Talk:Christian libertarianism

General Discussion

Now that this page has been edited by somebody other than myself, technically it looks like three others, I feel like it's been accepted by the "powers that be". I did notice, however, that one of the edits appears to be a spam link. I'm not exactly sure what the official guidelines are for a See Also section but it was my intention to put articles in there that were related to Christian libertarianism, with a couple of links to the main Christian and libertarian articles.

It looks like somebody with an IP address thought that definition should be expanded to include all articles related to Christian political movements. If that were the case I think the list would get somewhat lengthy. They then put in a link to Christian Exodus which appears to be a fringe Christian Constitutionalist group. I suspect it was spam oriented as the same user added the same link to another article on the same day.

For the record, I oppose the link because it is not a main article for Christianity or libertarianism and it does not appear to be a group espousing anything like Christian libertarianism. I'll take it out for now and if anybody wants to argue for it, please explain why that link would rank above fifty or a hundred links to other Christian political groups. Thanks,

WDRev 23:25, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Glad to see there are other people on Wikipedia that subscribe to a Christian libertarian philosophy. I wrote about this topic myself about 5 years ago on my own Wiki. As far as Bible passages go, I've always considered I Samuel 8 to support my philosophy.

JT (talk) 00:24, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Libertarian Christianity Distinction

I'm curious now as to where the idea came from that Christian libertarianism is so closely aligned with Theonomy and Reconstructionism. I'll try to get around to the references and read up. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of official information on Christian libertarianism but in my experience, it's a small percentage of those labeled as Christian libertarians that come from the Theonomy camp. It was certainly not my intention when I created the page that it would evolve into another Reconstructionism page. I was mostly trying to establish the differences with the mainstream Anarchy groups, as is obvious from the opening paragraphs. The Christian libertarian groups that I have known have always been very general and inclusive in their beliefs. If anything, I'd say that Libertarian Christianity as described on the page by that name is, a subset of Christian libertarianism and not a separate camp.
WDRev (talk) 23:54, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to combine the libertarian Christianity page with the Christian libertarian page, so that they are no longer split in two. Anyone object?
ClauLeo (talk) 14:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Merge Merge Even though the same clear distinction between these is made in both articles, unless there are several WP:RS saying there is a big difference they should be merged into whichever phrase is used most in sources. You might see WP:merge on how to put up a template first, but as far as I'm concerned, having heard no objections, do it now. Carolmooredc {talk}

Let me say this first. I have a POV problem. I have been discussing Christian libertarianism since the end of 1994 and currently own the virtually defunct Christlib discussion group. This makes me a poor steward of the page. I created the page and got it started because I wanted to clarify the distinction between it and Christian Anarchism. Since then I have been trying to keep my, possibly biased, nose out of it for the most part.

Merging the pages may be a good idea but I have some reservations. In favor of the merge let me say this, I don't believe Andrew Sandlin is a prototypical Christian libertarian. I believe he is a reconstructionist and that reconstructionism is out on a fringe of Christian libertarianism. There were reconstructionists on the Christlib list.

I disagree with the sections that characterize Christian libertarians as favoring government enforcement of biblical law. That said, the problem really lies in the lack of references to which one could point that would clearly define Christian libertarianism as what the article says at the top of the page.

"Christian libertarians believe that Christians should not use government as a tool to control others' moral behavior or to initiate the use of force against others. They further believe these principles are supported by Christ's teaching and by the Bible."

The only reason I used Andrew Sandlin as a reference to back up the definition of Christian libertarianism was that I couldn't find any others. I even asked Vox Day if he knew of one but he didn't know either. Most of the Christian libertarians that I remember from the discussion list are Rothbardians or Anarcho-Capitalists politically and believe strongly that the bible supports that view where the worlds overlap.

If Libertarian Christianity is generally in line with the quote above, then in spite of what Andrew Sandlin says, I'd have to say that Christian libertarians and Libertarian Christians are camped around the same fire and Andrew Sandlin is the one out on the fringe. Then the only challenge is to come up with hard references. That's really been the problem all along.

I'm also kind of attached to the name Christian libertarianism and resent that people like Sandlin are trying to appropriate it. If, in fact they refer to the same general philosophy, then the term Christian libertarians would win the popularity contest based on Google searches of both terms.

I'd be happy to eventually post about 12 years of Christlib archives, something like 17,000 posts, on a website to provide something to reference to but I'm not sure that would be considered a good source.

Feel free to contact me through the email link on my user page (I will send back my email address) so that anyone who wishes can ping me when they post to this discussion.

--WDRev (talk) 03:08, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Papal magisterium

There have also been criticisms of Libertarianism from the point of view of the papal magisterium, notably in Libertas Praestantissimum, Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Anno and Centesimus Annus, and this should be noted at some point. ADM (talk) 19:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

NPOV dispute

This article is HEAVILY slanted towards right wing Libertarianism, and more distinctly American libertarianism. This article completely ignores the historical roots of libertarian christianity and its relation to communalism and Christian Anarchism. It is written as if Christian Libertarianism is a sect of Christianity and not a political philosophy. It also defines libertarianism as a philosophy that is strictly free market capitalist and completely ignores the historical foundations of the libertarian movement. This article also ignores many crucial elements of modern Christian-libertarian thought such as Liberation theology and Christian Anarchism. This article needs some serious work to bring it to a NPOV. JP16103 04:46, 3 April 2016 (UTC) There's a separate article on Libertarian Christianity, and that's where these views you mention belong. This article is about Christians who are also Libertarians. It is not slanted towards the right wing, and has a full section explaining how it differs from both the Christian left and right, as well as secular libertarianism. SILUFND (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:40, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

The issue might be that the article makes many, many assertions with an authoritative-sounding yet unsupported voice. The assertions are not given as part of the context of christian libertarianism (that is, while they appear on /this/ page, they are often stated as facts of a higher context), and there is an almost complete lack of references for any of them. This is more like reading a political tract than an encyclopedic entry. Jyg (talk) 19:21, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Jp16103, I agree. SILUFND says There's a separate article on Libertarian Christianity, and that's where these views you mention belong but that has become a fork for the same right-libertarianism. SILUFUND also writes This article is about Christians who are also Libertarians but it should be clarified that it is specifically about the American libertarian type. Davide King (talk) 21:12, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Sources for a rewrite

I haven't looked hard but there clearly are a lot. This is a fairly recent history and links it to modern politics. Two other recent news sources:[1] [2]

Better yet though, Faith Based: Religious Neoliberalism and the Politics of Welfare in the United States .[3] Doug Weller talk 10:29, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Christianity and politics

Doing so would not burden the main article with WP:WEIGHT issues. FatalSubjectivities (talk) 18:13, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Oppose, but I think that we could have a summary in Christianity and politics#Ideologies, as has been done for Christian socialism and Christian anarchism. So, WP:SUMMARY. Klbrain (talk) 09:36, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Closing, given the uncontested objection and no support. Klbrain (talk) 08:06, 6 August 2023 (UTC)