Ep 266: Christians and Public Policy with Eric Schansberg

In this episode I talk with economist Eric Schansberg about how Christians should think critically about public policy. We discuss how Christians often fail to reflect on their support for particular public policies and how our faith aligns with political and economic systems in the modern world. Schansberg explains how the Bible should shape our understanding of public policy, why there is often a discrepancy between political theory and practice, how Christians must always pursue Godly ends with Godly means, and how the function of secular law. He talks about how Christians should avoid legislating social morality and economic justice, the difference between those concepts and the poorly-defined ‘legislating morality’, how economic redistribution doesn’t work and welfare programs hurt the poor, and how believers can avoid the trap of falling into the left-right spectrum. 

Media Referenced:

Buy Turn Neither to the Left nor to the Right: https://furtherstillministries.org/product/turn-neither-to-the-right-nor-to-the-left/?v=0b3b97fa6688 

Gen Men Interview: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-234-biblical-masculinity-and-the-men-of-genesis-with-eric-schansberg/

College 101 Book: https://www.amazon.com/College-101-Students-Parents-Universities-ebook/dp/B0FLW6KB83

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.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is the Protestant Libertarian Podcast, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and part of the Christians for Liberty Network. I really hope that you guys enjoy today's show. All right, guys, welcome to another episode of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. Returning to the show is Dr. Eric Jansberg, Professor of Economics at Indiana University Southeast. And over 20 years ago, the author of Turn Neither to the Right Nor Left, a Thinking Christian's Guide to Politics and Public Policy. You were kind enough to gift me a copy of this book a few months back. As you know and as my audience knows, I've been working on a book on New Testament interpretation and political and economic themes in the New Testament. And your book really focuses on how Christians should think about public policy, both political and economic policy. So such an incredible compliment. And as I said to you before the show, even 20 plus years later, all of the arguments you make in this book are still so relevant. So I'm excited to talk to you about that book today and work through how Christians should be thinking about public policy. Dr. Shansberg, welcome back to the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. Be here. So the last time I had you on was, I feel like maybe it's five or six months ago. We were talking about your new book, Gen Men, but I've had a couple of new listeners since then. So before we get into the show, introduce yourself to my audience.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

I'm a core professor of economics at IU Southeast in New Albany, Indiana, across the river from Louisville, Kentucky. I've been a Christian for a long time since I was a teenager. I guess my walk is somewhat interesting, but bottom line is at the end of my college years into grad school, uh began to be a disciple of Jesus, began to study the scriptures, uh teaching Bible study. So I've been doing that for 35 years now. And that's led into all kinds of things with respect to discipleship and lay leadership development. We have a website called thoroughlyequipped.org and getting equipped.life to work on those sorts of things where churches are really pretty terrible generally about fulfilling their mandate in Ephesians 4, 11-16 to train up people under maturity and uh develop up lay leaders and 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1 sort of people, whether they serve in those uh offices of elder or deacon or not, but we just don't we don't train our people very well. So um the my the path with respect to this book was that as a someone becoming a serious Christian back in the day and an economist, uh that I was trying to put my faith and you know practice in into into play, right, with respect to my my occupation, with respect to how to think about government. So I spent all this time as an economist thinking about public policy. And uh Christians, of course, think about more than economics with respect to public policy. And so I was trying to think about all of that, and it became a journal article first, and then ultimately became this book.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Yeah. Well, I wanted to ask you about that because there are a lot of Christians that are interested in politics. Like they're very concerned about who's in charge and about what laws are being passed and stuff like that. But when it comes to the more technical issues of economics and public policy, a lot of Christians are just not interested in the nuts and bolts. They're they're all about like who's in charge, what's visible, what's in the news. So, what made you interested in getting into economics and public policy, especially as a Christian?

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Well, I was gonna be an economics professor, right? So then that means I'm gonna be interested. So then I could try to, you know, ignore my faith or or leave it out. And economists often are reluctant to uh bring in ethics. You know, we consider that a taste and preference sometimes. But I think for someone who's a believer and trying to you know put all this together, we're not Monday through Saturday one thing and Sunday something else. I can't really you know put together a coherent life without thinking these things through. What does it mean to be a Christ follower with respect to, you know, what do I do with my money or how I exercise or you know, what do I think about the minimum wage? So you know to me to have a coherent approach to life is really important, and I'm not you know, we all have limits. Uh I don't know much about physics and botany, so I'm not gonna be great with uh life and things like that, but you know, where I I do have a great interest, I want to spend appropriate time to to match those things together. And I guess, you know, it's a failure of the church generally that we don't disciple our people, right? So it does become a Sunday only sort of thing, or it becomes a just uh you know, be moral in these certain ways and you know, volunteer at the church, put a put a little bit of money in the plate and stay out of trouble. And a lot of times we just reduce the Christian faith to that. But for anyone anyone who's a disciple of Jesus, um then realize, no, it's part of our entire life. And so, you know, what would you start with other than your work? Um, your you know, the first institution given to Adam was his work. And so you know to try and integrate that with faith seems to me something that's not done nearly enough and something that was obvious for me to pursue uh in my position.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Yeah, and and I do feel like going back to what we were saying earlier, Christians tend to fall into two camps with respect to politics. Either they, in many ways, put their politics before their faith, or their faith is kind of an accessory that leads them to a particular political conclusion, or they worry that the mixing of politics with their faith will somehow compromise their faith and they just ignore it altogether. But one of the major themes in your book is that Christians need to learn how to think critically about these issues. Why is it so important that Christians make critical decisions about their political and economic commitments?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

It's true of anything where the stakes are high, and the stakes can be quite high with respect to politics. The funny thing about politics is that on the other hand, the stakes in another way are extremely low. And so public choice economists, that's a school of thought within economics, one of their big themes is what's called rational ignorance. It's the idea that all of us, including me, we are rationally ignorant about public policy, political philosophy, and so on. We're ignorant because we don't know very much, and rationally so because we have so little to offer the political arena. We have a vote, we have a couple hundred bucks, we might throw a candidate, and so why on earth would we put a lot of time into trying to figure all this stuff out? And that's fine, it's rational using economic jargon. The problem is, you know, if you think you know a lot and you don't, economists call that irrational ignorance. When you combine your ignorance with dogmatism, then you get some uh you know, some really painful uh you know stuff that pops out of that. So there's a I guess an interesting balance here between being okay with not knowing very much and just living with that, avoiding the dogmatism, recognizing there's a lot that I don't know, but if I'm going to get involved, uh try to be as knowledgeable as I can, try to be coherent in my approach to political philosophy. And the temptation again is not to put that work in, but government is a powerful tool. Uh it um you know reflects poorly on the Lord many times, right? If we advocate states or policy positions that are unjust or unrighteous or whatever. And so we just have to be really careful in this arena. There's a lot at stake. You're not going to hear me say avoid this arena, but it it is to say tread lightly, be careful, because it's pretty easy to go sideways when you don't know very much about the topic that you're getting dogmatic about.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Yeah, and and your book does deal with certain like particular policy issues, but the majority of your book is just helping Christians think through how we need should understand public policy and economics in light of our faith. So, in that essence, the book is timeless. Like it was written over 20 years ago, but I feel like it's just as fresh today as it was back then. Why is it that no matter what is going on in our contemporary world, these issues are always going to be significant for us?

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Um, yeah, if I were rewriting it, the particular issues that I would bring up would be slightly different or new or whatever. But yeah, the underlying principles are the same because they're biblical. You know, there's not really difference there. And I guess there's potential for me to misread uh contemporary politics through a biblical lens because of my various biases. That's certainly possible, but uh if I've done the project well, then it should be timeless, right? But what scriptures say about government in general or about being careful about means to various ends. And those are universal biblical principles, and so it should be a timeless work in that sense.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Yeah, well, I'm gonna ask you a huge question here, and this is a question that is hotly debated. And of course, Christians from all over the political spectrum will give different answers to this question. Um, but I do think that as Bible-believing Christians, this is probably the single most important question that we can ask with respect to how we understand public policy and economics, and that is what role should scripture play in our understanding of public policy and economics? And again, I know that that is a huge conversation, and I have several books on my bookshelf that have tried to address that question, many of which I totally disagree with. Um, so walk us through that. What what role does the Bible play in helping us think about politics and economics in the modern world?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Just economics. We've said the word economics a lot, but social policy is part of this as well. So I have a whole section on that. So in case people are like, I don't want to just listen to about economics, you know, what I care about social policy, you know, I address that in the book as well. So, you know, that's you're right, that's a fundamental question, and I deal with that in the introduction. That, you know, if we're talking if I'm talking to someone who's not impressed by the scriptures or wants to selectively apply the scriptures, then then my book is, you know, less interesting to them, maybe useful uh at some level. But yeah, I think you have to make that decision. Are the scriptures uh primary for you? Are they supplemental for you in trying to figure this out? So my project is expressly about applying the Christian scriptures as best I understand them to politics and political philosophy as best I understand those. And so I start from that premise. If someone doesn't accept that premise, then you know the project is still uh interesting. But I just I uh suspect they will pick and choose uh as fits you know their particular interest that they've already decided on. And they might learn a few things about economics or they might catch a few points they hadn't thought of before. But yeah, the project's not as interesting for someone who doesn't have that faith commitment to the efficacy of the scriptures.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Yeah, one thing I get out of your book that I think that everyone should just accept is true, is that you can't just go through the Bible and cherry pick certain text to fit your political perspective.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Yes. When I try to deal with all the relevant passages and I even extended a bit, I mean, I have that whole chapter on means and ends because it struck me uh at some point in the process that really it's part of a broader question that it's not just what you pursue, it's how you pursue it. You know, I could have a truth, but if I don't deliver it properly, I commit sin. And so it's not just being right, it's being right properly, you know, using the proper means and ends. And so once I've thought about that, that's really kind of what we're talking about. It's not necessarily you and I would uh disagree on the ends that we're pursuing, but you and I may have very different means to get there. And then we've got to figure out are both of those means acceptable or not? And so when is government? That's ultimately the question. Well, two questions, I think. When is government uh an ethical or biblical means to a given end? And when should Christians be going there? Even if it's an ethical means to uh agreed-upon ends, it doesn't necessarily mean I should spend my time doing that because it means I'm not doing something else. So uh there's various tests that I lay out in the book to help people think about that. And you and I could come to different conclusions even through the framework that I set up. But at least it gets us to think clearly about the benefits and costs and uh, you know, what are what are we trying to do here and wrestling with that earnestly?

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah, and and this is where I really appreciated that chapter in your book, where you talk about how we have to pursue godly ends with godly means. And like you said, there's a lot of room there for interpretation, but I want you to just speak to that a little bit more. I think, you know, I I think about like a very egregious example of this would be okay, so if we take any random third world country, we know that a godly end would be allowing those people to be free from the harm that their government has done for to them. But if the means of achieving that end is bombing hundreds of thousands of civilians into oblivion, well, we would all realize, well, that's not really worth it because the situation is actually worse under the the means to try to get to that end than it is to just let it play out as it is. So talk to us about why it's so important as Christians to think about not just not just the end result of a particular policy, but about how as Christians we expect to achieve that result. And then and then doing so in a godly way.

unknown 13:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Yeah. Right here is the ends don't justify the means. And I think we would all agree on that. And we can give examples. And again, it's not necessarily that you and I would exactly come down the same position on what to do with you know, Venezuela or what to do with uh the war on drugs or you know, whatever. We we may come to different positions, but at the least, let's think about it in a way that's coherent. Let's at least respect the question of means and ends because the Bible does. And so when there are so many examples of improper means to godly ends, then we have to respect that question, uh, or we're missing a huge lesson in scripture. It's not enough to be right. You've got to do right properly. Uh, it's not just truth, it's grace and truth, right? So there's just way too many examples in scripture to blow off the means uh to those ends. And that lesson applies powerfully to government policy.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

And I think one of the issues that's tangled up with this, that I think you do a very good job of delineating in your book, is that we have these theories of government that are great in kind of the abstract. You know, liberty and justice for all sounds wonderful. Uh, if we want people to stop using drugs, we'll just ban it. Sounds like a great idea. But you make the case very powerfully and provocatively in your book that the theory of a particular political policy doesn't always wind up, or even normally you're usually wind up, with what it actually does in reality. So talk to us about that dynamic, about how the reality of a public policy or an idea often diverges from its theory.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Two angles here, and I've pursued both of these in the book. The easiest one to consider is the practical. So if I advocate, you know, some policy or some approach, but it doesn't actually work like that, then what are we doing here? I mean, it's not about good intentions. I was a I I passed a well-intentioned policy. Well, thank you very much. It didn't give good outcomes. Good intentions are not enough, at least to an economist. But there are also ethical questions here, and you've you've alluded to that with a couple of your examples, that people have this reflex and they don't even catch themselves doing it of saying, well, that's wrong, therefore we should have a law. No, that that doesn't follow. And then you can give a couple quick examples, right, to make it clear of, oh, yeah, I guess it is a little harder than that. You know, when we say, well, yeah, I probably shouldn't have a second slice of pie. Oh, yeah, we should have a law against that. And be going, what are you talking about? No, there shouldn't be a law against second slices of pie. Why not? I mean, your your belief is that it's wrong, therefore, or it's right, therefore, let's have a law. What's wrong with my law? It sounds pretty good. And so people just aren't thinking very clearly, or they'll say things about, you know, well, there should be a law against uh a certain a certain kind of sin. I'd say, well, what about a false religion? Should we have laws against them? And then they start invoking the constitution or something. I'm like, well, I thought we were relying on the scriptures. And I'm so what are we doing here? The constitution matters. That's not the point I'm making, right? But if your approach is is truly biblical, then you can't just throw out stuff like, well, it's wrong, therefore, it's right, therefore, there ought to be a law. That's silly if you push on that, you know, very much at all. But people have that kind of casual uh belief that something's right or wrong, therefore, and that doesn't follow.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Yeah, and and this gets to, I think, one of the biggest insights that I got from your book. And I can't believe I'm 36 years old and I had never thought about it this way before. But it's very easy for people of our political persuasion to say, you know, you can't legislate morality. And what we mean by that is you can't legislate away, like, you know, basically any sort of consensual activity that adults be like engage in that we don't agree with, we can't legislate against that. But then of course, the response, which is true on a certain level, is well, all right, murder is obviously immoral and that should be a legal right, to which we would all say, yeah, yeah, killing someone uh should be illegal and stealing their stuff should be illegal, and we believe that that is immoral. And you make a really helpful distinction in your book between not just saying, you know, we can't legislate morality, but saying that we can't legislate social morality. And then along with that, we can't really legislate justice. And what you what you how how you distinguish and nuance that is that you say, well, we can't really legislate economic justice. So I want you to walk my audience through that because I think that this is a really powerful insight that has the potential to reframe this conversation in an extremely positive way. So maybe legislating morality is not the right way to look at it. Why can't we legislate social morality and why can't we legislate economic justice and what do we mean by those terms?

SPEAKER_01 18:24

So I think what you framed it up in the beginning of that is exactly how people think about it. They'll say something which turns out to be silly when you press on it. Well, you can't legislate morality, or we're always legislating morality. And the rejoinder to that would be yes, that's why your category doesn't help us. You know, eating a second piece of pie is not the same as murdering someone. So why on earth are we are you trying to put this uh this this certain lens or this certain approach to political philosophy and in essence applying it to you know gluttony and and rape. And it doesn't make any sense. So in the book, I lay out a framework that I distinguish between morality and justice issues, and uh your many of your audience members will will see where this is going, but uh a justice issue is where I do direct and significant harm to someone else, if therefore I'm doing an injustice to them, if I violate them in some way. And a a merely moral issue then would be when I'm not doing direct and significant harm to others. And so it might be wrong, objectively, scripturally, uh taste and preference-wise, you might think it's wrong, but at the end of the day, I'm not doing direct and significant harm to someone else, objectively. And so we need a different category for that, right? And that helps us immediately with things like murder and eating pie. So, for example, eating too much pie would be an example of morality. Shouldn't do that, slightly, it's a sad, okay, fine. Uh, but I'm not doing direct and significant harm to others. And you could press back and go, well, wait a second, I mean it's more likely you're gonna die and you're gonna leave your family behind, you know, the government's healthcare system is gonna pay for you and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Granted, but it's not direct and significant harm. And then you have things like murder where I kill you and I impose direct and significant harm on you. And so I've got this spectrum now, right, between costs that are relatively direct versus not, relatively significant versus not. And on this spectrum, I think this is not debatable. As all things equal, as the costs become more direct and more significant, then you can it's easier to make a case for government intervention. As the costs become less significant and less direct, it's harder and harder to make a case, a Christian, an ethical case, I'd argue, a biblical case, or invoking the force of government to try to shut that down.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yeah, and I think this leads us to the question of for a Christian, then, what is the purpose of the law? Because I think Paul offers a really interesting, a really interesting perspective on this in the New Testament, because on the one hand, you have like in 1 Corinthians 5 and 6, Paul dealing with the issue of the man who's sleeping with his stepmother and then Christians taking each other to court. And he seems to think that all of these problems should be handled within the church. Don't even get the legal authorities involved. We're going to be judging them in the esquaton anyways, which is a wild statement that he makes in 1 Corinthians 6. I mean, it's always like this is this is under our purview. But then if you look at, you know, places like Acts 16, where Paul goes before the Roman authorities, he appeals to his own citizenship and says, hey, you are in violation of the law because you beat me and I'm a Roman citizen. So we have kind of that tension there in the New Testament. But of course, like the New Testament's job is not to give us a an entirely coherent theory of law, right? So we just kind of have these principles that we're working with. So given all of this, what from a Christian perspective is the role of public law?

SPEAKER_01 21:50

One more verse, I think, that's relevant there, Romans 13, talking about the authorities bearing the sword. And I don't think bearing the sword is for me even that second piece of High. That's not what they're going to bring in the sort in. You know, it's to prevent the social problems, the individual problems of murder, rape, theft, and so on. I mean, that's probably where the vast bulk of that would go. So yeah, I think we have to decide on the role of government. And then I think the other question behind that then is even once you decide that, okay, what's my role within the role of government? You know, when should I be out there actively advocating rather than tacit, tacitly advocating or opposing government to do certain things? When should I get involved with government as a means to that end? And to me, once you get past the ethical and the practical tests of when a Christian would think government would be an ethical and practical means to an end, you still have to wrestle with when should I get involved? When should I take time away from A, B, and C and spend time on politics? You know, one of the questions I ask in the book, and I don't know if it's more cheesy or cheeky, is you know, can you imagine Jesus, you know, marching on Frankfurt uh to get some law of return? When can you imagine that? Because if you can't imagine it, you know, if we're wearing those uh what would Jesus do brace filts anymore, you gotta wonder, okay, well, why am I doing that? So when would Jesus get excited? When would he do that? You know, he was busy doing ministry and people go, well, Jesus is different. Well, no, I mean, yeah, he's different, but you know, yeah, I'm called to do all kinds of things too. And if I spend my energy on uh Frankfurt, then I'm not spending my energy at home or with my neighbors and colleagues. So, you know, what when is the cost of all those things worth it for me to pursue government as a means to an end?

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Yeah. And I want to look at this biblically because you do in your book as well. And uh, again, we're pushing back against the idea that Christians should be in the business of legislating social morality, especially given the fact that the pursuit of that not only distracts us from the work of the kingdom, but often requires us to use ungodly means to achieve those goals. So, where in the Bible do we see guidance that helps us to understand why that is a that's a theological dead end for us? To do what? To try to legislate social morality.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Yeah, I just think it's inconsistent with the character of God. I mean, you think about um just even back to the garden, you don't find God putting up a fence around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You don't, you know, there's no electric fence, there's no nothing like that, right? Free will actually requires the freedom to choose such things. Um, and we just don't find any positive examples of it. I just don't find it consistent with the ministry of Jesus when he's interacting with people. It's all individual stuff, and he's trying to minister to them. He's not looking to use Jewish law or Roman law to crank on somebody because you know they're they're out of line and uh and engaging in sin. I mean, woman caught in adultery, he he prevents them from throwing rocks, right? But then he doesn't condone her sin either. So, I mean, you can find mistakes on the left and the right. The right is pretty willing to chuck the rocks, and the left is like, well, you can do whatever you want. Well, Jesus, you know, walks that line and then says, no, we're not going to chuck any rocks here, but go and live your life of sin. So the tension there between holding to standards of justice and righteousness on the one hand, but not necessarily chucking rocks and using the government uh to solve those things.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Yeah, and and I do think that like all throughout the New Testament, that's just the impression you get in time like time after time, whether it's in the Gospels or Paul or the general epistles or Revelation or wherever it is in the New Testament, there's not one example at all of early Jesus believers or Jesus himself advocating either the Sanhedrin or the Roman authorities to change the law. Not not what you you can't find it. And their solution to all of these problems, every social problem, the problems of poverty, the problem of oppression and injustice, all of it is proclaim the gospel and live out your faith. And that's that's their solution. And I just think that that's so radically different from the way that Christians have been taught to think about that in the West.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

It's a slam dunk. You know, playing devil's advocate for a moment, someone could press back and say, well, look, yeah, that was those times. I mean, they didn't have any political options back in the day. That's not quite true. I mean, Jesus could have led a revolution, right? Exactly. So I think even just beyond that, just pressing into it a little further and granting that point, yes, it is a difficult, a different time. Maybe there is greater license for us to be involved, but you still have to beg the, you know, it still begs the question about what that would look like. And is it consistent with the Ministry of Jesus to use law? Could you picture Jesus advocating, say, uh a law that uh dealt with injustice towards children? Yeah, I think you could picture that. Can you picture Jesus marching on Frankfurt to, you know, restrict gambling? Yeah, I don't know. It's hard, it's just hard for me to picture that. The second piece of pie. I can't picture that for sure. You know, so you still have to ultimately come, it still ultimately comes back to is it consistent with the character of God, the ministry of Jesus, uh, to use government as a means to an end? And so even if one grants that we have greater license today than they did 2,000 years ago, you still gotta, it doesn't mean it's anything goes uh with respect to the pursuit of Javer, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

And and I I think that's just again going back to like what Paul says in Galatians 6 about the fruits of the spirit, which he contrasts with this vice list before, Paul's response to things like drunkenness and infidelity and theft and all of that is just don't do it, like change your life. And if you're gonna continue to do that, this is 1 Corinthians 5, you're not gonna be able to be a part of the church anymore. Like you can do it, but but you don't get to be associated with us. And I think that there are a lot of Christians that don't realize that if we want to change the world, we we can just go and do it. Like we don't have to get a law passed, we don't have to appeal to our legislators, we don't have to go through political channels. If we want to change the world, we just have to live it out. And that's what the New Testament witness universally attests to. It's just we just go out and do it.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

I have a chapter also that talks about some of the practical consequences of legislating morality that we don't think about very much. And one of them is that we are doubling down on what probably the chief heresy in the world today, which is you're saved by your good works. Every time we go out there and pound in, you know, hey, we're pursuing a law to get you to behave better, we're sending signals that you can be saved by your works. I mean, we would, you know, you get us at a quiet moment and we'd say, well, no, no, of course not, Ephesians 2.8.9, but what are we saying to the world over and over again? If we're out there banging the drum of behavior all the time, what else does it what other message does it send to the world that works based salvation? So even something like that that is not what we're intending. But again, that's not enough. If what we're doing effectively sends that kind of signal, that's a problem. You know, with the Ten Commandments posting that, you know. I mean, okay, I'm not sure what we're after there, uh, but one of the things that's not how we're saved. Uh so what are you doing there? It's you know, that's the Christian faith is not about the Ten Commandments. So getting people to behave themselves is is nice, but uh, you know, there are other factors, there are other goals out there. And uh if you press this way and you cause other trouble, even if well-intentioned, you're still responsible for the consequences of your pursuit of government to solve, to try to solve problems.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Yeah, and I think that's a perfect segue to my next set of questions, which are going to be about economics. So I because again, uh so much of public policy really does have to do with managing and regulating the economy that's just embedded into the Western framework of government. And you talk about the problems of economic redistribution in your book. Um, and so I want to focus on that specific question first, because there are a lot of people that think, okay, well, I I mean, I even was listening to a podcast that had a clip of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez the other day saying that there's no way that someone can make a billion dollars. And so you can't do it, you can't do it morally. So we should just, if you're a billionaire, we should just take a certain amount of your money and give it to poor people. And that logic, even for many conservatives, seems to hold up. Okay, there's a certain point at which someone is just too rich and we just need to take their stuff and redistribute it. So, what is what are some of the issues though, with trying to pursue this broader policy of redistribution?

SPEAKER_01 30:43

For a moment, it's just basic confusion there on how people accumulate wealth. And the two basic options are voluntary mutually beneficial trade, where I'm richer because I make customers happier. And where's the ethical problem there? I mean, whether I make a billion or I make a million or a hundred thousand, whatever, it doesn't matter. You and I are engaged in voluntary mutually beneficial trade. What's the problem here ethically or practically? Now, if I use coercion, let's say the coercion of the state to rich enrich myself, then that's a totally different deal. But uh AOC doesn't even seem to understand somehow she was an econ major and didn't pick up this first principle class that there's just such a fundamental difference between voluntary mission beneficial trade and the use of uh of coercion. But beyond that, I mean, and ignoring uh where the wealth comes from, then we get to the question of redistribution. And uh again, is that a biblical and practical means to an end? Even if we grant that someone having a billion is uh a sin, uh you know, not grand, but even if we were to argue that, it does not follow, like we said earlier, that redistribution is an appropriate biblical, practical means to an end. Uh so you got you gotta do more lifting than that, right? When is it appropriate for a government to say, or for a Christian to say to a government and spend time lobbying for that, hey yeah, you should take resources from A to give to B. And is that then we get to the practical question, is that what's what's A going to do about it? And then is it actually good for B to receive redistribution, right? Welfare programs are problematic for many reasons. And so, you know, all of those questions have to be addressed and answered, I know, effectively before you would pull the trigger on imagining that redistribution of something Christians should be involved in.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Yeah, and again, that goes back to that pursuing godly means or godly ends with godly means. Like I think one of the central, and I'm I'm not a pacifist, but I do think that one of the central ethical tenets in the New Testament is the idea that we should never initiate violence against another person. And and the the greatest statement of this is Philippians chapter two, where Paul tells his audience to have the mind of Christ and then says, not only did he become an incarnate man, but he also died a humiliating death on a cross. And that's the reason why God exalted him. And so we're supposed to have that kind of sacrificial attitude and redistribution, as you pointed out. It necess or necessarily requires the use of violence. And there's no way around that.

unknown 33:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

When should we be involved in that? I mean, you know, one example would be back to coercion. If I got my wealth by extracting it from you, right, forcefully, then okay, yeah, maybe we come back and say that's not appropriate. There should be laws with restitution and the like. But that's different. Uh, right, we're talking about, again, economic justice, clearly uh a justice issue, and then using government to remedy that injustice. I'm not sure if government can do that well either, but at least you could you could pass the ethical test there and say that I could I could picture uh, at least in theory, uh, a government approach that would be ethical and biblical.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Yes. And the the question that people always ask in responses, I mean, universally, again, even going back to my conservative friends who haven't quite thought through the logic of coercive, violent intervention in the markets. They'll always say, well, what about poor people? And that I think that's a completely, for most, for most Americans to ask that question, it's a completely genuine and sincere question and something that we should be concerned about. Um, but there's been a lot of work. I had Gerard Casey, a really great scholar, who wrote on this on my podcast probably about a year and a half ago, and we talked about, you know, how there have been mutual aid societies in the past that have actually helped the poor better than government redistribution programs. I know David Beta has done some work on this. And in your book, you you broached this topic as well. And the case isn't just that these state-centered welfare programs are ineffective, it's that they actually really hurt the poor and they make the lives of poor people way worse than they would be without those interventions in the first place. So walk us through that because that that is a revolutionary idea for many Americans and especially many American Christians, that these government redistribution programs have a net negative drain on poor people. How does all of that work and why should we be concerned about that?

SPEAKER_01 35:08

I think the first principle, it's uh future question and answer, but is that government should do no harm. And my first policy book was called Poor Policy, how government harms the poor and in helping interest groups. There's all kinds of things where the government inadvertently, but often dramatically, harms the poor in significant ways. So maybe we'll come back to that. But for now, let's assume uh poverty, let's assume government's done whatever damage they're going to do to the poor. Now we get to the question of how do you help the poor, and redistribution is a popular answer to that, welfare programs in particular. Economists call this the uh have two names for it of interest. One's the welfare dilemma, and what is the Good Samaritan's dilemma after the story out of the Bible in Luke 10? The Good Samaritan's dilemma works in time, then it's really hard to help people. And as uh and especially as you help them more in terms of volume and length of time, it becomes easier and easier for them to become dependent on you. Um but there's also a thing called the welfare dilemma, which is related to it, and it's the idea that it's just really tough to help people, especially as the assistance becomes more impersonal. Um, that when you give people money to be in a certain state, you're promoting people being in that state. So an example outside of direct welfare would be unemployment insurance, right? If we have a program that says, okay, Alex is not employed, so I'm gonna send him 60% of his wages, well, that's that's you can tell me some stories, or that might be good even for society. It gives you some money to kind of, you know, whatever, um, to be okay while you're looking for a job, you don't have to accept the first job that comes your way, etc. But what's not debatable is if I give you 60% of your former income, you're not as interested in looking for a job, right? So that's called the welfare dilemma. There is no way to give you money without promoting the very state that you're in. And if poverty is not a desirable state, and I give you money for being poor, by definition, you're promoting poverty at some level. On top of that, uh, it gets worse, right? Because I'm paying you to be in certain states, not just to have certain amounts of money, but how much money you save. Well, you save too much money, therefore you don't need help from the government anymore. So, right, I draw a line in the sand saying Alex has $4,000 in the bank, he obviously doesn't need our help anymore. So then Alex doesn't ever save more than $4,000. Well, that's not really what we want. Or uh, you know, I'll give you money, but only if you're a single parent. Well, I mean, I understand why we give money to single parents because they need more help, but the inevitable flip side of that coin is you're encouraging people to form single parents to the households. And there's just no way around that. And so for Christians to get in bed with that dilemma is really problematic. When the government's vomiting money at people in in various states and therefore promoting people being in those states, that's not something that anyone can get excited about once they understand it. But again, for a Christian, why are we getting involved in that? Right? We can there's an argument ethically, biblically against involvement in welfare programs. And then on the practical level, you know, you're causing a lot of damage, arguably far more damage than you're actually uh remedying through your efforts to help.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

Yeah, and obviously as Christians, we are supposed to be concerned about the plight of the poor. This is intrinsic to the gospel narratives and the Jesus tradition, Jesus, especially in the Gospel of Luke. Luke really is concerned about the plight of the poor. Um, Paul spends much of his ministry traveling around around the Mediterranean collecting money to help out the Jesus believers in uh in Judea because they suffered a famine and they had very few resources, and then always is encouraging charitable giving. So the idea that we should be taking care of those who are in need is not just not just an important biblical principle, but it is the mandate of the church. God has given us as Christians the responsibility to help those that are in need. The question is, as in because some people will push back on you and you say, well, I don't think these government programs are helping, and they're like, well, you just don't care about poor people. That's not it. You just raised a million caveats to the assumption that that person would make about that. But then we have to have a some sort of positive program for this. So what is the optimal, the optimal way to alleviate poverty and to help those that are truly in need in our society get the assistance that they need to move forward in their lives?

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Yeah, again, let's go back to do no harm. Uh, you know, that's what it starts with. I mean, there's policies out there that cause immense harm to the poor. I document this uh mostly in passing and turn neither to the right nor to the left. I document it with much more detail in poor policy. But we have government policies that increase the price of food, clothing, and shelter. We have laws that lock those with less skill out of labor markets. We have a K-12 system. It's in essence a government, uh entity, government-run entity with tremendous monopoly power, particularly over those with less resources. It's mostly set up for uh labor unions. I mean, we can just go on and on with this. My favorite example that hardly gets talked about is FICA. We have a FICA payroll tax, 15.3% on every dollar earned by the working poor and middle class that finances Social Security and Medicare. That's a lot of money. So you take 15% of say $40,000, that's six grand a year that we're extracting from people at nearly at the poverty line to finance grandpa's retirement and Medicare. If you earn $80,000, $12,000 a year that we're taking, we're saying, hey, we'll probably give you this money in 40 years to get to age 65. It's like, wow, you know, if I were to propose, if I were to run for office and propose a 15% tax on every dollar earned by the working poor middle class, people would think I was a lunatic. But we just live with that all the time and never talk about it. So I think the first thing, and I think this is an area where Christians can be more effective, if you can say two or three policies where government harms the poor in these fundamental ways, it gives you some space to be believable that you actually do care about the poor. If all you've got to say is, well, cut out the welfare programs, then you don't sound compassionate. You sound like a, you know, you sound like a someone who doesn't care for the poor, right? So I think that's some is a practical way for us to go there. As for directly helping the poor, that's what the early church did. It's a it's individual involvement, it's small groups, it's relatively small communities helping each other. First Timothy five, Paul three times talks about helping those really in need, which implies there were those wanting help who were not really in need, right? Which gets back to the welfare dilemma. How do you help people practically if they just show up with a supposed and stated need, that's not good enough. And Paul was being very careful about that. The only way to measure that or monitor that is to have a local community that has the gut uh to uh to to try to you know regulate those things and practice tough love and really try to love people appropriately. I think another uh angle here is not to focus merely on the material. Charles Murray's got probably the the best book on public policy I've ever read called In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government. And in there he uh uses Maslow's hierarchy to talk about, hey, what are we really trying to accomplish in public policy? And he talks about the material, but then he moves up the triangle towards things like self-actualization. And he gets you to wrestle with that maybe I can help them with respect to material, but at the same time, I'm harming them with respect to self-actualization. And all of a sudden I'm like, ooh, you know, what what should I do here? Government usually focuses on material because that's easy to measure, it's easy to do. But that's not the entire goal for the human person. It's simply to make sure they have enough food, clothing, and shelter. There's other goals out there, even for someone wielding Maslow's hierarchy, let alone someone who's a believer and understands, hey, there's far more to life uh than bread alone. And so if we find ourselves focusing solely on the material or mostly on the material, we can be confident that we're not operating out of a coherent Christian world view.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

Yeah, I I totally agree with that. And like one of the benefits of decentralized charity is that those that are need actually have to build a positive relationship with the people that are providing the need. And that provides an incentive for people. To overcome degeneracy and antisocial behavior. And if we're in the business of trying to help people better understand how to manage their life and manage their money in a way that's healing and humanizing and generative, that is such a powerful incentive. And all of that is lost when you just have a faceless bureaucracy distributing it at will to people. And that I think you can see it on my shelf back here on the back, whatever, to the left of me or whatever. But Amity Schlaze has an awesome history of the great society reforms in the 1960s where she talks about that very phenomenon, how the moment that the government stepped in and started basically pricing out of the market decentralized charity by instituting these monopoly welfare systems, it created all of these perverse incentives, which led to the, which has led to the horrible system that we have today. And that's what I want to say to Christians. Like we should be concerned about the plight of the poor. But there are just so much more intelligent and humanizing in Christian ways to think about this than we're going to give the government a monopoly on charity and feel good about ourselves for doing it.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

I mean, it was fresher 25 or 30 years ago. There were two strains, and I talk about this much more in poor policy. But you used to have people on the left who despised welfare programs because of the bureaucracy of it. And they would complain bitterly about that. And they would recognize that I'm being, I'm we're treating people like a number. We're just giving them resources. But that went away. It's not really a big thing on the left anymore, but the left used to get bent uh over those kind of concerns. And it's it's a valid concern. Marvin Olaski's got a great book called The Tragedy of American Compassion, and I do talk about that in both of my books on public policy. But he talks about the need and the effectiveness of Christian uh charitable efforts, but it was based on exactly what we're talking about, the biblical principles of effective charity and uh how we got away from that uh at the end of the 19th century and then increasingly in the 20th century.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

Yeah, and I I think that's one of the real tragedies that we have just not yet fully worked out. And I think the church really does need to think through what you've said so far in this episode and the real consequences of that, especially when Jesus commands us as the people of God to take care of the poor. Um, you know, in your book, you addressed a lot of contentious issues. Obviously, the issue of poverty is a big one, but you talk specifically in your book about gambling, homosexuality, and abortion. Now, I would say that today the uh debate on homosexuality has like, like I will, you know, the conservatives lost that one. Uh, right now it's like, uh, should we transition children and let men use women's bathrooms? Like that, that those are the conversations that we're having now. But I think gambling and abortion are still just as relevant today as they were before. And you could probably add in a whole host of other issues with this that are very like in some ways, I think the culture war, I mean, I'm sure you'd agree with this too. The culture war seemed like it burned hot in the late 90s and early 2000s, but I think from 2012 on, it's just been smoking hot. Um, and so I want to get your perspective on this. So when it comes to issues like gambling or transgenderism or whatever, uh kind of summaring summarizing all of the main themes of this argument, what do we, what do we do about that as Christians? Like what's the right way to respond to this and the public square? Um, because it seems like again, a lot of it's a battle of legislation. You know, people just want to fight over uh, you know, should we ban it? Should we not ban it? That's it. But then I think there's also, like you said, there's the ethics of, well, how are we representing ourselves as members of God's family when we're having these conversations? So there's all kinds of questions that are built into this. So when it comes to these controversial issues, what's the best way for the church, church to critically and thoughtfully and faithfully pursue conversations about these policies?

SPEAKER_01 47:42

So I think this is where that justice morality framework is really helpful because those issues are really different in that regard. Abortion is a justice issue, right? You're killing another human being. If you hold a scientific view, a biological view, if you're gonna rely on science at all, uh forget the religion even for a moment. If you're gonna rely on science, you're killing another human being. And basic civil rights are gonna take you to this is a terrible justice issue. And justice issues, that's the easiest place for a Christian to get involved when the rights of others are being directly, directly and significantly harmed. Uh transgender, that's you know, that's the biggest injustice there would be kids, right? So if we're if we have parents imposing this on children, or uh certainly schools imposing this on children, right? That that's very much a justice issue there uh to be concerned about. When you range down to homosexuality or other issues like that, you're much more on the morality side of things, people doing what they want to do. One of my regrets, um, and I don't know that I it would have made a difference, but you know, we drew such hard lines in the sand on so-called same-sex marriage back in the day. And if we'd had this framework, I wonder if we would have ended up with promoting or at least condoning civil unions as the state compromise on this, and then let the state do what they're gonna do, and then the church holds on to marriage as the religious, um religiously sanctioned, religiously correlated institution, but we drew a hard line in the sand and and ended up in a far worse position. So I think you could have made a case and it would have been ethical and practical back in the day to argue for civil unions, if not proactively at least condoning it. And uh if we if we hadn't crafted out that space, it might be a very different world today. But yeah, it's a far different conversation. Uh what else? Gambling, you were talking about. You know, gambling can cause some direct and significant harm. You know, if I get into gambling and go bankrupt or cause trouble for my family, but you know, it's relatively indirect and relatively uh typically relatively insignificant. I think the the biggest value added I have in the book there is at least make sure that you have a coherent definition and application of the idea of gambling, and most people don't. And they'll just they'll look at the things they do and go, well, that's not gambling. If you you know, so just make sure you're being consistent on that. And most people aren't. They they think their gambling's okay and someone else is a is a problem, and that's not coherent.

SPEAKER_00 50:21

Yeah. No, I I I totally agree with that. Uh, I I have one final question for you. And, you know, you uh I know as a as a part of what you you do, um, you're all and as you said at the beginning of the show, you're all about discipleship and helping Christians to grow in their faith. And this is one of these areas where the American church really needs to have a day of reckoning and start thinking about our political and economic engagement differently. And the American church just has kind of assumed that Christians have to neatly fall into the convenient left-right spectrum. You got to pick a side in the culture wars, you gotta be conservative or progressive. And there you are. You just, you just, you have to because that's what Christians do. And so we filter ourselves into these groups all while denying the kingdom of God and avoiding or and and and not avoiding any of the pitfalls that you've outlined in our conversation today. Um, and so my question for you is there there are a lot of people like us out there, and I actually think that that number is growing because the more and more people I meet, the more people are starting to become skeptical of that whole two-party, two-side framework, and that's a good thing. We're not quite there yet. So, how can we help the church in the United States avoid falling into that left-right trap? How do we move past that and beyond to what God has actually called us to do as a church?

SPEAKER_01 51:34

Yeah, that's a great question. A lot of different angles. If I don't hit all the angles you want me to hit, we can uh play with it. I guess the first thought that hits strikes me is just language. You know, when you said we're either conservative or progressive, one of the things I've taken to saying a lot over the last 10 years is that there really are very few conservatives or liberals out there anymore. When you say a conservative, really probably what you're talking about is that what would be better described as a social conservative. So I I'm against certain things. That doesn't mean I support uh a small government on the economic side. And so there really are very few conservatives anymore. We're not governed by conservatives, certainly, and uh the political party that might claim that uh certainly doesn't have a lot of partisans, it would be coherently conservative in any any manner. Likewise, the last decade, especially, it's not clear we have a lot of liberals either. I mean, when conservatives are the ones, you know, uh arguing for free speech, at least collectively, it's just such a weird world compared to the one I grew up in where you real liberals around you who really cared about free speech, really cared about pacifism and hated the military involvement and on and on. You might disagree with that, but at least you give props for being liberal, right? Liberal in the real sense of the world. The reality is we don't really have liberals and conservatives. We have people on the left or the right. We have people with uh mishmash, dog's breakfast of politically you know, political philosophy and and views, and they don't spend much time thinking about it. And really, most of it just devolves into just party politics. They're mere Republicans, mere Democrats. So I think to me, just to be a little more careful with our language, you know, it's not a lot of people on the left now are illiberal, not liberal. Uh a lot of people are social conservatives, but not they're not really conservatives. So just a little more clarity on in describing the world as it actually is, rather than simple boxes that we put things into. I think a second general thing would be to get smarter about uh being an op an opponent, I guess, uh maybe the right word of certain things. I think we talked about this with poverty, right? People on the right just go, well, I'm against welfare. Okay. What's your plan? Uh well, you know, I don't really have a plan. Okay. Uh or you know, you're not aware of all the ways in which government harms the poor, right? So if you just stepped up your game a little bit and had a couple of things in your pocket uh to answer those questions, suddenly you got a pretty interesting conversation uh available to you. Instead, it's just, you know, you draw a line of the sand and you're against this and I'm for that. We're not gonna, you know, that's just not gonna move the ball anywhere down the field. So I think, you know, either make the investment or just kind of step back. Don't get involved. I mean, if you're not gonna, you know, do baseline level uh investigation and finesse and you know getting aware of of some of these complexities. That's the other thing that cracks me up, right? We'll take this really complex social issue and reduce it to a single easy position. Like, what are you talking about? This is this is silliness. So I think either make the investment that that would be required uh to be helpful, or just you know, slow your roll down. We don't need any more people that are hot heads and you know, in essence, morons about public policy shouting. You know, there's enough of that in the world. We don't need more of it for Christians. So that's that's the first two things that come come to mind. Are there other things you wanted to get into there?

SPEAKER_00 55:17

Yeah, I think really the the I that was brilliant, yes, and I totally agree with that. And I think that the other the other thing that I would add to that is that the church needs to do a better job of reflecting on our identity as Christians because that's the thing that seems to come out of the pages of the New Testament over and over. You know, we are Abraham's children. We are holy, we're set apart from the rest of the world. Therefore, we shouldn't live like them. We shouldn't conform to their paradigms, we shouldn't think about politics or economics in the same way as everyone else. And I think that we have just, as a church, been very too willing to compromise our identity with these worldly uh powers. And we have to realize that, like, it's kind of like what I was saying earlier, we can just live beyond this. Like, we can just push forward. We don't have to do this if we don't want to, but it takes Christians being willing to stand up and say this doesn't make sense and this shouldn't define who we are as the people of God, which is which is is is a very difficult thing to do. But I think that that's what we're called to do as believers.

SPEAKER_01 56:10

Yeah, it's rude, another way of saying that. It's this is another discipleship problem. You know, we get confused on this all the time, or people think it's church attendance and it's all these things, and they're like, well, we don't we can't get enough volunteers, and we we don't have enough money, and we and and the these people are mean to their spouses and they're getting divorced, and right, because they're not disciples of Jesus, and it's not quite that simple, but that's like 90% of it. Like if your church is filled with disciples of Jesus, this stuff takes care of itself. You're not gonna have people saying stupid stuff about politics and simplistic and hateful things, and you're not gonna have people settling for the silliness of politics many times. Again, politics can be very important, but there's just a lot of silly stuff to it as well, if they're focused on the greater things of the kingdom. And so when churches fail on discipleship, which they routinely do, they settle for sermons, imagining that sermons are gonna do some kind of heavy lifting or some you know, randomly led, video-driven small group of nice people with a good brownie recipe, but that's gonna be some effective form of discipleship, you're kidding yourself. That is not what Jesus did. He had a group of twelve, he poured into them. He loved the crowds, he did that some, he worked with individuals, but the bulk of his ministry was spent with the twelve. So if you're not involved as one of the twelve in someone else's group, if you're not leading a twelve, if you're not in a church that has this vision, you need to find a different church because that is not the ministry model of Jesus, which is calling people into a life of discipleship, a life of kingdom living, and helping people, teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you, the Great Commission. We talk about the Great Commission all the time. We always leave that phrase out, teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. And so if you're missing that, you know, get on your horse. And if you're not in a church that has that, start something or go somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00 58:08

Well, Dr. Eric Shandsberg, I think that that is an excellent place to end this conversation today. The book is turned neither to the right nor the left. I'll put links to that in the show notes so you guys can go and check that book out again. Even though the book's 20 plus years old, it's still just as relevant today as ever before. And it is, it is so refreshing to get into the mechanics of public policy and politics and economics more generally from through the lens of a Christian perspective. So I really appreciate your contribution. Before I let you go, uh you are involved in a lot of different projects. You've written a lot of different books. Like I said before, Gen Min uh was the last one that you published. I will put links to the interview I did with you on that in the show notes as well. Uh just go ahead and rep yourself. Where can people find you, find your work, and all that good stuff?

SPEAKER_01 58:49

The other book I'd recommend uh that I'm excited about came out just a little bit before Jen Min. It's called College 101, What Parents and Students Should Know About University. And there I'm trying to get in front of people with it's a real thin book, a little e-book on Amazon for three bucks. Um and it just pretty short, yeah, very short, and and but just covers some stuff that people don't really know much about, sadly, about the university. And so people just assume all universities are the same. They don't understand a research school and a non-research school, it's a fundamental difference. And so uh that's something that's very exciting to me. If you have people if you have kids in high school or know people that do, uh, I think that's a really useful little resource for people as they're making those decisions. I'm on Facebook and I got a blog, I write, so you can just Google my name and have all kinds of fun.

SPEAKER_00 59:40

Perfect. Well, Dr. Shansbury, thank you for coming back on the show today. Thank you. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at the Protestant Libertarian at gmail.com. You can also find me on Twitter. You can follow me at the handle at Pro Liberty Pod. Again, that is at Pro Liberty Pod. And you can also visit me at the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.com. At the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.com. You can also support the Christian Pro Liberty Network and the Libertarian Christian Institute. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode, and we will speak next to