Can Christianity make a coherent case for a free society? At FreedomFest 2022 in Las Vegas, the Libertarian Christian Institute hosted a breakout session — “Faith Seeking Freedom: Making the Christian Case for a Free Society” — bringing together panelists and audience members for a wide-ranging discussion on human flourishing, women’s rights, self-ownership, Critical Race Theory, and how Christians should think about economics and political theory. This episode captures that session in full.
Libertarian Christian Case for Free Society FreedomFest 2022
The Libertarian Christian Institute’s breakout session at FreedomFest 2022 was titled “Faith Seeking Freedom: Making the Christian Case for a Free Society.” Moderated by Matthew Bellis, the panel included LCI CEO Doug Stuart, LCI founder Dr. Norman Horn, Professor Aaron Sepulveda, and Kerry Baldwin. The session was open to FreedomFest attendees and vendors and included live audience Q&A throughout.
The opening argument, made by Doug Stuart, is the one that frames everything that follows: human flourishing requires freedom. Not as a pragmatic concession to pluralism, but as a structural claim — individuals and communities thrive when they are free to act, associate, and steward their own lives. Jesus’s message of the Kingdom of God is, on this reading, inherently subversive of state power, not an endorsement of it.
Dr. Norman Horn addresses the confusion many Christians have about the church’s relationship to politics and economics. That confusion, he argues, is not accidental — it reflects a genuine gap in Christian education about political theory and economics. Christians who don’t understand what socialism actually is, or how markets function, are poorly positioned to evaluate the claims made on either side of political debates.
Kerry Baldwin’s contribution focuses on women’s rights. The church has typically offered women two options: rights guaranteed by a husband, or rights guaranteed by the state. Both are versions of the same error. The libertarian alternative is self-ownership — the principle that rights and responsibilities are inherent and God-given, not granted by other human beings. This maps directly onto the Christian concept of self-stewardship: God holds each person accountable for their own life, which means God has also given each person the authority to govern it.
The panel addresses the apparent tension between self-ownership and being a “slave to Christ.” Doug Stuart draws the necessary distinction: self-ownership describes human-to-human relationships. Submission to God is a different category of authority entirely, and the two claims operate on different levels. Aaron Sepulveda adds the distinction between vices and crimes — libertarian theory addresses crimes (violations of property rights requiring restitution), not moral vices, which are private matters outside the scope of civil enforcement.
On Critical Race Theory, Kerry Baldwin describes it as a movement that has migrated well beyond its origins as a legal theory and now functions as a quasi-religion — producing activists, providing a totalizing interpretive lens, and generating conclusions that are frequently anti-human in their practical effects. Aaron Sepulveda notes that CRT offers a social framework that substitutes for religion, replacing questions of identity with political and therapeutic solutions.
The session closes with a question about how to have productive conversations about religion and politics with neighbors and community members. Kerry Baldwin’s answer: confidence in your own convictions, and the Socratic method. Not adversarial argument, but genuine questions that invite discovery. The goal is not to win but to open.
Main Points of Discussion
| 00:44 | Introduction and panel overview |
| 10:05 | Human flourishing and why freedom is its precondition |
| 12:06 | Christian confusion about politics and economics |
| 15:14 | Women’s rights from a Christian libertarian perspective |
| 16:51 | Self-ownership vs. slavery to Christ: resolving the apparent contradiction |
| 21:10 | Critical Race Theory as quasi-religion |
| 25:37 | Defining crime in a libertarian society: property rights and restitution |
| 30:28 | How to discuss religion and politics with neighbors: the Socratic method |
| 34:41 | Critical theory, woke culture, and lived experience in schools |
| 39:41 | Precision in language and the casual misuse of “perfect” |
FAQs
Can Christianity make a coherent case for a free society?
Yes — and the Libertarian Christian Institute’s work is built on that argument. The case runs through Scripture, not around it. God holds individuals accountable for their own lives, which means God has given individuals the authority to govern them. Jesus’s Kingdom message subverts state power rather than endorsing it. Human flourishing, on this account, requires freedom as a structural precondition, not merely a preference.
What is the libertarian Christian view of women’s rights?
The church has typically offered women rights guaranteed by a husband or by the state — two versions of the same error. The libertarian Christian alternative is self-ownership: rights and responsibilities are inherent and God-given, not granted by other human beings. This maps onto the Christian concept of self-stewardship. God holds each person accountable for their own life, which means each person has the God-given authority to govern it. Neither a husband nor the state is positioned as the guarantor.
How does self-ownership square with being a slave to Christ?
They operate on different levels. Self-ownership describes human-to-human relationships — no other person has authority over your body, conscience, or life. Submission to God is a different category of authority entirely, one that does not transfer to any human institution or relationship. The two claims are not in tension; they address different questions.
What is the difference between a vice and a crime in libertarian theory?
A crime is a violation of property rights — including self-ownership — that requires restitution. Libertarian theory addresses crimes; it does not govern vices. Vices are moral failures that fall short of rights violations and belong to the sphere of individual conscience, community accountability, and church discipline — not civil enforcement. The distinction matters because much of what the state currently criminalizes is vice, not crime, and much of what goes unenforced are genuine rights violations.
What is Critical Race Theory and why does Kerry Baldwin critique it?
CRT originated as a legal theory examining how law perpetuates racial disparities. It has since migrated into a broader ideological movement that functions as a quasi-religion — producing activists, offering a totalizing interpretive lens, and generating conclusions that are frequently anti-human in their practical effects. Baldwin’s critique is not that racial injustice is unreal, but that CRT’s framework for analyzing it is philosophically defective: it attempts to codify lived experience into philosophical law, which forecloses the open inquiry that genuine understanding requires.
What does FreedomFest have to do with libertarian Christianity?
FreedomFest is an annual conference in Las Vegas focused on liberty, ideas, and public debate. The Libertarian Christian Institute has hosted breakout sessions there as part of its ongoing effort to make the Christian case for a free society to a broader libertarian audience — and to bring libertarian thinking into Christian contexts. Kerry Baldwin has spoken at FreedomFest in 2022 and 2023.
