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Friday, 10 October 2008

Voting, the Role of the State and Similarities Between libertarianism and Christianity

Someone emailed us a while ago asking what the difference was between Matt’s classical liberalism and my libertarianism, where did we part company and why did we define ourselves this way. We never answered because we have never really tried to pin it down before, we knew there we differed on some things and we knew that those difference put us in these particular camps but putting it into words was something we didn’t get to until now.

We definitely differ; see our respective scores on The World’s Smallest Political Quiz, mouseover to see whose is who's.

Madeleine


Matt

So I am clearly in the libertarian camp (I am not in the Libertarian camp as in capital L or "Objectivist" (Randian)). Does that mean I can be both Christian and libertarian? Well not if my approach to the role of the state is to simply hold the single absolute principle "that nobody should initiate force against another." However, yes if the outworking of what I do hold puts me closest to the libertarian perspective than any other position.

I find the non-initiation of force principle to have no basis in divine or natural law. However, something close to is definitely there and I believe that it is the closest secular position to the correct application of Christianity to the role of state for the following reasons.

Scripture teaches that it is wrong to kill an innocent human being. This prohibition on killing can plausibly be extended to a prohibition against violence and force in general. This is the heart of traditional Christian positions on war, abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, etc. The idea is that the state can use retributive force against guilty people but it can never threaten the life, liberty and property of an innocent person unless they engage in unjustified aggression against another. In both situations there are important limits further still, for example, retributive force can only be used by a lawful authority after a impartial trial has found the person guilty the force must be proportionate to the offence and cruel and degrading punishments are illicit. Similarly, with defensive force. It can be used only when it is necessary to stop the aggression and again the force used must be proportionate to the perceived threat.

A government that limited its use of force to these functions and only taxed its citizens to ensure that these functions were carried out would be severely limited and would look like no current government anywhere, yet this is the Biblical picture and you can see that it does look a lot like the libertarian non-initiation of force principle (and nothing like the strawman-caricature that Rand paints in her books).

The key passage on the role of the state is Romans 13:1-7:

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been stablished by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

This passage spells out the reasons why we are required to obey the government and why we are required to pay taxes. Paul states that governments act as God's agent, that is on his behalf, to perform a specific function, namely, to punish wrong-doing. Paul emphatically states that the state does not bear the sword, have the power to use force, for nothing but to act as an agent of retributive punishment. It is because it is an agent of God in carrying out this function that it can legitimately demand obedience and financial support. Nothing in this passage provides any basis for claiming that a government that did other things apart from these basic functions and used force to back it up would be acting as God's agent (in fact the opposite is suggested in 1 Samuel 8:10-22 - any government that taxes its people more than 10% and undertakes functions outside its legitimate mandate is corrupt). If a government steps outside this mandate then it is acting unjustly. The passage states that the government is God's servant, it is under God and therefore subject to the same laws as its people. In Revelation, written in the latter part as opposed to the earlier part of Nero's reign, the same ruler is no longer described at God's servant but as Satan incarnate because he sought to be God, he stepped outside the mandate of legitimate government.

In summation, if you are a Christian you should either be a libertarian or a classical liberal. You might end up as a conservative if you throw some pragmatism in but if you end up as a centrist or left wing you have failed to understand Scripture, you are placing government in the role of God.

One of the biggest problems New Zealand faces is the same the world over and was the same at the time of Samuel; the people want a government in the place of God, they want the government to provide welfare, health, education, families commissions, art, television (well maybe not that one at the time of Samuel but you get the picture). It feels and seems easier if we don't have to take our responsibility to love our neighbour personally.

Biblically speaking, the state's role essentially boils down to law, order, justice and defence. Do we then get to forget about all the rest? No.

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

This means that looking out for others is our responsibility but, contrary to the picture Rand paints, this is strictly qualified. We do not have an obligation to give to everyone who has their hand out. If their own choices and refusal to help themselves has led them to the dire situation they find themselves in then unless they are prepared to get off their buts and help themselves and learn from their mistakes we owe them no charity. If people refuse to help themselves then we are justified in not helping them. The scriptures are full of examples, if people refuse to work then they don't get to eat (2 Thess 3:10), you left the corners of your crops un-gathered so the poor could come and work and feed themselves - you did not hand them the fruit of your day's labour while they sunned themselves all day, they had to work for it (Deut 24:19-22), families had to take responsibility for their own, the needy only receive private assistance if they could not work and had no family who would provide for them and were not idle people (1 Tim 5), etc.

Given this, I have less than a month to decide who I will vote for. The choices below (in the order they appear on the Decision 08 website) are not great because none of them fit the criteria above.

Resident's Action Movement
The Bill and Ben Party
ACT
Alliance
Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis
Party

Democrats for Social Credit
Direct Democracy Party
Green
Labour
Libertarianz
Maori Party
National
New World Order
New Zealand Pacific Party
NZ First
Progressive
The Family Party
The Kiwi Party
The Republic of New Zealand
Party

United Future

Matt and I want to be really careful to not endorse a political party so we are still debating each other as to whether we will publicly state who we vote for but we agree we can take this next step, the first cull, namely getting rid of the no-way, no-how parties and assessing the pro's and con's of the remaining possibilities. Our intention is to more thoroughly look at and read up on these parties, their philosophy, their people and their policies. The revised list, and this goes for both of us (at this stage, last election we each voted differently), is this (again the order is the order as above):

ACT
Libertarianz
Maori Party
National
New Zealand Pacific Party
The Family Party
The Kiwi Party

Libertarianz and ACT would be the closest to my political position but the points I part ways with them are fairly major. Both parties philosophically adhere to the non-initiation of force but both throw their well reasoned, consistent thinking out the window on the topic of abortion (and a few other issues).

Rodney Hide spoke at the recent Forum on the Family outlining clear and sensible policies all sharply reasoned, setting aside emotion, appealing to doing what is right, promoting a consistent
theme of personal responsibility as opposed to state dependency and then when asked for his position on abortion outlined a mushy, soft and sentimental pile of rubbish. Gone was his consistent personal responsibility - non-initiation of force reasoning, suddenly his reasoning skills dropped to that of Sue Bradford's as he spoke of it being a conscience issue (it is not - abortion is either killing, therefore the initiation of force, 100% homicide or it is not killing and is on par with tonsillectomy’s and there is zero problem with it). Rodney, citing his emotions, said he didn't want to impose his beliefs onto women (but apparently he can when it is restricting women from, say, theft). [Here are some secular reasons on why libertarians should be pro-life]

Rodney, ACT and the Libz on this subject are inconsistent. I am not. I have a problem with voting for a party that 1. endorses or is agnostic on homicide (and has no reasoned position that can withstand defeaters justifying their stance) and 2. that is that inconsistent.

Further, the Libz and to a lesser degree ACT, are riddled with pathological secularists who have a closed, caricatured view of Christianity - extremely closed minded which makes supporting them difficult as many within their ranks refuse to see the similarities and work together. Also the Libz are prone to massive in-house fighting amongst the factions which seriously kneecaps them at times.

The Maori Party make our list because they get it right on a number of issues, less often than ACT and the Libz, but best demonstrated by their policy on the seabed and foreshore where they are a seemingly lone voice speaking against the Labour government's worst attack on the right to due process in recent times otherwise known as the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 (all Christians should be horrified at the passage of this law). Further we respect Tariana's daring to cross to Helengrad and the fact that they are, by and large, a party that stands on principles not on popularism and even though many of their principles are too left/statist you have to respect that and you definitely want more politicians like that in parliament.

National. National is not Labour. If their policies reflected their stated principles I might say more.

The Christian Parties. First of all, so what if there are three of them? How many secular parties are there? Christians need to get over this. How many denominations of Christianity are there? Demanding that the three merge before you will support them is as ridiculous as refusing to attend church unless every denomination merges. We still somehow manage to be one body despite our differences. As with denomination and church choice, if you want to go there, look at the options and pick the one that best reflects which is right.

  • NZ Pacific. Putting aside the accusations against Taito, remember due process, Taito was part of Labour which makes him left/statist. However, like Tariana he earns brownie points for sticking it to Helengrad and he is a Christian so he makes the cut.
  • The Family Party. Putting aside the Destiny factor, they must be judged on their merits and not a knee-jerk reaction, there have been serious allegations made that they do not adhere to the theological position of separation of church and state, if this is true then they are no go, but again they are a Christian party so we will look at them.

  • The Kiwi Party. Probably the holds the number one spot of the three at this stage but this is the party that has candidates who stood with Labour and were responsible for inflicting the families commission on us and worse they seem to have not learned from their mistakes and are advocating government sponsored marriage promotion. That said their intention is good but like all the other Christian parties they are too statist and fail to understand that only when we get the state out of the lives of good law abiding citizens and when the state stops usurping the role of God can the church really flourish.

The Christian parties are really disapointing because all of them have access to the truth and have missed it. Contra Celsum writes on the issue of whether Christians should be in politics at all. He outlines four critical reasons why he believes it inappropriate for Christians to seek political office at the present time. His four reasons are right on the button in terms of my issue with our choice of Christian parties, particularly the part on vacuous minds and points 2.d) and e)., I just am really reluctant to concede his conclusion. Am I really in that much of a minority? How did we fall this far?

1. Whipped parties. In Jerusalem, one of the most important institutions is the believing and confessing heart. In Romans 10: 9,10 we read: “ . . . if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” This means that each individual must be free, as a Christian, to profess and act according to his belief. The institutions of Jerusalem are built on this principle. This is why Luther's declaration at the Diet of Worms is in accord with the heart of the Gospel and the Kingdom of God:

Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason - I do not accept the
authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other - my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.

But the modern political convention of whipped parties, where one is bound to vote and act, not according to conscience but to the policy of party [this applies equally to parties controlled by churches], means that Christians in the modern political arena are inevitably forced to approbate and vote for actions, laws, and policies which they
know to be wrong and intrinsically evil.

Of course, opponents would counter by pointing out that this does not preclude a Christian party from participating, provided that such a party stipulate that all votes would be conscience votes. This is true, as far as it goes, but we immediately see that such an approach would be virtually inconsequential within the current functioning of Parliament itself, contributing little to justice and the legislative task. It would therefore be of little use. There are far more urgent and practical things which Jerusalem should be engaged in at the moment.

2. The Prevailing Dominant Ethic of Secular Humanism. We have seen in recent history that parties can only win reasonable support if they ground themselves in the incumbent control-beliefs of our day. Every political party can only build appeal if it agrees with the following controlling creed:

a.) The Living God has no relevance to politics and government.

b.) All government must be secular.

c.) Government is the ultimate power in our society.

d.) Government has a duty to expropriate income from some and extend welfare to others.

e.) Government has a duty to provide for the health, education and well-being of its people.

As long as people generally are held in the thrall of this creed, no Christian or Christian party can make any meaningful contribution. However, when sixty or seventy percent of the society are professing Christians who fear and love the Lord, it will be a very different matter. The creed of secular humanism will be seen for what it is and Christian politics and government will come into its own.

3. The Small Numbers of Believers. Part of wisdom in God's Kingdom is knowing when something is appropriate, and when it is not. In the end, government and law reflects the heart of the people. When such relatively small numbers are found in Jerusalem, talk of political activities is premature. The priorities before us now are the extension of the Kingdom through the preaching of the Gospel, on the one hand, and the building up a Christians in the faith, on the other. It is only as we act consistently with our God-given duties and responsibilities that we can expect the covenantal blessings of God to fall upon us. As they fall, the cultural power and influence of God's people in the community will grow as an inevitable result. Eventually, the citadels of unbelief will be surrounded, and the halls of government captured. But we must build an army first—a host of God's people living, working, serving in the community, doing good to all men, but especially to those of the household of faith.

4. Vacuous Christian Minds. The majority of professing Christians have been taught all their lives in the state's secular education system. They have been indoctrinated to think as humanists in almost every area of life. Jerusalem's great and urgent duty is the reformation of Church, Family and School. Until we are able to educate our children in a manner consistent with our faith, we cannot expect that the Christian community will be able to distinguish between the counsels of secular humanism, on the one hand, and faithful Christian principles, on the other.

Until our children are properly taught and educated, we will not produce faithful Christians who think and act Christianly in their professions, whether they be in science, medicine, law, the liberal arts, or whatever. It is only upon such a foundation that true, God-honouring political views can emerge.

If Christians cannot distinguish between the justice of secular humanism and the justice of Jerusalem we are utterly ill-equipped and malformed for roles in politics. If we are not clear according to Scripture on the God-ordained roles and responsibilities of the Church, the Family, the State, the School, the Corporation, how could we distinguish between the policies of God and of Baal in the civic and public sphere? And if we cannot even get our thinking right on these matters, any actual Christian political involvement will end up as an abortion.

14 comments:

  1. This is a great post thanks. I won't elaborate heaps, but here's a thought or two.

    ACT & Family Party are pretty much on a par for me. Kiwi Party is ruled out a) because they have a very poor chance of getting in (Larry gor 1% in a recent poll in Tauranga), and b) more importantly, they are essentially a socialist party - all power to the Govt. Just one example, is one of their key policies, $15 minimum wage, argh!

    Thanks for this article - I'm... I guess I'm somewhere inbetween you and Matt. But I call myself a Christian Libertarian ;)

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  2. Sounds like I have to read up on the Family Party then.

    I had the impression all 3 Christian parties were all making the same sorts of fundamental errors like minimum wages and state sponsored marriage counselling.

    What do you know of the allegation that the Family Party does not adhere to the seperation of church and state as alleged in the Kiwi Party flier handed out at the Family First Forum?

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  3. Well, that was at least 3 posts there! Much to potentially respond to but I will limit myself to 1 issue. (Disclaimer, I scored 100% economic, 60% personal).

    I agree that the primary responsibility of government is defence and justice. And I currently prefer small government (though am not married to democracy, monarchy has its pluses). But I am not certain that biblically the government should not involve itself in other issues. Ancient Israel had laws that covered social interaction. Now I don't necessarily think levitical law is how we should run countries, but it shows an example of a legal system set up by God.

    So the solution is probably to do with who is writing the law. Given that men are fallen, and that men will rule, then limiting government by men is good as it limits the evil they can do (think Babel).

    I have libertarian tendencies because this limits the effect of fallen men to harm others. That, and capitalism maximises economic prosperity.

    That being said, if I were ruled by godly men who had God's political wisdom, then I can tolerate much greater government involvement. And this is good, people do well when their rulers rule well. The problem here isn't good rule, the problem is Christians who involve themselves in politics but who are clueless as to how to run a country and may advocate law that is contrary to God's will.

    So unless Jesus sets up an earthly kingdom and appoints mayors over each city according to his will, I think small government should be advocated.

    And it is nice to see someone else who advocates a pre-70 authorship of Revelation.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have three responses to your post:
    1) I believe that any Statist system is immoral because taxation is theft.

    2) I believe that abortion is murder but I also agree with Hide that it is a conscience issue, i.e. it is not the job of the State to legislate morality. If you accept it when the State legislates morality in a way that you agree with you must also accept it when the State legislates morality in a way that you disagree with.

    3) you said "I find the non-initiation of force principle to have no basis in divine or natural law". I have a post that you may find interesting (this is a new blog so it looks sparse):
    http://christianclassicalliberalist.wordpress.com/2008/09/28/is-classical-liberalism-compatible-with-the-bible/

    www.kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com

    PS the Family Party website specifically states that they support separation of church and state.

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  5. Hi Kiwipolemicist

    Let me explain why I find your comments rationally indefensible.

    1. In your first point you say that “any Statist system is immoral because taxation is theft.” This suggests that you (a) think theft is immoral and (b) support a legal system that legislates against theft. However in your second post you suggest “it is not the job of the State to legislate morality”. These two claims create a contradiction. If the state cannot legislate against immorality, and theft is a form of immorality then the state cannot legislate against theft. Yet you say it should legislate against theft. Thats not progressive and moderate its nonsense.

    2. I suspect that you, like many contemporary liberals, will respond by drawing a distinction between actions that initiate force against others and those that do not, according to the standard libertarian story the state should legislate against the former and not the latter. This would enable you to avoid the problem I sketch in 1. Theft would be legislated against not because its immoral per se but because it is the initiation of force. The problem with this response is that if abortion is murder ( and you state that it is) then abortion must also be the initiation of force by one person against another and hence should be legislated against for precisely the same reasons theft is.

    3. When libertarians tell me that “I believe abortion is murder but I support others right to choose” they are telling me they believe that other people should be allowed to murder others by law if they want. The initiation of force applies when its their property being threatened but not when other peoples lives are threatened, in this latter case the following principle is optional. This is inconsistent special pleading of the worst kind.

    Put it this way, lets assume that you oppose Statism. And you have a choice between (a) allowing the state to take a portion of peoples property by force to assist single mothers in Otara and (b) allowing the state to murder 18000 people plus a year in public hospitals. To me it is not difficult to answer this question.

    Let me add a final note. My experience debating this point with ACT supporters has lead me to think that one reason many of them are comfortable to live with the contradictions I spell out above is that they do not want to look like “nutty Christians” by opposing abortion. These professed anti statists would rather give the state the power (via public hospitals) to (by their own confession) murder 18000 people a year than be associated with something Christian. In otherwords, their hatred of Christianity is so great that they would rather support state sanctioned murder than damage their trendy secular image. There secularism veto’s their liberalism every time push comes to shove.

    Christians should be very concerned with people who will sell out their commitment to liberty before they would side for a Christian. Such people cannot be relied upon to defend my rights at all.

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  6. According to what you claim near the beginning of the article, the traditional Christian view of capital punishment would be to oppose it. But in fact, the traditional Christian view of capital punishment is to support it.

    This is why it is so hard to claim that Christians should all be one ideological political affiliation.

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  7. Hi swampy

    As I read it, nowhere in the article does Madeleine claim that the traditional Christian view is to oppose capital punishment. Madeleine states that scripture teaches that “ it is wrong kill an *innocent* human being.” (emphasis mine) she goes on to state “ This prohibition on killing [ i.e the prohibition against killing the innocent] can plausibly be extended to a prohibition against violence and force in general.” By which I interpret her to mean that its wrong to use force and violence against the innocent. Moreover when she mentions “traditional Christian positions on positions on war, abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, etc.” she immediately states that “The idea {behind the aforementioned posiions “ is that the state *can* use retributive force against guilty people but it can never threaten the life, liberty and property of an innocent person unless they engage in unjustified aggression against another.” [emphasis mine]


    Your second point however is interesting; you suggest one should not claim “that Christians should all be one ideological political affiliation.” But this seems to me to be mistaken. If one person says capital punishment is wrong and another says justice required it. Both cannot be correct, the views contradict each other. Logically one person must be supporting (inadvertently perhaps ) an unjust policy. It’s therefore mistaken to suggest that both sides are legitimately Christian.

    Of course its true that Christians (like secularists) can and do disagree over these type of issues. But the fact they can and do does not mean that both sides are correct in doing so. Clearly they are not.

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  8. You place far too much emphasis on a literal interpretation of Romans 13.
    The gospel is a statement of the Goodness and the Grace of God and the call for all Christians is to deliver His Goodness and Grace to all - in what ever way we can. If a Government chooses a social justice program to protect the poorest and the most venerable in our society - how can that be counter to the Gospel? I find your conclusions vastly at odds with the doctrine of Grace and Social Justice (the Goodness of God) which was exhibited by the life of Christ.
    The world is an entirely different place to what it was 2000 years ago. Political systems and forms of Government have developed greatly since then.
    As the Babylonians observed 5000 years ago - a society is judged not by how it treats its superiors but by how well it cares for the meanest of it citzens.

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  9. The existence of multiple denominations is hardly a good reason to have multiple Christian parties. Most denominations cooperate on big issues, which a general election is. They don't attack each other in public the way the Christian parties are starting to do, which is an embarrassment to everything we believe in. And frankly, I don't believe in denominational labels myself, because they don't define my faith.

    I think where the Christian parties go wrong, big time, is trying to Christianise secular things like economic policy, where you can't get something that every Christian will believe in because there is such a wide spectrum of views across the political spectrum. There were a number of Christians as cabinet ministers in the First Labour government of 1935m and they sincerely believed it was the State's role to intervene the way it did under their adminstration.

    As it is , I think the public, let alone many Christians, are turned off by seeing Christians fighting again over political parties. The failure to get a united front for voters, which let us face it was tried in 1996, is a sign of political immaturity. There are plenty of lessons out there, the point being that no overtly Christian party has won seats in Parliament since the 1930s (Ratana).

    More:
    http://hisnameisfreedom.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-we-shouldnt-have-christian.html

    ReplyDelete
  10. Contrary, conflicting viewpoints cannot be concurrently true. It is impossible to get a false conclusion from a sound argument, therefore, the arguments for these positions cannot all be sound. Someone has made a mistake in their reasoning somewhere. It is a fact of logic.

    Patrick I agree with you that it has not been pleasant watching the Christian politicians attack each other recently but pretending that disagreement does not happen within Christiandom is not honest. Christians, like everyone, disagree and scrap with each other.

    It is true that people cite this disagreement as a reason to reject God but that's a bogus reason, its not the honest reason why they reject him. If it were a legitimate reason then they would be committed to rejecting secularism.

    Yes there are Christians accross the spectrum - most parties have a few. My point was that there shouldn't be. The political range that Christians should sit in should be much narrower than the whole spectrum, it should run from conservative through to libertarian. If a Christian finds themself outside that spectrum, they are in error, they fail to understand the implications of their faith, they have failed to interpret the scriptures correctly - sincere and pious as I am sure they are.

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  11. There are a number of passages of scripture which are subject to varying interpretations. These differences have led in practice to the formation of different denominations. Most Christians consider that such denominational boundaries do not prevent different churches from working together or their members from fellowshipping together.

    The different beliefs about how Scripture is interpreted are in conflict, obviously, but most Christians accept that no human is in a position to determine which is right or wrong because only the original author and God know the exact context in which they wrote. The difference in interpretations does not prevent us from being in harmony with God and nothing is gained by stirring up people by saying their church is wrong.

    There are a small number of churches from time to time which claim that their interpretation is the only right one, whereas such claims are generally considered to have cultic overtones.

    In terms of Christian politics, the differences should not prevent the differing parties from joining together. In 1996 there was a coalition of the Christian Heritage Party and Christian Democrats Party for the purpose of the election campaign.

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  12. Oh and logic and reason are secular, even humanistic processes. Faith is neither of those. Logic and faith can be in conflict, I think. From a humanist viewpoint there is nothing particularly logical about believing in an invisible God.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Interesting analysis. I am a Family Party candidate, and I score 50% personal 80% economic, so I'm bang on the border between conservative and libertarian.

    I'd have another look at the Family Party if I were you. If what you got about us not adhering to the separation of church and state was really from a Kiwi Party handout, I think you can safely ignore it as a baseless slur, just as you can pretty well ignore anything Labour says about National! As Kiwipolemicist has pointed out, we affirm the separation of church and state.

    Most of our policies are based around personal freedom and responsibility (they are all on the website). We advocate lower taxes, and favour welfare being delivered by charities rather than the state. We are similar to Act on many economic issues, such as funding for education, but are conservative morally (unlike Act).
    http://www.familyparty.org.nz

    I expect if you had a good look at our policies, although you are unlikely to agree with every detail of any particular party's policies, you will find we are about as close as you can get to what a Christian libertarian would like to support in the current crop of parties.

    Regarding the wider issue of Christian involvement in politics, I believe that Christians have as much right to be involved in politics and form Christian parties as any other person. But the church and state must remain separate. No church can control a political party or parliament, and the state cannot control any church. But church members have as much right to stand for parliament as electors have a right to attend church.

    There are some failings with the current political system as you point out, but this is the system we have to work within. We must not stand aside and let others run the country and continue to act against Christian principles (such as allowing abortion-on-demand). We must stand and do something. In the past a Christian party was not needed as both National and Labour supported Christian principles. But now they have slipped from this, we have little other option. We cannot wait for a new generation of Christians to work through the ranks of National and Labour and change them from the inside, we actually have to do something to help this country now.

    Evil prevails when good men do nothing.

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  14. Romans 13 suffers from intensive long-term Christian abuse. I thought your analysis of force was interesting, but I was disappointed in your use of Romans 13 as justification for state power. The fact that everyone does it and that it has happen many times before does not make it right.

    A more detailed analysis of Romans 13 can be found here and in Understanding Romans 13.

    ReplyDelete

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