Libertarian Doesn’t Equal Freedom

I would call myself a Christian Libertarian as opposed to a libertarian with no prefix. That fact alone demonstrates the degree to which the humanist libertarians have captured the philosophical field of liberty. They, after all, do not refer to themselves as ‘humanist libertarians’. They use the shorter ‘Libertarian’ since in their perception there are no other brokers for liberty in America. Christian Libertarians being rarer than Silver Certificates, we have to identify ourselves explicitly lest we be mistaken for garden variety humanist libertarians (Federal Reserve Note Libertarians if we want to keep the metaphor going).

As Christians, we ought to recognize that those who call themselves libertarians are no such thing. Oh, sure, they sound like trumpets for the troops of the liberty minded at first. They talk all about how we ought to be able to do anything we want as long as we do not hurt anyone else, no marriage licenses, no draft, no driver’s licenses, no taxes, no public schools, no traffic laws and pretty much no anything that might cramp anybody’s style unless… and here is the big ‘unless’. Libertarians do not want to be expected to keep any moral strictures that might slow down their self-will. What the Bible calls sin the libertarian thinks of as an out-dated moral code that should not be imposed upon his life. The most immorally grandiose likely being the feminist call to battle, ‘Keep your laws off of my body’ (invented by the feminists but joyfully espoused by humanist libertarians everywhere). In this case the infant being destroyed has no standing because libertarian definitions have excluded the unborn from the realm of the protected.

If this were the only example we might simply call our libertarian friends back to their senses. However, the very nature of humanist libertarians is to reject God’s law wholesale and to press toward service a humanist version of law that is both unBiblical and immoral. We do not reject humanist libertarian views because we prefer slavery. We reject them because they too often reject the laws and moral precepts of the Bible. They agitate for liberty without Christ or His eternal word. What they desire is impossible. The entire human spirit, will, and even our bodies themselves are dead in trespasses and sin. Biblical doctrine teaches us that in order to be freed from ‘this body of death’ we require the radical new birth described in both Testaments. The new birth, the power to conquer sin and live rightly in the world, is the ineluctable prerequisite as a first step toward any freedom in this world. Men who are spiritually and morally free (empowered) to do the right things are the only ones who may successfully build a free and prosperous society. Take away the freedom of the soul and you steal the freedom of the body as well. Liberty in Christ is the beginning of all liberties. Hence, we call the church to repentantly become again the messenger of true liberty to our civil society, and we call the humanist libertarians to repentance in Christ that leads to both personal and societal liberty under God’s law.

For Christian Culture,

Don Schanzenbach