Rich Purtell - NY Libertarian activist

06/15/2026

06/07/2026

🚨 HOT TAKE: Stop Trying to Baptize Caesar 🚨
The biggest idol in the modern American church isn't money, s*x, or fame. It’s the ballot box.

Every election cycle, millions of Christians vote for "government solutions," completely blind to the fact that they are re-enacting one of the most tragic blunders in biblical history: 1 Samuel 8.

When Israel demanded a king to be "like all the other nations," God didn't look at Samuel and say, "Oh great, they want to engage the culture!"

No, God explicitly said: "They have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them." (1 Sam 8:7).

God then gave them a brutal warning about what a centralized State actually does: it will take your sons for its militaries, take your daughters for its labor, take your land via eminent domain, and tax a tenth of everything you own just to fund its own bureaucratic machine.

Fast forward to 2026, and modern Christians are still begging for a king. They’ve just split into two factions on how to worship him:

🔴 The Right-Wing Mistake: The "Christian Caesar" Illusion
To my conservative brothers and sisters: You claim to love liberty and small government, but the second you get nervous about the culture, you sprint straight to the State. You want a massive military-industrial complex, a hyper-militarized police state, and a legislative body big enough to force everyone to act like they’re in Sunday school.

You don’t actually want a small government; you just want a government big enough to enforce your moral code and protect your comfort. You're trying to use the sword of the State to do the work that only the Holy Spirit can do.

🔵 The Left-Wing Mistake: Outsourcing the Gospel to the IRS
To my progressive brothers and sisters: You claim to love Jesus’s mandate to care for the poor, but your entire strategy relies on outsourcing the Great Commission to the Internal Revenue Service.

Let's be clear: The Good Samaritan didn't pull over, see a beaten man, and lobby the Roman Senate to establish a healthcare welfare program. He paid out of his own pocket. There is zero virtue in pointing the gun of the State at your neighbor to force them to fund a social program you like. Forced redistribution isn't charity; it's coercion. You’ve confused institutional bureaucracy with actual, sacrificial love.

⚖️ The Reality Check
The State is not the Kingdom of God. It never has been, and it never will be. The State operates purely on a monopoly of violence and coercion.

When you vote to use government force to fix societal or spiritual problems—whether that's economic engineering from the Left or social engineering from the Right—you are screaming the exact same thing ancient Israel screamed: "We don't trust God to rule us. Give us Caesar instead."

It's time to stop looking for salvation in Washington. If your theology requires a political party to win an election or government power for your "salvation" to be achieved in society, your theology is broken. Meet your neighbor's material needs and share the gospel with him yourself.

06/06/2026

The State has 99 priorities, and you aren’t one of them.

06/05/2026

If you identify as Christian and libertarian, follow this group. Their messaging is on-target.

You can use state power to force outward compliance, but you cannot use a gun to regenerate a human soul.

This brings us to the final, critical truth of the Leviticus 19 framework. The "Holiness Code" demands an incredibly high standard of personal character: loving your neighbor as yourself, refusing to harbor hatred in your heart, and actively protecting the vulnerable. Yet, an unyielding distinction remains between what is legally enforceable and what is morally expected. God commands these virtues, but He does not authorize the civil magistrate to enforce them with the sword.

When the state steps out of its limited role and uses coercion to mandate charity or police personal vices, it disrupts the entire divine order.

The Spiritual Failure of Coerced Virtue

From a theological perspective, God is never honored by legalistic conformity driven by the fear of civil penalties. True righteousness must flow from a regenerated heart, motivated by faith and a genuine desire to glorify God.

The Problem of Hypocrisy: When the government forces an individual to perform an act of "morality"—such as mandating charity through state taxation—it doesn't actually produce virtue. It produces compliant hypocrites. Outward compliance under threat of civil penalties carries zero spiritual value because the underlying motivation is the fear of man, not love for God.

By turning moral duties into state mandates, the civil government effectively robs individuals of the opportunity to exercise genuine, voluntary Christian obedience.

Mapping the Spheres of Authority

To protect the human conscience from tyranny, we must look to the classic framework of Sphere Sovereignty. God has sovereignly established distinct boundaries of authority for different institutions, each with its own limited jurisdiction:

* The Civil Government is given the sword for a narrow purpose: to restrain outward civil evil by punishing theft, fraud, and violence.
* The Church and the Family are given the moral authority to navigate the conscience, nurture the soul, and cultivate true spiritual growth.

When the state crosses this boundary line to enforce personal morality, it violates God’s institutional design. It ceases to be a protector of rights and instead becomes an idol, demanding total dominion over the human soul.

Conclusion: The Blueprint of Liberty

True Christian virtue requires the absolute freedom of conscience to choose righteousness willingly. A society cannot be forced into holiness at gunpoint.

The ultimate lesson of Leviticus 19 for a Christian libertarian is clear:

* Defend the objective legal boundaries that protect life, liberty, and property from coercion.
* Pursue the high moral calling of holiness through voluntary charity, honest trade, and radical neighborly love.

Let the state protect negative rights, but trust the Holy Spirit—not the civil magistrate—to transform the human heart.

Part 4 of 4: Coercion vs. Conscience. Thank you for following this series on navigating faith, law, and liberty through the lens of biblical law.

06/04/2026

Government equity stakes in private firms invite favoritism and corruption. When Washington becomes a shareholder, companies focus more on political access and less on creating better products. That's a patronage system, not free enterprise, explains Cato’s Tad DeHaven.
https://ow.ly/tca150Z6GwI

06/02/2026

What if the greatest threat to genuine Christian virtue is trying to enforce it at the point of a sword?

When Christians look at the Old Testament law, it’s easy to see it as a massive monolith of top-down control. But if you look closely at the "Holiness Code" in Leviticus 19, you’ll find a brilliant, unyielding blueprint for a free society. It draws a razor-sharp line between civil justice (what the state can rightfully enforce) and moral virtue (what God expects of the individual through voluntary obedience).

The text outlines a strictly limited domain for the civil magistrate—one that focuses entirely on protecting negative rights, preventing coercion, and ensuring honest dealing.

1. Absolute Property Rights (vv. 11, 13)

"Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not deceive one another... Do not defraud or rob your neighbor."

The foundation of a free society is the protection of private property. Leviticus makes it clear that crossing someone's property boundaries through theft, deception, or outright robbery is a violation of civil justice. These are objective, measurable harms that require restitution and legal restraint.

2. The Sanctity of Contracts (v. 13)

"Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight."

Withholding wages isn't just a bad business practice; it’s a breach of contract, which means it’s a form of theft. A just legal framework doesn't need to micromanage the market, but it must act as an impartial referee that forces people to keep their voluntary agreements and honors the timeline of labor contracts.

3. Blind Justice and the Rule of Law (v. 15)

"Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly."

This is the ultimate libertarian defense against both cronyism and state-enforced wealth redistribution. True justice is completely blind to economic class or political status. It is just as wicked to twist the law to favor a powerful king (crony capitalism) as it is to twist the law to favor a poor man out of misguided pity (social engineering). The law should only judge the action, never the identity of the person standing trial.

Where the State Must Stop

The civil domain exists to protect you from being coerced, defrauded, or robbed. That’s it.

When we step across this boundary line and ask the government to legislate the rest of Leviticus 19—matters of personal holiness, local charity, and how we treat our neighbors in our hearts—we aren't making society holier. We are just giving fallen human beings the power to weaponize the law.

True Christian virtue cannot be manufactured by a state mandate. It requires the absolute freedom of conscience to choose righteousness willingly. Let the civil magistrate handle the thief and the fraudster, but leave the transformation of the human heart to the Holy Spirit.

Part 1 of 4: The Boundary Line of Liberty. Next up: The Radical Liberty of Gleaning—how God structured economic safety nets without a single welfare bureaucrat.