Ep. 14: Does the Conquest of Canaan Conflict with Anarchism?

The Biblical Anarchy Podcast

In this episode, I sit down with fellow CFLN podcast host Gregory Baus, for a discussion on the conquest of Canaan as depicted in the OT Scripture.

Often when talking about libertarian anarchist philosophy or the libertarian critiques of the State, the topic of war comes up. Libertarian anarchists generally take oppositional positions on war, often depicting themselves as being anti-war on the whole. As Christians, our view on war should be, as with all things, be informed by a sound reading and understanding of Scripture. Often then the pushback from the Christian worldview against the anarchist/anti-war position is that God commanded wars of conquest in the OT and therefore Christianity cannot be compatible with the anarchist position on war.

Greg and I both take a high view of Scripture and both are self described Libertarian Anarchists. In our conversation we dive into this objection and answer it by unpacking the conquest of Canaan to understand where it fits into God's sovereign redemptive plan, and hope to demonstrate that the Conquest of Canaan doesn't teach us about the glory or goodness of wars of conquests as part of what God has established as morally normative, but instead the opposite; that through a sound understanding of those passages in the context of ALL of Scripture teaches us that offensive wars are today not God honoring but rather rebellion against that which God has commanded.

If you like this conversation, make sure to check out Gregory's work on his podcast Reformed Libertarians, a fellow show within CFLN. Gregory mentions an episode of the Glory-Cloud Podcast that may also be of interest (ep. 026) on the topic. Also see the work of his co-host, Kerry Baldwin, at https://mereliberty.com.

The Biblical Anarchy Podcast (https://BiblicalAnarchyPodcast.com) is part of the Christians For Liberty Network (https://christiansforliberty.net), a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute (https://libertarianchristians.com).