The letter said cease and desist.
Brenda Smith got upset for about five minutes. Then she got angry. Then she did something that tells you a lot about the rest of this story:
She wadded it up and threw it in the trash.
Brenda, “Granny” to plenty of people who are not technically her grandchildren, has spent more than 30 years attending births. She believes that work is something God called her to do.
So when the State of Arkansas told her to stop, the question in her mind was not simply whether she might get in trouble.
It was much bigger:
Who gets the final word when the government tells you to stop doing something you believe God told you to do?
That question carries this conversation from home birth and midwifery into Christian anarchy, consent, fear, obedience, and ultimately hope. Because Brenda has seen enough of the state to distrust it. She has also seen enough of God to refuse to fear it.
Before Politics, There Were Babies
Brenda’s story begins far from political theory.
She grew up on a farm where faith was woven into everyday life. Her mother gathered five children around for family devotions. Brenda ran barefoot outside, watched life happen all around her, and learned early not to be afraid of everything that might go wrong.
Birth became personal before it became a calling.
Her first son was born breech in a hospital. Brenda remembers the doctor arriving too late for a C-section and a room filling with people who wanted to witness a vaginal breech birth they had rarely seen.
Years later, a neighbor from the Netherlands asked Brenda to attend her home birth. Brenda went.
Something clicked.
Over time, attending births became more than an interest. It became part of how Brenda understood service.
She does not argue that everybody should make the same birth choices. Early in the episode, she tells parents to learn, ask questions, interview caregivers, understand their own values, and make informed decisions.
Her point is not that she should choose for a mother. It is almost the opposite. The mother should be allowed to choose, but to do they need to know all their options. Including those that don't center on hospitals.
When “You Can’t” Meets “I’m Called”
Years into Brenda’s work, a friend called her crying.
According to Brenda, rules surrounding her friend’s pregnancy meant the midwife she had expected to use could no longer attend her home birth. Brenda believed her friend needed someone beside her.
So she stepped in.
She did not charge her.
Later came questions from the state. Years after that, Brenda received the cease-and-desist letter telling her to stop attending births.
“I’m gonna do what the Lord calls me to do.” — Brenda Smith (15:30–16:00)
That sounds bold if we put it on a T-shirt. But it sounds different when the next envelope might contain something that can put you in jail.
Brenda kept attending births.
Eventually, after a stillbirth, she says Arkansas authorities pursued a case against her even though the parents did not blame her. She learned there was a warrant for her arrest through someone who saw her posted online.
Then came the discovery process. Brenda says the government had collected years of screenshots from her Facebook activity.
“They had eight years of Facebook screenshots on me.” — Brenda Smith (17:15–18:00)
According to Brenda, the case was eventually dismissed.
But “dismissed” does not give back the year she spent wondering what might happen. It does not give back the sleep, and it does not answer the larger question: what happens when two adults voluntarily agree to something the state says they are not allowed to do?
The Birth She Refused to Miss
One of the wildest stories in the episode begins with flashing lights behind Brenda’s car. A mother was already pushing.
Brenda didn't stop driving.
She reached the house, jumped out, told the officer she was a midwife, and started toward the door.
The officer caught her.
Brenda describes being bent over with her arm behind her back while the mother inside was trying to have a baby. Outside the state wanted compliance.
A woman is in labor. The midwife had somewhere to be. The officer did not know what a midwife was.
Brenda eventually makes it inside, leaving her ID and registration for the officer to find himself. The officer followed, asking to speak to her, now by the name on on ID. Then the mother roars through another contraction. The woman's mother tells him: that's not happening right now.
Birth wins the argument.
Brenda ends up in court months later over the traffic stop, but the real question is already sitting there in the delivery room.
What is the law for? Is it meant to protect people? And what happens when enforcing it gets in the way of people voluntarily caring for one another?
Consent Changes the Meaning of Anarchy
Brenda did not grow up calling herself an anarchist.
She says she did not even realize the word described her until around 2012, when a friend explained it differently than she had heard before.
Not riots. Not burning cars. Not chaos.
Consent and non-aggression.
“If somebody doesn’t want to do something, you don’t get to make them do it.” — Brenda Smith (38:40)
Suddenly, pieces of her life started fitting together. Midwifery was built around the choices of mothers. Her faith was built around voluntary obedience to God. And her growing distrust of government came from watching institutions use force where she believed persuasion, relationship, and consent should have been enough. She did not become a Christian anarchist and then decide how to apply the philosophy to birth. She looked backward and realized she had already been living many of its principles.
What Does Faith Cost?
Brenda imagines a situation where staying out of jail requires disobeying what she believes God told her to do.
What kind of faith would that be?
“If your faith doesn’t require something difficult of you, why are you even doing it?” — Brenda Smith (40:15)
That does not mean every act of civil disobedience is holy. It does not mean our personal desires automatically become commands from God. It means Christians have to wrestle seriously with allegiance.
Craig connects Brenda’s story with Acts 5, where Peter and the apostles answer earthly rulers with a dangerous sentence:
“We must obey God rather than human beings.”
That verse is easy to admire when we imagine ancient Rome. It gets harder when obedience costs money, reputation, comfort, or freedom.
Brenda asks it even more plainly:
“Who is your master?” — Brenda Smith (41:15)
That question belongs far beyond midwifery.
We Don’t Need a Perpetual Parent
Brenda was an obedient child. Very obedient. She remembers talking back to her mother once and being more shaken by the disappointment on her mother’s face than by the punishment.
That story leads somewhere unexpected. Children need parents. They need guidance, protection, correction, and people who know more than they do.
But children grow up.
At some point, Brenda says, we learn who we are. We make decisions. We accept responsibility. We no longer need someone standing over us to make every choice.
Then she offers one of the episode’s best descriptions of government:
“You don’t need a perpetual parent, and that’s exactly what government is.” — Brenda Smith (47:45)
You may disagree. But the image is worth thinking about. How much of state power depends on convincing adults that somebody else always needs to be in charge of them?
And how much Christian political thinking has quietly accepted the same assumption?
Jesus did not tell His disciples to become better rulers over everyone else. He told them that rulers “lord it over” people and then said: Not so with you.
Anarchy Without Losing Jesus
Brenda has also met anarchists who think her Christianity does not belong.
“No gods, no masters” can become its own test of belonging. Her answer is simple. She is not giving up Jesus to make somebody else comfortable with her politics. And she has no desire to use force to make an unbeliever accept her faith. That is where she finds common ground even with secular anarchists.
Faith cannot be forced. Neither can love.
Craig points out that many anarchists he has met once belonged to churches and later walked away, sometimes because of "church hurt" or because the Christianity they were given looked more like authority and control than Jesus.
That should bother us.
If someone rejects Christ because we have shown them Caesar wearing a Christian costume, what exactly did they reject?
Brenda even left a church she loved because the American flag remained in the sanctuary. She could no longer make peace with national symbols sharing sacred space. For her, the issue was allegiance. No King but Christ cannot just mean “Christ is my favorite king.” It means He does not share the throne.
When the Enemy Becomes a Person
Late in the episode, Brenda tells a story from the film Gandhi.
A man has committed a terrible act of revenge after losing his own son. Gandhi gives him a strange path forward: find a child like the one he killed, raise him as his own, and raise him in the religion of the people he had learned to hate.
Brenda hears Jesus in that story: Love your enemies.
Not tolerate them from a safe distance. Not defeat them and then feel merciful afterward. Love them until “enemy” stops being the most important thing you know about them.
That is where Christian anarchy reaches beyond government. If we reject coercion but remain full of hatred, we have not made it very far. Jesus does not simply free us from rulers. He frees us to love.
Become an Apocaloptimist
Then comes a word Craig can barely pronounce: Apocaloptimist.
Someone who knows things look like they are falling apart and still believes they will turn out okay.
Brenda laughs because the word fits. Christian anarchy can sound angry if all we talk about is corruption, laws, police, taxes, surveillance, and state power. But Brenda insists we land somewhere else: hope.
“Our heart is elsewhere. Our home is elsewhere.” — Brenda Smith (1:01:00)
That is why she says she can keep doing “forbidden” and noncompliant things without being ruled by fear. Governments can threaten. Bodies can get sick. Systems can fail. The world can look like it is coming apart. But Caesar does not get the last word. Jesus does.
Maybe that is the difference between simple rebellion and Christian anarchy. One is defined by what it refuses. The other is defined by whom it follows.
🤝Connect with Brenda “Granny” Smith🤝
Catching Freedom: Facebook Page**, **Brenda’s birth-and-liberty page
Catching Freedom: The Connection of Childbirth and Liberty: Brenda’s 2025 People’s Reset presentation is available as an audio episode. Listen to Brenda’s Catching Freedom presentation
Highlights & Takeaways
Brenda’s path to Christian anarchy grew from lived experience before she ever adopted the label
Consent matters because people are not property of institutions, experts, or governments
Calling something “legal” does not automatically answer whether it is right
Faith becomes real when obedience costs something
“Obey God rather than men” is more difficult when the consequences are personal
Government can function like a perpetual parent if adults surrender responsibility for their own choices
Christian anarchy loses its Christian center if it becomes hatred of rulers rather than love of neighbor
Hope keeps noncompliance from turning into despair
Listen
When Brenda moves from her arrest story into the question, “Who is your master?” Notice how quickly a discussion about midwifery becomes a discussion about allegiance.
Reflect
Where do you obey mainly because you are afraid of consequences? How would you tell the difference between faithful obedience to Christ and simply doing whatever you want?
Read
Acts 5:27–32, Mark 10:42–45, and Matthew 5:43–48. Hold them together: obedience to God, Jesus’ rejection of “lording it over” others, and enemy-love.
For a separate current story about state prosecution of home-birth midwives, PBS’s 2026 documentary Arrest the Midwife follows Amish and Mennonite families confronting similar questions about birth choice and government regulation. Watch or learn about Arrest the Midwife on PBS
Practice
Pick one area of your life where fear makes your decisions for you. Do not start by breaking a law. Start by asking what faithfulness, responsibility, consent, and love require, and whether you have handed your conscience to someone else simply because they have authority.
Episode Timestamps
(00:00) Meet Brenda “Granny” Smith
childhood faith and farm life
motherhood, grandmotherhood, and birth
more than three decades attending births
(06:20) Home Birth, Choice & Informed Decisions
hospitals, midwives, and personal fit
researching birth options
trust, prayer, and informed choice
(12:10) When Arkansas Comes for a Midwife
friend needing birth support
choosing service over licensure
cease-and-desist letter
(17:00) Arrest Warrant & Eight Years of Screenshots
stillbirth and state investigation
warrant discovered through a friend
Facebook evidence and legal costs
(22:10) Obey God Rather Than Men
state authority versus calling
Acts 5 and Christian obedience
regulation, power, and birth choice
(28:00) The Cop, the Midwife & the Baby Coming Now
refusing to stop on the way to a birth
police confrontation outside the house
courtroom aftermath
(34:10) Bringing Babies Into a Fearful World
children growing up after COVID
perpetual war as normal life
peaceful beginnings and hope
(38:00) Why Christian Anarchy Made Sense
consent and non-aggression
discovering the label around 2012
faith already pointing beyond the state
(43:30) Fear, Obedience & the Perpetual Parent
childhood compliance
authority that deserves obedience
government as permanent parent
(51:10) Christians Among Secular Anarchists
“no gods, no masters”
church hurt and unbelief
American flags inside churches
(58:40) Love Your Enemies & Apocaloptimism
Gandhi story and enemy-love
hope while systems fall apart
Christ beyond fear and despair
(1:03:00) Catching Freedom
Brenda’s Facebook page
birth and liberty content
closing invitation
Keep the Conversation Going
For more Bad Roman conversations on Christian anarchy, revisit Episode 51, Jesus the Anarchist, with Alexandre Christoyannopoulos and Nicholas Harrelson. Episode 51: Jesus the Anarchist
You can also hear Craig’s conversation with Larken Rose in Episode 83, The Cult of Statism, including their discussion of religion, voluntary relationships, and why belief in God and anarchism are not automatically at odds. Episode 83: The Cult of Statism
Support The Bad Roman Project, share the episode with somebody who will wrestle with it honestly, and keep asking the question underneath all of this:
Who is your master?
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