Church State Authority: A Libertarian Christian Response to Public Health Mandates
The COVID era did not create the tensions between church authority, state authority, and individual conscience — it exposed them. Questions that had been easy to ignore under normal circumstances became unavoidable: What is the legitimate scope of civil governance? Can the state bar people from Word and Sacrament? Does Christian love require compliance with public health mandates? And what does libertarianism actually contribute to these questions that neither the left nor the right was equipped to answer?
Kerry Baldwin joined the Presbycast roundtable alongside Gregory Baus, PCA pastor Job, and others to work through exactly these questions. The conversation covers the distinction between philosophical libertarianism and the Libertarian Party — a distinction that matters because the party’s handling of the COVID moment revealed what happens when pragmatism replaces principle. It covers the Christian doctrine of self-ownership: not as a secular claim, but as a stewardship framework grounded in Scripture, distinct from the libertine use of the concept. And it covers what church officers do and do not have the authority to do — specifically, that God has not given church officers the power to bar people from Word and Sacrament on the basis of infection status.
The deeper thread running through the conversation is jurisdictional. Kerry argues that Christians on both sides of the COVID debates made the same error: using civil law to compel what can only be given voluntarily. Conservatives attempted to use the law to enforce love of God; progressives attempted to use it to compel love of neighbor. Neither is a legitimate use of civil authority. The NAP is not a secular import here — it maps directly onto what Scripture says about the proper scope of civil governance and what it does not authorize the state to kill people over.
The conversation also addresses mass psychosis and moral panic, the economics of vaccine mandates and why legal coercion cannot deter demand, the confusion between what is immoral and what should be illegal, and the practical question of how Reformed churches handled their congregations through the crisis — with a notable absence of easy answers from any direction.
The references Kerry mentions in the episode: her LCI article “The Virulence of Moral Panic,” her review of Dr. Gabor Maté’s The Wisdom of Trauma, Gregory Baus’s Reformed treatment of Romans 13 (available at mereliberty.com/romans-13), and the Reformed Libertarian Statement worked on by Kerry and Gregory Baus.
Main Discussion Points
| 00:00 | Introduction and guests |
| 04:15 | What 2020 revealed about existing fault lines in church and society |
| 10:30 | The libertarian party vs. libertarian philosophy: what the COVID moment exposed |
| 17:45 | Vaccine passports, mass psychosis, and the psychology of compliance |
| 26:00 | Christian love, individual conscience, and the limits of the state |
| 34:10 | Self-ownership in Christian perspective: stewardship, not autonomy |
| 42:00 | What church officers do and do not have authority to do |
| 51:20 | The economics of mandates: why legal coercion cannot deter demand |
| 58:30 | Freedom in Scripture: what the Bible actually says about liberty |
| 1:05:00 | Distinguishing the immoral from the illegal: the libertarian contribution |
| 1:12:00 | Romans 13, reformed libertarianism, and closing remarks |
FAQs
What is the difference between philosophical libertarianism and the Libertarian Party?
Philosophical libertarianism is grounded in the principle of self-ownership and the non-aggression principle — the idea that civil coercion is only legitimate in response to aggression against persons or property. The Libertarian Party is a political organization that has frequently subordinated those principles to electoral pragmatism. Kerry Baldwin has never been a card-carrying party member; her libertarianism is philosophical and she argues it is properly grounded in Reformed Christian convictions.
Does Christian love require compliance with public health mandates?
No. Love is necessarily voluntary — as soon as force is introduced, it ceases to be love. The claim that mask-wearing or vaccination is a universal expression of Christian love is not grounded in Scripture. God did not prescribe specific medical behaviors as the form love must take. What Scripture does require is that individuals steward their own lives and bodies before God, voluntarily consider their neighbors, and make decisions of conscience — not that they comply with state mandates under threat of coercion.
What authority do church officers have over public health decisions?
God has not given church officers the authority to bar people from Word and Sacrament on the basis of infection status. The church’s calling is to preach the Gospel and administer the sacraments — not to function as a public health enforcement body. Individual conscience governs decisions about personal health precautions. Officers may recommend; they may not compel. The same principle that prevents the state from overreaching into the church prevents church officers from overreaching into individual conscience.
What is the libertarian case against vaccine mandates?
On both principled and economic grounds. Principally: the individual bearing all the risk of a medical intervention — with no legal recourse for injury — is the one who has the right to make that decision. Economically: mandates do not eliminate demand for noncompliance; they relocate and drive it underground, producing worse outcomes than voluntary uptake. Legal coercion is not an effective mechanism for changing behavior in ways that actually achieve the stated public health goals.
What does sphere sovereignty say about church and state authority during a public health crisis?
Sphere sovereignty holds that God assigns distinct and limited jurisdiction to different kinds of communities — church, state, family, civil society — none of which normatively subsumes the others. The state’s jurisdiction covers civil rights violations: aggression against persons or property. It does not cover ecclesial decisions about worship, sacraments, or congregational life. When the state mandates church closures or restricts worship gatherings, it steps outside its legitimate jurisdiction. When church officers impose compliance requirements on individual conscience, they step outside theirs.
What is the distinction between what is immoral and what should be illegal?
This is the core libertarian contribution to the COVID debate. Something can be immoral without warranting civil enforcement. Civil law is not the instrument for every wrong — it is specifically the instrument for aggression against persons or property. Whether masking or vaccination is morally advisable in a given situation is a question of Christian conscience and wisdom. Whether the state should compel it under threat of legal force is a separate question, and the answer from a libertarian framework grounded in the NAP is no.
