WEBVTT NOTE Why Evangelicals Don’t Like Austrian Political Economy, But Should 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.440 Yes, my title is Why Evangelicals Don't Like Austrian Political Economy But Should. 2 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:14.100 The subtitle is Observations of an Evangelical Who Worked for Both Jerry Falwell and Representative Ron Paul. 3 00:00:14.100 --> 00:00:21.300 But there's another subtitle though, another possible subtitle, and that is Adventures of a Paulite in Falwell Land. 4 00:00:21.300 --> 00:00:23.700 That's more catchy. 5 00:00:23.700 --> 00:00:28.700 But my background really constitutes part of my observations. 6 00:00:28.700 --> 00:00:35.420 So I want to go through that just for a minute. My entire nearly 30-year academic career has been 7 00:00:35.420 --> 00:00:40.860 within the evangelical community. First at Grove City College, where I taught political science 8 00:00:40.860 --> 00:00:48.780 for a while, and I guess the real question is why did I leave there? Does that question my sanity? 9 00:00:49.340 --> 00:00:54.620 I went from Grove City College to Liberty University, which was founded by Jerry Falwell, 10 00:00:54.620 --> 00:01:00.060 Well, was there quite a while and most of the time there was chairman of the government 11 00:01:00.060 --> 00:01:06.700 department there at Liberty University and then just a couple of years ago went to Bryan 12 00:01:06.700 --> 00:01:14.740 College in Tennessee which is also an evangelical college. I also worked for the Ron Paul campaign 13 00:01:14.740 --> 00:01:21.100 on the full time staff for a few months in 2008 and some of the experiences I had with 14 00:01:21.100 --> 00:01:27.860 that campaign touched the evangelical community. In fact, one of them, and I won't spend much 15 00:01:27.860 --> 00:01:35.700 time on this, involved bringing Representative Paul to speak at Liberty University in front 16 00:01:35.700 --> 00:01:42.540 of 10,000 people in convocation. I had left Liberty by then, so I was not employed by 17 00:01:42.540 --> 00:01:47.840 them, but I was employed to bring him there, and I did that. And I think the really interesting 18 00:01:47.840 --> 00:02:00.840 The funny thing about that incident, that activity, was that I found out later that the Chancellor of Liberty University, who was Jerry Falwell's son now, 19 00:02:00.840 --> 00:02:11.840 Jerry Falwell had died a short time earlier, had warned the audience in an earlier convocation that we're going to have a speaker, he's a Republican, 20 00:02:11.840 --> 00:02:16.840 I agree with a lot of the things he stands for, so be polite, but don't be enthusiastic. 21 00:02:16.840 --> 00:02:23.840 And I observed the audience there. They were not very enthusiastic for the most part. 22 00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:27.840 They were sometimes, though, and I'll touch upon that. 23 00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:31.840 So my career really forms part of my observations. 24 00:02:31.840 --> 00:02:38.840 My analysis here will be largely confined to that part of evangelicalism, generally known as the Christian right. 25 00:02:38.840 --> 00:02:51.840 Some evangelicals might distance themselves from people like Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson or James Dobson, to name a few, and yet still fall into the category of the Christian right because of both theology and political views. 26 00:02:51.840 --> 00:03:01.840 With apologies to my Roman Catholic colleagues, I also will confine my analysis to Protestant evangelicalism, which some defines the only type of evangelicalism, 27 00:03:01.840 --> 00:03:10.640 And in so doing, I'll point to the obvious, namely that there are significant, if not fundamental, differences between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, 28 00:03:10.640 --> 00:03:17.280 the most important of which is their views of Scripture. That plays prominently in this analysis, by the way. 29 00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:24.240 This is important because evangelicals base much of their thinking on, at least they say this, on the Bible, 30 00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:30.000 not natural law, not tradition, not natural rites, not the pronouncements of the Church, 31 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:59.000 Evangelicalism would certainly be defined minimally, and most of the time in the 20th century has been defined minimally, including the pre-existing fundamentalist movement, by a few doctrines. 32 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:12.500 And these doctrines I will list as the inerrancy and authority of the scriptures, that's the paramount one, the deity of Jesus Christ, the virgin birth, substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 33 00:04:12.500 --> 00:04:15.600 There are some others, but those are some of the key ones. 34 00:04:15.600 --> 00:04:26.000 We'll deal with a few other doctrines that have not been so common or agreed upon among evangelicals and which actually contribute to the antithesis toward Austrianism later. 35 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:46.000 By this standard, there is a certain unity among otherwise diverse groups, such as Southern Baptists, and there are millions of them, Independent Baptists, Charismatics, Pentecostals, some Presbyterian groups, and at least one major branch of Lutherans, the Missouri Senate branch, among others. 36 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:55.000 Furthermore, there are individuals who identify with evangelicalism, scattered within the so-called mainline Protestant denominations. 37 00:04:55.000 --> 00:05:00.000 though the denominations themselves would not be considered part of Evangelicalism. 38 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:06.000 But most interesting and I think important for this presentation are some of the recent, 39 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:12.000 and I do emphasize recent, non-theological, strictly speaking, non-theological concepts 40 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:17.000 which have been adopted pretty much uniformly among Evangelicals. 41 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:21.000 This I call applied Evangelicalism. 42 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:28.500 applied evangelicalism. 1. Political conservatism, somewhat vaguely defined but with some of 43 00:05:28.500 --> 00:05:34.960 the gaps filled in. 2. The social issues are of paramount importance, that is the immorality 44 00:05:34.960 --> 00:05:42.860 of abortion, the immorality of gay marriage and so forth. 3. Certain behaviors are immoral 45 00:05:42.860 --> 00:05:49.080 and should be regulated or perhaps even outlawed by governments such as alcohol use, drug use, 46 00:05:49.080 --> 00:06:00.800 4. Free market economics is good, but a caveat to that, very few evangelicals have a grasp 47 00:06:00.800 --> 00:06:08.080 of what free market economics is, or about that later. In fact, a somewhat telling detail 48 00:06:08.080 --> 00:06:17.000 of the evangelical invasion, if you will, of free market economics is the total lack 49 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:25.160 of any commentary on monetary policy. There's almost nothing out there by evangelicals regarding 50 00:06:25.160 --> 00:06:31.640 monetary policy, which means that they either usually implicitly or explicitly accept the 51 00:06:31.640 --> 00:06:38.260 existence of, if not the efficacy of, the Federal Reserve system. Now this is of course 52 00:06:38.260 --> 00:06:43.120 a major deviation from Austrian economics. It's very tempting to argue that were it not 53 00:06:43.120 --> 00:06:49.960 not for Ron Paul and later his 2008 presidential bid, combined with the 2008-10 recession, 54 00:06:49.960 --> 00:06:55.520 or whatever you want to call it, evangelicals would still be silent, connoting either agreement 55 00:06:55.520 --> 00:07:01.160 with or ignorance of, or both, the rule of the Fed. 56 00:07:01.160 --> 00:07:06.480 Now there's now a greater spotlight on monetary policy, of course, and the Fed, but it remains 57 00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:11.000 to be seen, and I think this is really crucial, it remains to be seen whether evangelicals 58 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:28.360 Evangelicals have a stated reverence for the Constitution of the Founding Fathers. However, 59 00:07:28.360 --> 00:07:33.040 I would say that is usually combined with a fairly abysmal knowledge of what the Constitution 60 00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:39.040 actually says. A problem of course shared by many Americans, but it's a distinct problem, 61 00:07:39.040 --> 00:07:52.560 6. Evangelicals typically say they stand for a strong defense, but it is of course questionable 62 00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:57.920 exactly what they mean by that. Sometimes it would seem that what they mean is a far-flung 63 00:07:57.920 --> 00:08:02.720 military presence and fairly extensive use of military force, especially in the Middle 64 00:08:02.720 --> 00:08:17.960 The United States is morally obligated to support Israel with a very recent corollary to the 65 00:08:17.960 --> 00:08:24.160 War on Terror, which seems to be linked in the minds of many evangelicals anyway as much 66 00:08:24.160 --> 00:08:31.560 What's to protecting Israel as avenging America and preventing Islamic terrorism sometimes 67 00:08:31.560 --> 00:08:38.600 seems to me, at least my observations are, seems like a war on Islam of sorts. 68 00:08:38.600 --> 00:08:42.160 Now Austrianism very quickly, most everybody in this room, maybe everybody in this room 69 00:08:42.160 --> 00:08:46.040 is Austrian, so I don't think we need to do a whole lot of definition there. 70 00:08:46.040 --> 00:08:51.360 I want to focus on some of the, again, some of the applied Austrianism that will contrast 71 00:08:51.360 --> 00:09:12.360 The Applied Evangelicalism, limited government, free markets, sound money, non-interventionism in foreign affairs, non-regulation or non-criminalization of most if not all social behaviors such as drug use, alcohol use, tobacco use, and so forth. 72 00:09:12.360 --> 00:09:42.360 Non-interventionism, by the way, in foreign affairs, just for the record, should not be equated, certainly in the minds of evangelicals it wouldn't be, with pacifism, certainly not with categorical pacifism, nor should it be seen at least by most Austrians as advocating a quote-unquote weak defense, defense being defined literally and narrowly as defending one's country from actual foreign attack, not intervening in other countries to overthrow bad regimes or establish western-style democracy. 73 00:09:42.360 --> 00:10:10.560 Austrianism on the surface, it would appear at first glance that evangelicals would find 74 00:10:10.560 --> 00:10:17.460 A lot of common cause with Austrian political economy, but they don't. 75 00:10:17.460 --> 00:10:21.400 So the question is, why do they not? 76 00:10:21.400 --> 00:10:23.240 Why do they not do this? 77 00:10:23.240 --> 00:10:27.260 This is the crucial question in the paper. 78 00:10:27.260 --> 00:10:32.960 I can say this, speaking as an evangelical Austrian, I can say, and I'll get into this 79 00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:43.200 Protestant Christianity is quite amiable toward Austrianism if, and this is the crucial if 80 00:10:43.200 --> 00:10:51.600 for evangelicals, if the data from the scriptures, which evangelicals say they follow wholeheartedly, 81 00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:57.720 is considered carefully and seriously much of current evangelicalism to the contrary 82 00:10:57.720 --> 00:10:58.720 notwithstanding. 83 00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:02.480 There is the problem. 84 00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:07.480 Now, what are the reasons that Austrians and Evangelicals don't seem to get along? 85 00:11:07.480 --> 00:11:14.000 First, Austrianism is closely associated with libertarianism in the minds of Evangelicals, 86 00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:19.860 and Evangelicals are deeply suspicious of what is perceived to be a libertine philosophy. 87 00:11:19.860 --> 00:11:24.320 This I think is largely due to Evangelical misunderstanding. 88 00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:27.840 First, there are two misunderstandings. 89 00:11:27.840 --> 00:11:37.480 First, what may appear to be libertarianism may, at least in some cases, simply be federalism. 90 00:11:37.480 --> 00:11:43.240 In other words, the fact that the national government is not regulating something, why? 91 00:11:43.240 --> 00:11:49.820 Because the Constitution prohibits such exercise of federal power, does not necessarily mean 92 00:11:49.820 --> 00:11:55.280 that a state government cannot do that, although we're not speaking about the propriety of 93 00:11:55.280 --> 00:11:58.280 The Legality of Doing It 94 00:11:58.280 --> 00:12:03.280 I think a lot of Evangelicals don't see this. 95 00:12:03.280 --> 00:12:06.280 They want the Federal Government to do everything. 96 00:12:06.280 --> 00:12:08.280 Everything that is bad. 97 00:12:08.280 --> 00:12:11.280 They want to use the power of the Federal Government 98 00:12:11.280 --> 00:12:15.280 to bring about what they consider to be good or right in many cases, 99 00:12:15.280 --> 00:12:21.280 ignoring the ethical importance of the jurisdictional question. 100 00:12:21.280 --> 00:12:24.280 But the second problem here I think is this. 101 00:12:24.280 --> 00:12:51.280 Evangelicals really often fail to understand their own data from the Bible. To a very great extent, while the Bible may judge some behavior as sin, it does not necessarily also define it as a crime. That is something to be legislated or regulated. In short, not all sins are crimes in the Bible. In fact, many are not. 102 00:12:51.280 --> 00:12:57.280 And by the way, I would just point you, if you're not very familiar with evangelical literature, 103 00:12:57.280 --> 00:13:05.280 to an individual who has been very influential in my life, and that is Dr. Greg Bonnason, late Dr. Greg Bonnason. 104 00:13:05.280 --> 00:13:14.280 He was a philosopher. His Ph.D. advisor in California was John Hospers, the famous libertarian. 105 00:13:14.280 --> 00:13:27.280 And in fact, Dr. Greg Bonson once said that he considered himself to be almost a libertarian, but he was a big proponent of this biblical idea, not all sins are crimes. 106 00:13:27.280 --> 00:13:33.280 And that is, I think, crucial for evangelicals to understand, but they frequently ignore it. 107 00:13:33.280 --> 00:13:39.280 If they followed their own epistemology, the Scriptures, they would not ignore it. 108 00:13:39.280 --> 00:13:44.280 Of course, anyone familiar with the Bible could argue that this is not always the case. 109 00:13:44.280 --> 00:13:49.280 There may arguably, depending on biblical hermeneutics, be some biblically-defining 110 00:13:49.280 --> 00:13:52.280 sins that might be interpreted as biblically-defining crimes. 111 00:13:52.280 --> 00:13:57.280 At least some such cases there could be congruence for different reasons between the Bible and 112 00:13:57.280 --> 00:14:00.280 Austrianism, such as laws about murder, kidnapping, theft. 113 00:14:00.280 --> 00:14:02.280 With others, there might be controversy. 114 00:14:02.280 --> 00:14:05.280 We're not going to deal here with controversial sin crimes. 115 00:14:05.280 --> 00:14:15.280 There's overwhelming agreement among all ideologies in America that these are outside the boundaries of government, regardless of what the Bible might say today, so there's no use in getting into those. 116 00:14:15.280 --> 00:14:30.280 Some of the sins but not crimes in the Bible, and in fact in some evangelical circles, maybe not even sins, depending on the specific behavior, might be alcohol use, drug use, pornography, tobacco use, gambling. 117 00:14:30.280 --> 00:14:40.280 Abortion is a touchy one, though. Abortion is unique and, of course, is seen that way by evangelicals because of the argument that a human being is involved. 118 00:14:40.280 --> 00:14:51.280 The main point here is that there are many behaviors which might be immoral, according to the Scriptures, or non-ideal, or perhaps injurious, or maybe none of these, 119 00:14:51.280 --> 00:14:57.280 depending on whether one comes from the fundamentalistic branch of evangelicalism or the more, quote-unquote, reformed branch, 120 00:14:57.280 --> 00:15:24.280 According to the Bible, that law should not regulate, and most Evangelicals simply do not see this. Substantial freedom may not always be pretty, on the societal level of course, Evangelicals are free to regulate these things to an extent within their own societies, their own churches, but it is not necessarily unbiblical according to the Bible itself. 121 00:15:24.280 --> 00:15:47.280 Second big reason why Austrian evangelicals don't get along. Evangelicals have scant history, very scant history, of a truly Christian philosophy of either government or economics, except in isolated cases involving mostly scholars from the reformed branch of evangelicalism, who constitute a distinct minority today. 122 00:15:47.280 --> 00:15:51.280 In medieval times, there were pockets of such understanding and application. 123 00:15:51.280 --> 00:15:56.280 This, however, I'm sorry, this was pre-Protestant, proto-Protestant, whatever you want to call it. 124 00:15:56.280 --> 00:16:01.280 With the Protestant Reformation came a more coherent understanding of politics, 125 00:16:01.280 --> 00:16:07.280 forming one root of modern evangelicalism, especially in the form of the development of ideas like the rule of law, 126 00:16:07.280 --> 00:16:13.280 constitutionalism and resistance to tyranny, resistance to tyrants, the writings of the Huguenots in France, for example, 127 00:16:13.280 --> 00:16:19.280 and the Reformers in England and Scotland, and so forth. 128 00:16:19.280 --> 00:16:27.280 However, in modern evangelicalism, especially with the rise of some of the frontier denominations I call them, 129 00:16:27.280 --> 00:16:34.280 and the rise of dispensationalism, which is a particular theology within evangelicalism, both in the 19th century, 130 00:16:34.280 --> 00:16:39.280 and then fundamentalism, which is more of a 20th century development, 131 00:16:39.280 --> 00:16:53.280 The Christian-based economic theory, again with a few isolated exceptions, has been even less developed, except for the modern generalities, we like free enterprise, whatever that means, there's the problem. 132 00:16:53.280 --> 00:17:08.280 By the end of the 19th century, many evangelicals had become avid followers of populists and of, for instance, three-time Democratic presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan, 133 00:17:08.280 --> 00:17:18.280 Holding to some views that Austrians would appreciate, such as his anti-imperialism, was both a fundamentalist and an economic interventionist, 134 00:17:18.280 --> 00:17:25.280 sometimes of a fairly extreme sort for his day, such as his support for the nationalization of railroads, 135 00:17:25.280 --> 00:17:33.280 although he looked at that in his mind as being partly precipitated by earlier government meddling in the railroad industry. 136 00:17:33.280 --> 00:17:46.280 While he had reservations about Wilson's Fed, he advocated government manipulation of the currency, of course, we know. He was a silver man, and even willing to go pay for money around, of course. 137 00:17:46.280 --> 00:17:57.280 He actually considered himself a Jeffersonian. He actually called himself a Jeffersonian, but that's very odd when you compare that label he gave himself and his actual practices. 138 00:17:57.280 --> 00:18:04.400 Although, to be fair, he was both anti-big business and anti-big government, too. 139 00:18:04.400 --> 00:18:08.940 He was much more in favor of letting states deal with things than he was the federal government, 140 00:18:08.940 --> 00:18:12.320 but that's another story. 141 00:18:12.320 --> 00:18:19.520 But evangelicals' infatuation with economic intervention did not end with Brian, continued 142 00:18:19.520 --> 00:18:24.400 as at least symbolized by many subsequent presidents who were evangelicals, either real 143 00:18:24.400 --> 00:18:31.280 or Pretend Evangelicals and Interventionists like Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and FDR. 144 00:18:32.160 --> 00:18:37.040 Even today, there is a relatively strong minority within Evangelicalism which supports variations 145 00:18:37.040 --> 00:18:44.000 of quote Christian Socialism. Interestingly, while the Christian Left eschews economic liberty, 146 00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:49.760 it is normally non-interventionists on foreign policy and pro-personal liberty. 147 00:18:49.760 --> 00:19:19.760 The Christian Right is the opposite, generally speaking. It's only a very tiny part of evangelicalism, a group called the Christian Reconstructionists, a very small movement within evangelicalism that are fairly consistent, generally very consistent, free market, economics, non-interventionist or foreign policy, although the one thing that Austrians would sometimes disagree with, of course, is their view 148 00:19:19.760 --> 00:19:31.160 This special lack of consistent economic thinking within evangelicalism, and I think the works 149 00:19:31.160 --> 00:19:37.040 of Mark Knoll are good to look at on this, and only partial development of a consistent 150 00:19:37.040 --> 00:19:44.440 political philosophy has certainly made evangelicals easy prey to faulty or truncated ideas and 151 00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:51.760 and also susceptible to attachment to outside ideas espoused by alien organizations such 152 00:19:51.760 --> 00:19:53.080 as the Republican Party. 153 00:19:53.080 --> 00:19:55.940 Talk about that in a minute. 154 00:19:55.940 --> 00:20:05.720 So the third problem, another factor is evangelical mistrust of Austrianism is its relatively 155 00:20:05.720 --> 00:20:08.680 recent attachment to the National Republican Party. 156 00:20:08.680 --> 00:20:10.800 Now I call this relatively recent. 157 00:20:10.800 --> 00:20:18.920 In my research, I perceive that this did not really begin to happen until 1988. 158 00:20:18.920 --> 00:20:23.000 In 1980, of course, the Evangelicals were big supporters of Ronald Reagan. 159 00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:27.520 But I think it was Ronald Reagan and not so much the Republican Party in 1980. 160 00:20:27.520 --> 00:20:28.520 It was a reaction. 161 00:20:28.520 --> 00:20:34.600 They were not being proactive, they were being reactive to their betrayal by Evangelical 162 00:20:34.600 --> 00:20:36.280 Jimmy Carter. 163 00:20:36.280 --> 00:20:38.360 So they went with Ronald Reagan. 164 00:20:38.360 --> 00:20:39.360 Why? 165 00:20:39.360 --> 00:20:54.360 And does that mean they really were on board with everything Ronald Reagan talked about? No, by this time, Evangelicals had discovered the so-called social issues like abortion, and that was one thing that Ronald Reagan, of course, focused on among Evangelicals. 166 00:20:54.360 --> 00:21:04.360 They attached themselves to Ronald Reagan, I think, because of the social issues. They didn't really care about the other issues strongly, in my opinion. 167 00:21:04.360 --> 00:21:11.360 This is a very, I think, significant problem in Evangelicalism. Evangelicalism by 1988, I think, had firmly cast its lot with the Republican Party. 168 00:21:11.360 --> 00:21:20.360 This led to an increasingly noticeable parroting of the Christian right, by the Christian right, of the prevailing Republican Party agenda issues. 169 00:21:20.360 --> 00:21:31.360 Now, a fourth problem. In the area of foreign affairs, Evangelicals have more or less attached themselves to the fortunes of the neoconservative movement, the new neoconservative movement. 170 00:21:31.360 --> 00:21:34.360 I call them the neo-neoconservatives. 171 00:21:34.360 --> 00:21:41.360 There was an earlier neoconservative movement that was less interested in foreign adventurism. 172 00:21:41.360 --> 00:21:44.360 I think now we have a different story. 173 00:21:44.360 --> 00:21:47.360 There's a new neo-evangelical movement that is. 174 00:21:47.360 --> 00:21:52.360 The fact that Pat Robertson, now you know who Pat Robertson is, 175 00:21:52.360 --> 00:21:56.360 hitched his wagon to Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 elections, 176 00:21:56.360 --> 00:22:12.360 The one Republican who had virtually nothing in common with Evangelicals at all but who staked himself out as the anti-terrorism candidate demonstrates this infatuation, this attachment to the new neo-cons. 177 00:22:12.360 --> 00:22:20.360 Now very specifically, what is the problem here that Evangelicals have gotten into? I think two sub-problems. 178 00:22:20.360 --> 00:22:24.360 1. Their ignorance of just war theory. 179 00:22:24.360 --> 00:22:36.360 I don't know how many are really evangelicals in here, but the evangelical community seems to be devoid, almost completely devoid of any knowledge that there is such a thing as just war theory. 180 00:22:36.360 --> 00:22:43.360 You find very little literature coming out of the evangelical community except, again, for some of the reformed scholars, on just war theory. 181 00:22:43.360 --> 00:22:44.360 Just War Theory 182 00:22:44.360 --> 00:22:51.120 Now if they don't have that, what do they have to tell them when war is right or wrong? 183 00:22:51.120 --> 00:22:56.060 Now I might add here that for evangelicals who believe the Bible is the key, just war 184 00:22:56.060 --> 00:22:59.420 theory has a foundation in the scriptures itself. 185 00:22:59.420 --> 00:23:04.120 In the book of Deuteronomy and the Old Testament, chapter 20, read it at your leisure. 186 00:23:04.120 --> 00:23:06.720 The second problem is Israel. 187 00:23:06.720 --> 00:23:10.540 Now this is a distinctly theological problem. 188 00:23:10.540 --> 00:23:16.700 This may be the linchpin of Evangelical foreign policy, which seems surprising to most non-Evangelicals. 189 00:23:16.700 --> 00:23:22.660 It's almost a tentative modern Evangelicalism that Evangelicals must support Israel no matter 190 00:23:22.660 --> 00:23:23.660 what. 191 00:23:23.660 --> 00:23:25.340 This is part of their theology. 192 00:23:25.340 --> 00:23:27.140 This is part of the dispensationalist theology. 193 00:23:27.140 --> 00:23:32.540 They must support the modern nation state of Israel because they claim from their interpretation 194 00:23:32.540 --> 00:23:38.060 of scriptures that this modern nation state is a fulfillment of prophecy of the Bible 195 00:23:38.060 --> 00:23:43.540 and that God will curse those who curse Israel and bless those who bless Israel. 196 00:23:43.540 --> 00:23:49.700 Now it might surprise a lot of evangelicals to know that there is a minority report 197 00:23:49.700 --> 00:23:53.260 on the role of Israel, the place of Israel in the modern world. 198 00:23:53.260 --> 00:23:57.140 Again, this is an internecine squabble among evangelicals. 199 00:23:57.140 --> 00:24:00.060 The minority report is this. 200 00:24:00.060 --> 00:24:04.620 It is based on different but reasonable and well-established interpretation of the Scriptures 201 00:24:04.620 --> 00:24:15.620 And it says that the church, all those who have faith in Jesus Christ, is the new Israel, the new Israel, the church is the new Israel, not the modern nation state of Israel. 202 00:24:15.620 --> 00:24:32.620 Now you see, if you bought that interpretation, that would pull the rug out from under a lot of what evangelicals hold to in the area of war, and it would undermine their attachment, I think, to neoconservatism. 203 00:24:34.620 --> 00:24:38.620 My conclusion. Can Austrians and Evangelicals get along? 204 00:24:38.620 --> 00:24:42.620 Well, actually my answer is pretty simple on the surface of it. 205 00:24:42.620 --> 00:24:47.620 If Evangelicals follow their own stated epistemology, 206 00:24:47.620 --> 00:24:53.620 in other words, if they read their Bibles seriously, 207 00:24:53.620 --> 00:24:59.620 not borrow other people's interpretations, 208 00:24:59.620 --> 00:25:01.620 but if they read their Bibles seriously 209 00:25:01.620 --> 00:25:06.620 and take the interpretations that are plain and simple from the scriptures, 210 00:25:06.620 --> 00:25:10.620 Austrians, I think, would be very pleasantly surprised with the outcome. 211 00:25:10.620 --> 00:25:13.620 That's not what's happening, I would submit to you. 212 00:25:13.620 --> 00:25:14.620 That is not what's happening. 213 00:25:14.620 --> 00:25:19.620 A couple of things just in passing here at the end that I think are not helpful. 214 00:25:19.620 --> 00:25:21.620 Not helpful. 215 00:25:21.620 --> 00:25:25.620 First of all, evangelicals already distrust libertarianism. 216 00:25:25.620 --> 00:25:28.620 They distrust what they perceive as hyperlibertarianism. 217 00:25:28.620 --> 00:25:58.620 Caringism. That doesn't mean they're interpreting it correctly, by the way, but they still distrust it. An open and vociferous harangue of evangelicals to the effect that since not all sins are crimes, which is true, then sin is just fine, does not score points with evangelicals. Evangelicals might say this, they might say this, I don't want Big Brother looking at anyone's bedroom windows either. At the same time, I don't need to be told by those in the bedroom what they're doing, and no matter what 218 00:25:58.620 --> 00:26:05.620 What it is, it's just fine and I have to accept it in some moral sense, see there's the problem. 219 00:26:05.620 --> 00:26:12.340 I think evangelicalism can accept the idea and does accept, would accept the idea if 220 00:26:12.340 --> 00:26:16.940 shown from scripture, which if they read scripture they'd see, not all sins are crimes. 221 00:26:16.940 --> 00:26:23.120 The second non-starter I think is this, the notion, and again I think this is a misunderstanding 222 00:26:23.120 --> 00:26:38.120 The notion that government is evil per se, that all government is evil per se. Evangelicalism does accept the idea that government should be limited, and it can, I think, accept the idea that government is a necessary evil. 223 00:26:38.120 --> 00:26:49.120 Notice I said a necessary evil. That is, it is necessary because of sinful human nature, and it's evil or potentially evil because of sinful human nature. The same reason. 224 00:26:49.120 --> 00:26:58.120 This is no different from what the supporters and the non-supporters of the U.S. Constitution in the 1700s talked about. 225 00:26:58.120 --> 00:27:05.120 It's also no different, I think, than chapter 13 of the book of Romans in the Bible. 226 00:27:05.120 --> 00:27:18.120 So in conclusion, in final conclusion, I reiterate, if evangelicals followed their own data from their own scriptures, their own state of epistemology, 227 00:27:18.120 --> 00:27:26.120 I believe that the outcome would be something that would be very closely aligned with Austrianism.