The Protestant Libertarian Podcast

Order my new book Politics, Economics and New Testament Interpretation: 
Amazon: https://a.co/d/0aFo5AeD
LCI: https://libertarianchristians.com/store/politics-economics-and-new-testament-interpretation/
In this episode I explore Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 2:2 that he “desired to know nothing among you [the Corinthians] except Jesus Christ and him crucified”. I explain how Paul always has the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus in mind and that Christ’s death is always conceptualized as crucifixion. In this context, Paul is appealing to the Corinthians to imitate Christ and overcome the divisions which are plaguing the church, and how the cross serves as the model for Christian ethics. I argue that the cross must be the starting point for Christian discipleship, and that there is no area of life, including political and economic activity, which isn’t, for the believer, conditioned by the cross. What would happen if the church of today determined to know nothing except the crucified Christ?

Media Referenced:
https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/politics-economics-and-new-testament-interpretation-with-alex-bernardo/
https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/all-things-to-all-people-1-corinthians-919-23/
https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-257-the-rulers-of-this-age-are-passing-away-1-corinthians-26-8/

Sign up for LCI’s 2026 Conference in Cincinnati, OH on Saturday, October 17! Many LCI content creators, including myself, will be speaking at the event, and it will be an excellent opportunity to connect with likeminded, liberty-loving Christians. Check out the event and sign up here: https://libertarianchristians.com/conference/
The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.
Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at theprotestantlibertarian@gmail.com.  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod, and YouTube, @ProLibertyPod, where you will get shorts and other exclusive video content. For more about the show, you can go to theprotestantlibertarianpodcast.com. If you like the show and want to support it, you can! Go to libertarianchristians.com, where you can donate to LCI and buy The Protestant Libertarian Podcast Merch! Also, please consider giving me a star rating and leaving me a review, it really helps expand the show’s profile! Thanks!

Order my new book Politics, Economics and New Testament Interpretation: 
Amazon: https://a.co/d/0aFo5AeD
LCI: https://libertarianchristians.com/store/politics-economics-and-new-testament-interpretation/
In this episode I talk with Dr. Brandon Crowe about his brand-new book James Revisited: Christology and Biblical Theology in the Letter of James, out now on Baker Academic. In this book Crow examines James in light of the biblical canon and Christology, showing how Jesus and the rest of Scripture illuminate and are illuminated by James. We discuss the authorship, dating and purpose of James, suggesting it might be one of the earliest letters in the New Testament, and talk about the centrality of themes such as kingdom, Christology, and eschatology. We also discuss the role of moral development and hypocrisy, the complex question of the Law, and the notorious debate about whether the assertion in James 2 that a man is justified by works contradicts Paul’s claims in Romans 3 and Galatians 2. We then talk about the practical application of James for the church today. 

Media Referenced:
James Revisited: https://a.co/d/07hpXArs
Crowe on X: @brandondcrowe
Substack: https://brandondcrowe.substack.com/
 
Sign up for LCI’s 2026 Conference in Cincinnati, OH on Saturday, October 17! Many LCI content creators, including myself, will be speaking at the event, and it will be an excellent opportunity to connect with likeminded, liberty-loving Christians. Check out the event and sign up here: https://libertarianchristians.com/conference/
The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.
Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at theprotestantlibertarian@gmail.com.  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod, and YouTube, @ProLibertyPod, where you will get shorts and other exclusive video content. For more about the show, you can go to theprotestantlibertarianpodcast.com. If you like the show and want to support it, you can! Go to libertarianchristians.com, where you can donate to LCI and buy The Protestant Libertarian Podcast Merch! Also, please consider giving me a star rating and leaving me a review, it really helps expand the show’s profile! Thanks!

Order my new book Politics, Economics and New Testament Interpretation: 
LCI: https://libertarianchristians.com/store/politics-economics-and-new-testament-interpretation/
Amazon: https://a.co/d/0aFo5AeD
In this episode I talk with Dr. Mark Nanos about the Paul Within Judaism school. Paul Within Judaism scholars seek to understand Paul in his Jewish context without assuming that Paul was somehow opposed to or abandoning his Jewish heritage. Dr. Nanos explains how PWJ scholars interpret Paul, why the “Two Covenants” or Sonderweg approach is not the predominant view among PWJ scholars, and why we need to reconceptualize Paul outside of traditional Protestant categories. We discuss Paul’s much-debated phrase “works of the Law”, which Nanos argues should be understood as ‘rites of a custom’, or an initiation by Gentile proselytes into Judaism. According to Nanos, Paul argues that the promise to rescue the nations through Israel cannot be fulfilled unless the nations are incorporated into Abraham’s family as Gentiles, and that Paul is not arguing against either the Law or good works in general but rather Jesus-believing Gentiles proselytizing to Judaism. Nanos also explains how this should impact modern Christian discourse. 
 
Media Referenced:
Mark Nanos Website: https://marknanos.com/
 
Sign up for LCI’s 2026 Conference in Cincinnati, OH on Saturday, October 17! Many LCI content creators, including myself, will be speaking at the event, and it will be an excellent opportunity to connect with likeminded, liberty-loving Christians. Check out the event and sign up here: https://libertarianchristians.com/conference/ 
The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.
Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at theprotestantlibertarian@gmail.com.  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod, and YouTube, @ProLibertyPod, where you will get shorts and other exclusive video content. For more about the show, you can go to theprotestantlibertarianpodcast.com. If you like the show and want to support it, you can! Go to libertarianchristians.com, where you can donate to LCI and buy The Protestant Libertarian Podcast Merch! Also, please consider giving me a star rating and leaving me a review, it really helps expand the show’s profile! Thanks!

Order my new book Politics, Economics and New Testament Interpretation here: https://libertarianchristians.com/store/politics-economics-and-new-testament-interpretation/ 
In this episode I address a question that Christians have been asking for centuries: do Paul and James disagree about faith and works? In passages like Romans 3:27-30 and Galatians 2:15-16, Paul says that we are justified by faith and not the works of the Law. In James 2:14-26, however, James claims that faith without works is dead. What’s going on here? I explore how the word ‘faith’ itself is a dynamic term which denotes action, including the concepts of faithfulness and obedience, and that Paul and James are both arguing that true faith acts. I then look at the text more carefully, showing that Paul is not arguing against good works in general but against “works of the Law”, claiming that Gentiles are incorporated into Abraham’s family without having to adopt Jewish rites and identity markers such as circumcision and dietary laws. James, on the other hand, is arguing that faith that isn’t put into practice is dead, a sentiment with which Paul would be in full agreement. In other words, Paul and James have the same perspective on faith and works. 
 
Sign up for LCI’s 2026 Conference in Cincinnati, OH on Saturday, October 17! Many LCI content creators, including myself, will be speaking at the event, and it will be an excellent opportunity to connect with likeminded, liberty-loving Christians. Check out the event and sign up here: https://libertarianchristians.com/conference/
The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com. 
Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at theprotestantlibertarian@gmail.com.  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod, and YouTube, @ProLibertyPod, where you will get shorts and other exclusive video content. For more about the show, you can go to theprotestantlibertarianpodcast.com. If you like the show and want to support it, you can! Go to libertarianchristians.com, where you can donate to LCI and buy The Protestant Libertarian Podcast Merch! Also, please consider giving me a star rating and leaving me a review, it really helps expand the show’s profile! Thanks!

In this episode, Bethany Bernardo guest hosts the show to interview me about my new book Politics, Economics, and New Testament Interpretation, which is now available for purchase on all major platforms! In this book I make an extended argument that the New Testament does not endorse authoritarian socialism. In biblical scholarship and theology, political and economic categories are imprecisely defined, which enables scholars to impose the modern popular paradigm of authoritarian socialism on the text, distorting both the interpretation of the New Testament and the ways in which the church applies the Bible to contemporary questions. I argue that the Austrian school of economics provides the only consistent, universally applicable, and irreducible definitions of socialism and capitalism, while the libertarian commitment to the nonaggression principle reframes our political categories as well. I discuss how these definitions should be employed in contextual, historically plausible readings of Scripture and explain why interpretive assumptions often obscure texts in the New Testament which relate to political and economic arrangements. I also discuss many of the passages I address in my book, explain how I conducted research, my motivations for producing such a large volume, and the impact I hope it has on Christian scholarship and discipleship. This episode I just a small taste of the much larger book, so please order a copy today!
 
Media Referenced:
Politics, Economics, and New Testament Interpretation on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0d8VdNwQ
Order through LCI: https://libertarianchristians.com/store/politics-economics-and-new-testament-interpretation/
 
Sign up for LCI’s 2026 Conference in Cincinnati, OH on Saturday, October 17! Many LCI content creators, including myself, will be speaking at the event, and it will be an excellent opportunity to connect with likeminded, liberty-loving Christians. Check out the event and sign up here: https://libertarianchristians.com/conference/
The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.
Questions, comments, suggestions? Please reach out to me at theprotestantlibertarian@gmail.com.  You can also follow the podcast on Twitter: @prolibertypod, and YouTube, @ProLibertyPod, where you will get shorts and other exclusive video content. For more about the show, you can go to theprotestantlibertarianpodcast.com. If you like the show and want to support it, you can! Go to libertarianchristians.com, where you can donate to LCI and buy The Protestant Libertarian Podcast Merch! Also, please consider giving me a star rating and leaving me a review, it really helps expand the show’s profile! Thanks!