Falsely Called Freedom Part 3: Libertarian “Freedom of Choice” as Costly Racism

One of Libertarianism’s key ideas is ‘freedom of choice’.  School choice in particular reveals that this idea is rooted in the ideal of keeping races separate and controlling who gains the benefit of the states tax revenues.  This came to the fore in the issue of Brown vs. the Board of Education which declared that […]

Falsely Called Freedom Part 2: Libertarian Understanding of Freedom

In the mind of the Virginia school, economy is a form of exchange while politics is a form of coercion.  True liberty can thus only be economic freedom.  Free markets, they argue, will create free people.  Their concern is that an electorate will elect politicians that promise to do the will of the people.  Then […]

Falsely Called Freedom: The Racist Roots of Libertarianism

The Virginia school of Economics would lay the foundation of Modern Libertarianism and the Tea Party Movement by creating an understanding of “liberty” quite unlike that of the framers.  Claiming to be constitutionalists, they might be better connected to the dissenting voice of the post-Constitutional generation, John Calhoun.  Based on the work of James Buchanan […]

The Law’s Liberating Impulse

Passover teaches us that the Torah is rooted in a liberating event and in the movement from Egypt to Sinai we are given the pattern for keeping the freedom which we were given. When we see Torah in light of this liberating impulse, we understand better what the Spirit of the Law is, and what […]

Mark 12 Is the Vineyard Parable a Rejection of Israel?

Two or three times in as many years, I have had conversations about Jesus’ parable in Mark 12 of the vine growers.  The argument posited to me ran like this, “Doesn’t this parable prove that in Messiah, God was taking His Kingdom from Israel and giving it to the gentiles?  Look at what Jesus says, […]

The Deepest Pain: Psalm 22 a message for Good Friday

Whether we hear the cry from the lips of David or from the dying Savior “My God, Why hast thou forsaken me?” the cry makes little sense from either. These are two people with a sense of the LORD’s presence and intimacy and yet the draw from the well of the deepest human pain, alienation. […]

The Torah as a Guide in the Two Current Crises

In the midst of a global pandemic and during the week that started the trial of the man who killed George Floyd, one might well ask, “how are some ancient laws from the Bible relevant and aren’t other things more pressing?”  Well, yes and no.  Had we been mindful of the thoughts we have raised […]