In this episode I welcome back long-time friend of the show Cody Cook to discuss his brand-new book The Anarchist Anabaptist: Essays on Radical Christianity and Freedom. In this book he explores the relationship between his Anabaptist faith and libertarian political philosophy. We discuss the meaning and history of the Anabaptist movement, its relationship to the wider Protestant world, and the differences of opinion between various Anabaptist groups. Cody explains the difference between pacifism and non-violence, paedo- and credobaptism, and why many modern Anabaptists are politically progressive. We discuss the John Howard Yoder scandal and how it impacted his legacy, and Cody critiques the political perspectives of N.T. Wright and Michael Bird. Buy a copy of the book today!

Media Referenced:

Buy The Anarchist Anabaptist: 

LCI Link: https://libertarianchristians.com/book/the-anarchist-anabaptist/

Amazon: https://a.co/d/0AtxLAa

Interview on LCP: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/episode-389-the-anarchist-anabaptist-with-cody-cook/

https://anarchistanabaptist.com/

https://www.cantus-firmus.com/

Cody on X: CantusFirmusCC

The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.

Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at [email protected].  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod, and YouTube, @ProLibertyPod, where you will get shorts and other exclusive video content. For more about the show, you can go to theprotestantlibertarianpodcast.com. If you like the show and want to support it, you can! Go to libertarianchristians.com, where you can donate to LCI and buy The Protestant Libertarian Podcast Merch! Also, please consider giving me a star rating and leaving me a review, it really helps expand the show’s profile! Thanks!

Right before the pandemic, in February of 2020, I took on the role of interim student ministries director at my church. 

Then the world shut down. 

I hosted seven weeks of group online, and I recorded a series of videos about the basics of our beliefs for my students to watch before our weekly meetings. These short video introductions to important Biblical subjects lay dormant for nearly five years, until I decided to turn them into episodes of my podcast. The original videos (edited, of course, to remove the boring logistical information), will be posted on YouTube. There you can see my beard and my hair grow longer each week until I look like a ridiculous clown. 

Longtime listeners of the show will realize that some of my beliefs have been nuanced or changed in the last five years, but I still agree with the basic outline of each episode. I hope they benefit you! 

New episodes will be released every other Thursday between January 30-April 24 2025. 

Original show notes:

What We Believe Week Two: According to Scripture

Week Two in a seven part series entitled "What Do We Believe", based on Romans 1:1-5.

"Gospel" means good news, and Paul uses the term to describe the message about Jesus and the beliefs of Jesus followers. In Romans 1:2, Paul explains that his Gospel is "according to Scripture", meaning that the message Jesus is the completion of the Old Testament story. .

Here are the three discussion questions from this week:

1. Why is it important that Jesus is the center of God's story?

2. Is it important that we understand the Old Testament? Why or why not?

Part 1: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-179-what-we-believe-part-1-the-gospel/

The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.

Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at [email protected].  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod, and Youtube, @ProLibertyPod, where you will get shorts and other exclusive video content. For more about the show, you can go to theprotestantlibertarianpodcast.com. If you like the show and want to support it, you can! Go to libertarianchristians.com, where you can donate to LCI and buy The Protestant Libertarian Podcast Merch! Also, please consider giving me a star rating and leaving me a review, it really helps expand the shows profile! Thanks!

In this episode I talk with Dr. James Barker, associate professor of New Testament at Western Kentucky University, who authored the brand-new book Writing and Rewriting the Gospels: John and the Synoptics, out now on Eerdmans. In this book Dr. Barker discusses the synoptic problem, the question of the literary relationship between Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and offers a defense of the Farrer hypothesis, which argues Mark was the first gospel to be written, Matthew used Mark, and Luke used both. He discusses ancient rhetorical techniques, writings styles and media, and the ‘trajectory’ of editing. He then proposes that John both knew and used the synoptics, and that the development of early Christology helpfully illustrates the literary development of the gospels.  

Media Referenced:

Writing and Rewriting the Gospels: https://a.co/d/aQAdPq4

James Barker Academia: https://wku.academia.edu/JamesBarker 

The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.

Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at [email protected].  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod, and YouTube, @ProLibertyPod, where you will get shorts and other exclusive video content. For more about the show, you can go to theprotestantlibertarianpodcast.com. If you like the show and want to support it, you can! Go to libertarianchristians.com, where you can donate to LCI and buy The Protestant Libertarian Podcast Merch! Also, please consider giving me a star rating and leaving me a review, it really helps expand the shows profile! Thanks!

In this episode, I discuss the problem of unclear economic thinking in Biblical scholarship. Terms like ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ are often left undefined by the scholars who employ them, and the vague cultural notion that ‘capitalism’ is about evil and greed while ‘socialism’ is about virtue and charity characterizes the use of economic language in scholarship on the Bible. I discuss how many excellent scholars nevertheless make Jesus out to be a modern socialist despite doing excellent historical work on ancient economic systems. I define capitalism as it is understood by the Austrian school as a theory of private capital accumulation based on absolute respect for property rights. I then explain how modern economic concepts are foreign to ancient thinkers. I read through Luke 12:13-34 and explain the historical questions which need to be asked to accurately interpret this passage and explain how modern interpreters gloss over Jesus’s statements on wealth and charity with an uncritical appeal to socialism. I then explore this dynamic by reviewing the work of two New Testament scholars, Richard Horsley and Douglas Oakman, who do excellent historical analysis on ancient economic and political systems but impose modern socialist ideas onto the texts while coming to the incorrect political conclusions that all our modern problems are a result of capitalism on ‘capitalism’, when the real problem are socialist policies that they support. They allow their biases to determine interpretive outcomes. I also reveal that I am writing a book about all of this which I hope will be published in 2026.  

Media Referenced:

LVM vs. N.T. Wright: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-178-ludwig-von-mises-vs-a-christian-scholar-round-3-n-t-wright/

LVM vs. James K.A. Smith: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ludwig-von-mises-vs-christian-scholar-round-2-james-k-a-smith/

LVM vs. Michael Gorman: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ludwig-von-mises-vs-christian-scholar-round-1-michael-gorman/

James Crossley: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-169-the-next-quest-for-the-historical-jesus-with-james-crossley/

The Political Aims of Jesus, Oakman: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0800638476?ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_R1NS418YPJNNEY9DRTDS_2&skipTwisterOG=1&bestFormat=true&newOGT=1

Jesus and Empire, Horsley: https://www.amazon.com/dp/080063490X?ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_NBCAC8JTEJVMTVEC3M94&skipTwisterOG=1&bestFormat=true&newOGT=1

The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.

Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at [email protected].  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod, and YouTube, @ProLibertyPod, where you will get shorts and other exclusive video content. 

Right before the pandemic, in February of 2020, I took on the role of interim student ministries director at my church. 

Then the world shut down. 

I hosted seven weeks of group online, and I recorded a series of videos about the basics of our beliefs for my students to watch before our weekly meetings. These short video introductions to important Biblical subjects lay dormant for nearly five years, until I decided to turn them into episodes of my podcast. The original videos (edited, of course, to remove the boring logistical information), will be posted on YouTube. There you can see my beard and my hair grow longer each week until I look like a ridiculous clown. 

Longtime listeners of the show will realize that some of my beliefs have been nuanced or changed in the last five years, but I still agree with the basic outline of each episode. I hope they benefit you! 

New episodes will be released every other Thursday between January 30-April 24 2025. 

Original show notes:

Week One in a seven part series entitled "What We Believe", based on Romans 1:1-5.

"Gospel" means good news, and Paul uses the term to describe the message about Jesus and the beliefs of Jesus followers. In Romans 1:1-5, Paul explains these beliefs, what he calls the "Gospel".

Here are the three discussion questions from this week:

1. How is the message about Jesus "Good News" to you?

2. How can we bring "good news" to others during this quarantine?

3. Why is it important to know what we believe about Jesus?

Part 2: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-182-what-we-believe-part-2-according-to-scripture/

The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.

Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at [email protected].  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod, and Youtube, @ProLibertyPod, where you will get shorts and other exclusive video content. For more about the show, you can go to theprotestantlibertarianpodcast.com. If you like the show and want to support it, you can! Go to libertarianchristians.com, where you can donate to LCI and buy The Protestant Libertarian Podcast Merch! Also, please consider giving me a star rating and leaving me a review, it really helps expand the shows profile! Thanks!

In the long-awaited third installment of my Ludwig von Mises vs. a Christian Scholar series, I take on the big dog himself, N.T. Wright. Wright is the world’s most famous New Testament scholar and theologian and is known for his pioneering work on the ‘New Perspective’ on Paul, Paul and empire, and the historical Jesus. I explain how his own theology of empire and the church helped lead me to libertarianism, but how Wright himself often fails to see the modern consequences of his own theological positions. I look at a passage from his book History and Eschatology where he writes a veiled critique of capitalism, and counter it with a passage from Mises’s Human Action that explains how free market capitalism actually works. This demonstrates that on a definitional level Wright doesn’t understand free markets and attributes to ‘capitalism’ economic problems that are directly caused by government intervention in the market. I then play clips from an interview Wright had with entrepreneur Phil Chen, showing that Wright fails to understand monetary theory, central banking, economic regulation, and markets. I counter his points with selected readings from the works of Mises, demonstrating how an understanding of the Austrian school of economics would better help Wright better apply his theology to modern social and economic problems. 

Media Referenced:

Round 1: Mises vs. Gorman: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ludwig-von-mises-vs-christian-scholar-round-1-michael-gorman/

Round 2: Mises vs. Smith: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ludwig-von-mises-vs-christian-scholar-round-2-james-k-a-smith/

‘Inflation’ defined: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-66-the-high-cost-of-inflation-and-the-war-in-ukraine/

Bitcoin explained: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/bitcoin-and-the-future-of-currency-with-adam-obrien/

Money, the Fed, and Christianity: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-99-money-the-federal-reserve-and-christian-ethics-with-jordan-bush/

Human Action: https://mises.org/podcasts/human-action-treatise-economics

History and Eschatology: https://a.co/d/8tHavlm

Money and Inflation: https://mises.org/library/book/ludwig-von-mises-money-and-inflation

Phil Chen Interview Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFR7J2-N6JM&list=PPSV

Phil Chen Interview Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2W0Jo5QAaU&list=PLQhBTXNmfWOyX5l7di2JV8ghJh4SdwcUF&index=8

The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.

Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at [email protected].  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod. For more about the show, you can go to theprotestantlibertarianpodcast.com. If you like the show and want to support it, you can! Check out the Protestant

In this episode I talk with Dr. Wafik Wahba, professor of global Christianity at Tyndale University in Toronto, Canada. His brand-new book Global Christianity and Islam: Exploring History, Politics, and Beliefs (out February 2025 on IVP), explores the complex history of the relationship between Christianity and Islam, how they have shaped the modern world, and their theological similarities and differences. We will discuss the intricate history of Christianity and Islam, how they have shaped both society and politics in the modern world, and how Christians and Muslims understand God, Jesus, human nature, salvation, and community. This is an excellent primer on both Islam and the deeply interconnected history of Christianity and Islam. 

Media Referenced:

Global Christianity and Islam: https://a.co/d/bJvbiXO

Wafik Wahba Tyndale page: https://www.tyndale.ca/faculty/wafik-wahba

The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.

Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at [email protected].  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod, and Youtube, @ProLibertyPod, where you will get shorts and other exclusive video content. For more about the show, you can go to theprotestantlibertarianpodcast.com. If you like the show and want to support it, you can! Go to libertarianchristians.com, where you can donate to LCI and buy The Protestant Libertarian Podcast Merch! Also, please consider giving me a star rating and leaving me a review, it really helps expand the shows profile! Thanks!

In this episode I talk with Dr. Rafael Rodriguez, who teaches New Testament at Pittsburg Theological Seminary. We discuss his chapter in The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus (out now on Eerdmans), where he explains what ancient media tells us about the historical Jesus. While our primary sources are the gospels as written texts, in antiquity these were not the only ways in which people were exposed to Jesus. Dr. Rodriguez explains the nature of oral tradition, and what we can know about the period between the life of Jesus and the composition of the gospels. He explains both the failures and valuable insights of form criticism, which treats each individual unit of the gospels as an isolated tradition, and argues that the methodology of the Next Quest must move beyond the assumptions of form criticism. Based on the standards of ancient media, there were no ‘original’ versions of the events recorded in the gospels, and we can’t reconstruct exactly which words Jesus did and did not say. Rodriguez makes the compelling case that the diversity and divergences between the synoptic gospels are a necessary product of the ancient media environment, and do not present an obstacle to our faith. Taking these historical insights into consideration will give us a more nuanced impression of who Jesus was. 

Media Referenced:

The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus: https://a.co/d/6nQxo23

Rafael Rodriguez Academia: https://pts.academia.edu/RafaelRodriguez

Helen Bond interview: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-167-the-gospels-as-biography-with-helen-bond/

James Crossley interview: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-169-the-next-quest-for-the-historical-jesus-with-james-crossley/

Adele Reinhartz interview: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-173-the-jewishness-of-jesus-with-adele-reinhartz/

Chris Keith video interview: https://youtu.be/B96XmTRQ3jo?si=MG_A0hpqT_-_s4NV

The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.

Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at [email protected].  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod, and Youtube, @ProLibertyPod, where you will get shorts and other exclusive video content. For more about the show, you can go to theprotestantlibertarianpodcast.com. If you like the show and want to support it, you can! Go to libertarianchristians.com, where you can donate to LCI and buy The Protestant Libertarian Podcast Merch! Also, please consider giving me a star rating and leaving me a review, it really helps expand the shows profile! Thanks!

In this episode I talk with Dr. Chris Keith, research professor of New Testament and early Christianity at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society. He is the co-editor of The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus, out now on Eerdmans press, and he contributes a chapter to the volume entitled ‘Beyond What is Behind’. In this chapter he proposes that historical Jesus research needs to move beyond the idea that we can somehow ‘get behind’ the texts of the gospels and find unvarnished, uninterpreted historical information about Jesus. He discusses the rich legacy of form criticism, influenced by legendary scholars like Rudolf Bultmann, and examines how the operating assumption in Jesus scholarship has been that some individual units in the gospel tradition may give us perfect glimpses into the life of Jesus himself. Keith argues that the so-called ‘criteria of authenticity’ have failed to produce this result, and that all of our sources about Jesus are, by definition, interpretations of his life. We should instead try to look at the impact that Jesus had on his followers which gave rise to the sources we have, and explore the wider social, political, and historical contexts in which Jesus lived to get a sense of who he was. All we can every really know about Jesus is the ‘gist’ of his life, ministry and teaching. Keith stresses the need for humility when doing historical research and the important role that imagination plays in reconstructing the past. 

 
Media Referenced:

The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus: https://a.co/d/3cjjthL

Chris Keith on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Chris-Keith/author/B0028OM79S?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

James Crossley Interview: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-169-the-next-quest-for-the-historical-jesus-with-james-crossley/

Helen Bond Interview: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-167-the-gospels-as-biography-with-helen-bond/

Adele Reinhartz Interview: https://youtu.be/LeypHVQVMF8

 
The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.

Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at [email protected].  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod, and Youtube, @ProLibertyPod, where you will get shorts and other exclusive video content. For more about the show, you can go to theprotestantlibertarianpodcast.com. If you like the show and want to support it, you can! Go to libertarianchristians.com, where you can donate to LCI and buy The Protestant Libertarian Podcast Merch! Also, please consider giving me a star rating and leaving me a review, it really helps expand the shows profile! Thanks!

This is a recording of a sermon I preached on Sunday, November 17, 2024. It is a part of our sermon series on the ‘Fruits of the Spirit’ in Galatians 5:22-23. In this sermon, I talk about patience. I admit that I struggle to be patient, explaining why we live in a low patience society and how that affects the relationships we have with other people. I then explain how our patience is modeled after God’s patience. I explore the patience of God in 2 Peter 3, showing that God is patient with us because he wants all to repent. We then look at our own patience in Colossian 3, where Paul explains that patience means we must be forgiving to others as God forgives us. I then give some concluding thoughts on how we can better develop patience, and end with James 1:19-20. 

The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.

Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at [email protected].  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod, and Youtube, @ProLibertyPod, where you will get shorts and other exclusive video content. For more about the show, you can go to theprotestantlibertarianpodcast.com. If you like the show and want to support it, you can! Go to libertarianchristians.com, where you can donate to LCI and buy The Protestant Libertarian Podcast Merch! Also, please consider giving me a star rating and leaving me a review, it really helps expand the shows profile! Thanks!