The Importance of Christian Thought for the American Libertarian Movement: Christian Libertarianism, 1950-71 (Essay‪)‬

In his 1971 book, Betrayal of the American Right, Murray Rothbard argued that the Old Right in American politics, those isolationists and libertarians who had provided conservative opposition to New Deal liberal ideas since 1933, had been 'betrayed' by 1964. Led by William F. Buckley, the New Right had transformed American conservatism, a change marked by the Goldwater presidential campaign, by validating support for the welfare-warfare state that the old Right had so trenchantly opposed for the previous thirty years. Rothbard correctly identified the root cause of the ideological schism that had separated American conservatives since the establishment of Buckley's National Review in 1955; the extent to which the State should be involved in defeating communism abroad and progressivism at home. He, also, carefully related the contending philosophies of the Old and New American Rights. But what he failed to adequately explain was the importance of Christian thought to the libertarian movement. This article will remedy that omission by exploring the reasons why Christian libertarians, between 1950 and 1971, protested America's liberal public policies. It will also present their alternative vision of how the united states should be governed; or, more accurately, how and why Americans should govern themselves. For only by understanding the religious arguments for political liberty can we appreciate America's traditional defense of individual freedom. Spiritual values were the predominant justification for espousing a libertarian viewpoint before 1971, and continue today to provide the founding convictions of many American libertarians and conservatives. In fact, if the beliefs of the founding fathers are taken at face value, then Christian libertarianism--the defence of individual freedom as the will of God--is the first and most enduring American political and moral philosophy. A case can even be made that Christian libertarianism forms the foundation of any claims for 'American Exceptionalism.' And as a body of political thought, largely as a consequence of the pressures exerted upon individual freedom by New Deal liberalism and events of the early cold war, Christian libertarianism received its fullest exposition in the 1950s and '60s. (1)