Memorial statue of William Wilberforce in Westminster Abbey, London (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Rothbard had an opinion on “The Politics of the Apocalypse”, and quite a few had some comments to make on the subject.
http://mises.org/daily/4574/Kingdom-Come-The-Politics-of-the-Millenium
http://flyoverpress.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/rothbard-on-the-politics-of-the-apocalypse/
Wow. All this talk about Christian doctrine variants more especially in the comments from people who don’t know very much about the subject, and repeat talking points from others who don’t know very much either.
Rothbard did understand some of the nuances of the doctrines and how they would relate to libertarians, especially with respect to Gary North, but there was some lack there. And he seemed to completely leave my views out, but then my Biblical views are not too well known even among Christians. (But for those who do it’s closest to “post-Trib”.)
Stay tuned, the only set of laws God mandated for a nation on the planet, was based on no earthly political government at all, and had no enforcement arm except the people themselves (who did a poor job of it in fact). And FORBAD taking a free man slave by the way.
Almost all of us alive today were robbed of the knowledge that THE “father of modern science”, Isaac Newton, was a young-Earth creationists. Oh, and NOW we have science. (Newton didn’t I guess haha).
And robbed of history. St. Patrick‘s legacy is literacy in Ireland, the end of slaving raids between Ireland and England, the saving of Greek and Roman classics by the Irish who learned to love Christ and books from Patrick, the re-introduction of learning and culture to Europe by the Irish and British monks.
And the one man identified with the end of slavery in the British Empire, William Wilberforce, who was sent back to the mission field of the British Parliament for that purpose by the repentant former slaver John Newton (“Amazing Grace”).
Europe’s history of Roman-heritage slavery faded away with the influence of former slave St. Patrick’s legacy, led an entire island of chiefs and serfs, and demon-worshippers and human sacrifices, Druid treat or tricksters, into the people that loved Christ and loved learning and saved many of the pagan Roman and Greek classics we have today.
Libertarianism itself that owes much of its philosophy to the influence that Christ has had in culture for two millennia. The “Golden Rule” has taken a very long time to get to the place where we are now at, and has had the obstacles of many identity thieves who took the credentials of the Prince of Peace to make war on their own people and their neighbors –though never with the savagery of pagans and unbelievers gone before and after.
And this may come as a shock to some Christ-haters, and some who are not so hostile, but the only government God ever really ordained directly was NONE AT ALL, outside the sense in which God is in ultimate control of it all (except where he lets you destroy yourself). Yep there were gobs of rules, and those rebellious and murmuring persnickety Jews in the Exodus that kept whining for how good they had it back in Egypt when they were slaves, they needed them.
There were some penalties ordained that we see today as harsh but you can go read for yourself how fast they quit obeying them and did NOT apply those penalties. And when they demanded a government, God told Samuel to tell them they had rejected HIM.
That’s a real theocracy, with no human mediator except Christ.
There’s more but this is too much already. You can see more of the reasoning when my book comes available on the subject. (Which just needs editing, but that takes a budget of time or money).
As to the relationship of millennial doctrines with political application, please observe that there are LOTS more atheists who are hell-bent on implementing their varied political philosophies and imposing their ways of life on the rest of us –lying platitudes from some of them notwithstanding– than there are Christians trying to run a guerrilla operation to take over. We are still tortured around the world by Christ-haters, along with other dissidents in whatever political geography, while the very loud “fag”-haters and “dominionists” can’t get more than a few dozen followers now.
And I know many devout Christians, born-again believers, who believe the Bible cover to cover, who are some of the most reliable libertarians there are. They have both the spiritual, the Biblical, and the political truths on their side. Some of them condemn homosexuality with the most emphatic language when congregated but exhibited the love and grace of God with homosexuals in their support for Ron Paul, for example.
Jesus did say “Go and sin no more” to the adulterous woman but just before that he said “Neither do I condemn thee”. Like the early Christians, those who understand among the people shall instruct many, and instead of killing the infidel to spread their message (like pagans, fascists, socialists, and many atheists have done) they lay down their lives like their Christ.
