I couldn't argue it either way, honestly, it would require a lot of, you know, you'd

have to look at all the variables and numbers, the minimum amount of...

Now, I don't know if you saw the Libertarian Party

primary debates, but I thought that I had just tuned into

a live footage of insane asylum patients who had been released or

escaped and gotten a hold of microphones and a stage

somehow.

I don't know what your thoughts on that were, but if you could...

You know, I can't.

I didn't see it, so I'm sorry.

But I'll take your word for it.

So, I guess you should make it clear that being a Christian Libertarian does not mean

or require an affiliation or support of the Libertarian Party.

That's right, that's correct, yep.

And one of the things that jumped out in my head in regard to

Gary Johnson and his running mate was in Romans 1,

where we have, starting in verse 24, "...God gave them over in the

lusts of their hearts to impurities, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.

For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is

blessed forever.

Amen.

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions, for their women exchanged the natural function for

that which is unnatural.

And in the same way, also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman

and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in

their own persons the due penalty of their error.

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a

depraved mind, to those things which are not proper, being filled

with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice.

They are gossip, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to

parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful.

And although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of

death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those

who practice them.

That's really the verse that I wanted to highlight, and it would have made no sense if I didn't put it in

full context.

And you only restrict that to Johnson?

No, no, what I meant was that people who, Christians who may support

Johnson and the Libertarian Party out of a notion that, well,

even though they may be pro -abortion or in favor of same -sex marriage, those

are issues that even a Republican candidate is

not going to do anything about, and the government shouldn't be involved in marriage at all, anyway, that kind of thing.

There's a difference between that and the hearty approval that Gary Johnson

and his running mate gave to them.

I've seen them excited and enthusiastic about women

given more freedom to have abortions and sexual depravity being

expressed in all different kinds of further ways.

That's what really I was talking about.

Yeah, well, I would just say that Gary's confused.

Or lost?

Sure.

I

haven't really dug deep enough into his perspective to really understand it very well.

I realize the different strands of libertarianism and the dangers of just trying to assume.

I guess I will just say that, again, if

he's excited because of the freedom aspect that the state is getting

out of the way, I can understand that.

If his excitement is because he really thinks this is

righteous human behavior or whatever, I don't understand that.

So, that's really all I can say and

apply to

all the candidates.

Leave it there for now.

John Adams, one of the Founding Fathers, as you know, said, Our Constitution was made

only for a moral and religious people.

It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

How do you, as a Christian libertarian, and libertarians are very often very strong in their confidence

and belief in the value of the United States Constitution, how do you respond to that?

Well, I think that's a really good observation, first of all.

I think that it doesn't matter what type of scheme of

society you enact or that takes place,

everything's contingent on the character of people.

And this is a very libertarian thing, because society, nations,

groups of people, etc., they don't exist apart.

In fact, it's the conditions of the individuals that make up the conditions of the aggregate, of the

aggregate whole.

So, if you're a moral people, you're going to have an immoral nation.

And the reason he said, of course, why there's that contingency is because of

the nature of our Constitution, which gives a lot of power.

The goal of the law is that it enacts our

contingency on the wisdom of the people.

So, now, regarding a broader opinion regarding the

Constitution, my view is not quite as optimistic as Ron Paul.

He speaks very highly of the Constitution and sometimes says, well, if we would just do what the

Constitution says, things would be right, things would be okay.

That's true a lot of the time.

He can't be a Calvinist.

Say what?

I said he can't be a Calvinist if he believes that's possible.

Sure, right.

Anyway, we've got a bunch of amendments in there that already

show the problems.

And so the fact that there's a ton of amendments shows that there's some issues there.

And the way I see it is, you know, it was a great step forward.

We went from DOS to Windows 3 .1, or maybe even Windows 95.

And, you know, to say that, well, if we would just use Windows 95, all the problems would go away.

No, I don't think that's the case.

Why don't we just upgrade something better?

Why don't we, you know, or allow a nation to start their own

project?

You know, a lot has been learned in the last 200 years.

And there's no reason we should discourage effort at thinking creatively or innovatively and things like

that.

Well, if you could, in 45 seconds, just conclude with what you want, in summary

form, etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

Well, first of all, something we didn't get to talk about was the Christians for Liberty conference at St. Edward University this

past weekend.

Right.

I won't talk about that.

I'll just say, make sure you watch the videos.

I gave a talk, and there's a couple other really good ones.

And I would just encourage your audience to watch those or listen to those when they're available on the

LCI website, Libertarian Christian Institute website.

That's libertarianchristians .com.

That's correct.

Yep, you got it.

And there's a lot of great resources there, and it would be wonderful if

some people who, maybe not hate, but are

going on speaking sprees across the country, like Albert Muller, president of Southern Baptist Theological

Seminary.

It would be very nice if people like him, who criticize myself and others,

would actually read and do their homework before.

So it's always important to get familiar with ideas.

And we're out of time, and the John Witherspoon College website, again, is johnwitherspooncollege .org.

Thank you again for being on the program, and we look forward to having you back.

Thank you very much.

It was a privilege, and I hope to talk to you soon.

All right, great.

And I will be sending you an MP3 very shortly, so God bless you.

I hope everyone listening always remembers for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

Savior than you are a sinner.

Look forward to hearing from you next time on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.