Dale’s first and only response to my essay “Libertarianism and Christianity” (bit.ly/3SGmNFq) was a brush off on his blog “Right-Mind.” “It’s not up to me to do his research for him. There has been a ton of material written on Christian Libertarianism. I would recommend he go to the library or get on the web and do some Google searching.” http://right-mind.us/archive/2005/03/02/2103.aspx.
Thirty years ago I did do a thorough library search and discovered a political philosophy that was either agnostic or outright atheist. I subscribed to the national libertarian magazine Reason and found no support for Courtnery’s Christian libertarianism. A current google search gives a bibliography and is loaded with the thinkers I read 30 years ago and some new ones, but still no Christian libertarians. See, for example, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/libertarianism/#Bib. Just because some thinkers call themselves Christian libertarians don’t make them so. Courtney has the same response to those who call themselves liberal Christians, so he should apply the same logic to himself.
Courtney has promised us that he will follow logic, and the point of my web essay is that there is a logical inconsistency between the accepted definition of libertarianism and the conservative Christianity that he supports. The existence of a million Christian “libertarianism” will not overcome the logical gap between the two concepts.
On Courtney’s “Right Mind” blog a Christopher Wittmer chides me for not being enlightened at LewRockwell.com. I read all the posts on religion and Christianity there and I did not find anything that supports Courtney’s position. All I found were references to traditional libertarians such as Hayek, von Mises, etc., the same figures mentioned at the Stanford website above.
As I see it, there are two ways to reconcile the differences between libertarianism and Christianity: one can change the definition of liberty, or one can reformulate the concept of divine power. Redefining liberty is only option that salvages the conservative Christianity that most Christian libertarians support. When classical conservatives speak of liberty, they mean “positive” liberty, a freedom to do what one ought according to a strict moral law, rather than a “negative” liberty, a freedom to do what one wants within a minimal legal framework. As I have indicated above, it is libertarianism, more any modern political philosophy, that has fully embraced negative liberty. Christian “libertarianism” should acknowledge their commitment to positive liberty and always put “scare quotes” around “libertarianism” as a required qualification.”
OK, Courtney: no brush offs this time and honor your God-given reason.
P.S. It’s August 18, 2026 and still no answer.
P.P.S. I don’t think we should be surprised to find that our 43rd president believes in positive liberty but he adds complete divine determinism of our actions: “It is not an accident that freedom of religion is one of the central freedoms in our Bill of Rights. It is the first freedom of the human soul: the right to speak the words that God places in our mouths. We must stand for that freedom in our country. We must speak for that freedom in the world.” President George W. Bush, in a speech, May 7, 2001.
Ronald Reagan’s ghost-written biography is loaded the same contradiction: in one sentence he has done it all by himself and then in another he owes it all to God. The law of contradiction is not a hard rule of reason to follow, but some just don’t seem to care if it makes for a good sermon or good politics.