No One Fit to Rule: Larken & Amanda Rose on Approaching Humanity (BONUS Episode)

Why do you stop at a red light, even when no one is watching?

Most people would say it's easy. It's just safe. It's just smart. But think about it a little longer. You didn't pick that rule. You didn't sit down and decide, all on your own, that this exact corner needed this exact rule. Someone else made that choice. And somewhere along the way, without even noticing, you agreed to follow it.

Now think about how many other rules work the same way.

We follow rules we never really looked at. We fear people we've never met, just because someone told us to. We say things like "the law" as if that phrase explains everything. But "the law" is really just a pile of choices other people made. We treat it like it's sacred, and most of the time we never stop to ask why.

Here's the strange part. A lot of us think that's just fine. We think someone has to be in charge. We think most people are too selfish or too foolish to make good choices on their own, so someone else needs to make the big decisions for us.

But where did that idea come from? Did you choose to believe it? Or did it get planted in you before you were even old enough to ask questions?

That question sits under this whole episode. It's not really about which political side is right. It's something much simpler, and much bigger: why do we keep believing that someone has to rule over us?

That question isn't just an idea in a book. It shows up in real moments, in real people's lives. 

This episode of The Bad Roman Podcast is a little different from most. Craig isn't talking with someone who slowly changed their mind about church and politics. He's talking with Larken Rose and Amanda Rose. They're two well-known voices in a small world of people who believe no human being should rule over another. They're getting ready for an event called Approaching Humanity in Sedona, Arizona. Larken isn't even a Christian. He says so right out loud, in his usual blunt way.

But what starts as a conversation about an upcoming event turns into something bigger. It becomes a dialogue on where our beliefs really come from, who put them there, and what it might feel like to finally notice.

What We Never Chose to Believe

Larken tells a story about a woman who once challenged him on speaking about a Bible verse. She asked if he was a Christian. He said no. She pushed back. If he's not a Christian, what gives him the right to talk about what the Bible means?

"I’m not," he said, "but I can read."

It's a funny line. But it's also a small earthquake. Hidden inside her question was an idea she probably never thought about: that only certain people, with the right badge or the right membership, are allowed to understand certain things. Larken didn't need a badge. He just needed the words in front of him and the will to actually look at them.

That idea runs through the whole episode. It's not about "here is the one correct answer." It's more like: what happens when we stop assuming we already know everything, and we actually take a real look?

Amanda tells a story that hits even harder. She wears a shirt to church. It shows Jesus being arrested by ICE agents. A few people compliment it without really thinking about what it means. But one woman can't move past it. She keeps a stiff smile and says, three separate times, that it concerns her. Amanda explains why she wears it: Jesus was from the Middle East. He didn't look like the people cheering on the raids. If he walked around today, some of the very people so sure he'd be on their side might be the ones putting him in handcuffs.

Nobody in that story changed their mind right away. That's not really the point. The point is the flinch. Something in that woman noticed a wall in her own mind, a wall between "people who get arrested" and "Jesus," that had never once been allowed to fall.

A lot of us are carrying walls just like that one. We just haven't seen our own shirt yet.

What Jesus Actually Refused

There's a story that people love to use to prove Jesus stayed out of politics, or even that he backed the people in charge. A group of religious leaders sends men to trap him. If Jesus says don't pay taxes to Rome, he's a troublemaker. If he says pay them, he looks like a friend of the soldiers crushing his own people.

Jesus asks for a coin. Whose face is stamped on it? Caesar's. So, Jesus says, give Caesar what belongs to Caesar. And give God what belongs to God.

Read fast, it sounds like Jesus is just being safe. Read slow, and it's not safe at all. Everyone listening that day knew something we've mostly forgotten: nothing really belonged to Caesar in the first place. His whole empire was built by taking things from other people. So when Jesus says "give God what's God's," he's not handing Caesar a slice of anything. He's quietly saying the whole pie was never Caesar's to begin with.

That's not a political policy. That's a trap turned right back on the people who set it. They walked away amazed, and they got nothing to use against him.

It still cost him everything. Not because he broke some rule. Because he refused to bow down to power just because power said he had to. Rome didn't kill Jesus because he stayed quiet about politics. It killed him because his kingdom worked by a totally different rulebook: mercy instead of control, serving instead of ruling, truth instead of the easy lie that some people are simply born to rule over others.

Earlier in his life, after Jesus fed a huge crowd with just a little food, the people tried to grab him and force him to be their king. He didn't take the deal. He didn't ask for smaller terms. He walked up a mountain by himself and let them figure out that this wasn't a game he was going to play.

Sit with that for a second. He was handed the chance to rule, a huge crowd, full stomachs, people ready to follow him anywhere, and he walked away.

You don't have to agree with everything Larken Rose believes to notice something. That same refusal sits under his main idea, too: that no human being has the right to rule another. Jesus didn't argue about which policy was best. He walked away from the mountain.

The Question Nobody Wants to Answer

Larken doesn't spend a lot of time telling people what to believe. His real project, the one behind his new book, Unbound, and behind the whole Approaching Humanity event, is smaller and stranger than that. He wants to know if people are actually living by the things they already say they believe.

"Are you being consistent with your own moral code?"

That's the whole challenge, in one line. Not "come believe what I believe." Just: does what you do match what you say is true?

Ask most people if it's wrong to steal from a neighbor, and they'll say of course it is. Ask if they've ever voted for a program that takes money from a neighbor who didn't want to give it, and something shifts. The answer gets longer. A "well" creeps in. A "we" creeps in too.

Amanda talks about running a class built around watching that shift happen, over and over. They'd bring people in, friends, family, even strangers paid fifty dollars for fifteen minutes of their time, and ask a few careful questions. Every single time, the same pattern showed up.

"They don't know what they don't know. It's an actual blind spot."

People don't dodge the question because they're lying. They dodge because part of them senses a hole in the floor and doesn't want to look down. It's scary to admit there's a whole area of your own beliefs you never really chose, and never really checked.

Larken has his own way of describing what happens when we skip that check, and just let someone else decide for us without ever noticing.

"They don't even recognize the chains wrapped around their own brains."

It would be easy to think this is only about politics. It isn't. It's really a spiritual question wearing political clothes. Every faith that takes the idea of repentance seriously is describing the same thing: waking up to a chain you didn't even know was there, and choosing, on purpose, to take it off. The Bad Roman Project has a phrase for this: "no king but Christ." Larken, starting from a totally different place, calls it noticing the blind spot. Different words. A strangely similar discovery.

Different Roads, Same Clearing

What makes Approaching Humanity interesting isn't that every speaker agrees. They don't. But they all ended up in almost the same place anyway.

There's David Hathaway, a real sheriff, someone most people would expect to defend "the system" without question. Instead, Craig says Hathaway ran for the job for one main reason: he didn't want a tyrant sitting in that office. He's not there to praise police work. He's watched what happens when power has no limits, and decided he'd rather stand in that door himself than let someone worse walk through it.

There's Patrick Smith, who took the opposite road from most guests on this show by leaving Christianity and becoming an atheist. From a completely different direction, he still landed on the same refusal to bow down to the state that Craig found from inside his own faith.

There's Brittany, a homeschooling mom and comedian. Her whole talk is built around one simple idea: kids are people. Not animals to be trained. Not lumps of clay to be shaped into perfect obedience. People, with their own growing sense of right and wrong, the very same thing every other speaker at this event is trying to protect in the grown-ups in the room.

There's Rebecca Anzini, who once watched someone build a so-called "freedom community" while quietly running it like a cult. She learned the hard way that the words "freedom" and "liberty" can be worn like a mask, hiding the exact same hunger for control they claim to fight against.

None of them needed the same books or the same prayers to see it. They just needed to pay close enough attention to their own lives for the chains to become visible. As Amanda puts it, nobody set out to end up somewhere so unfamiliar. They were just thinking things through, one honest step at a time, until one day they looked up and asked, "How did I get here?"

That's not really about ideas or politics. That's what a real change of heart looks like, in whatever words a person has to describe it.

Larken's hope for the event isn't that everyone leaves agreeing on doctrine or economics or theology.

"I want everybody to be themselves, unbound by weird manipulations and lies."

You don't have to agree with his conclusions to notice that this sounds a lot like what Jesus wanted too. Not a room full of people who all think and act exactly alike. People who are finally free enough to be exactly who they were made to be.

Approaching Humanity

The name of the event says it all. Approaching Humanity. Not approaching a new law. Not approaching a political party. Not approaching AI for president. Humanity, the thing we lose every time we hand our conscience over to someone else and let them decide who deserves kindness and who deserves suspicion.

Amanda and Larken joke through most of the episode. Salsa. Arizona heat. Hot peppers. There's even an old bit about a group of friends debating whether to use a powerful, dangerous ring "for good" instead of just destroying it. It's funny because it's so backwards, you don't gather people together to talk about breaking free from control, and then hand the ring right back to somebody at the end. But the joke has a real point behind it. So many movements built around freedom quietly end up rebuilding the very throne they said they wanted to tear down. Just give me the ring. I'll use it the right way. Put me in charge. I'll fix it this time.

Jesus was offered that same kind of deal. Once on a mountain, after he fed thousands of people with almost nothing. Once again out in the wilderness, before his work had even started. Both times, he said no. Not because power itself is evil, but because his kingdom was never going to be built that way. Mercy doesn't grow bigger by force. Truth doesn't need an army to protect it. Love for your neighbor falls apart the second you try to force someone else into it at gunpoint, no matter how good your reasons sound.

That's the humanity this event wants people to walk toward. Not a better system. Not a stronger fence around the "right" kind of freedom. Just people, finally taking an honest look at the chains they never chose to wear, willing to sit with how uncomfortable that is, instead of smiling through it the way that woman smiled through Amanda's shirt.

Craig doesn't need Larken to become a Christian for this conversation to matter. He needs him to keep asking the question neither of them can fully escape: is there really any person on this earth fit to rule over another? Jesus never answered that question with a new law or a new policy. He answered it by walking away from a crown. By washing the feet of the very men who would abandon him by morning. By dying rather than pretend that any earthly power, however much it borrowed religious words, deserved his loyalty more than the God he called Father.

"No king but Christ" was never meant to end an argument. It's an invitation to keep asking who you've really been listening to your whole life, and to notice, maybe for the first time, that you were always free to stop.

Guest Bio

Larken Rose has spent over two decades making the same simple, uncomfortable argument: no human being has the right to rule another. He's the author of The Most Dangerous Superstition, the novel The Iron Web, and creator/co-writer of The Jones Plantation (novel and film). His new book, Approaching Humanity, releases alongside the live event of the same name. He also created Candles in the Dark, a seminar that teaches people how to talk to friends and family about authority without turning it into a fight. Larken isn't a Christian — he says so plainly in this episode — but he and Craig keep landing in the same place anyway.

Amanda Rose is Larken's wife and partner in both life and work. A voluntaryist since 2012, she's a writer and public speaker who has appeared at Anarchapulco, Anarchovegas, and Anarchizona, and she co-hosts The Rose Channel alongside Larken.

Together, Larken and Amanda are hosting Approaching Humanity, a full-day event and book launch on Saturday, July 18, 2026, at the Sedona Performing Arts Center in Sedona, Arizona.

Links

• The Rose Channel: therosechannel.com

• Larken Rose's personal site: larkenrose.com

• Candles in the Dark seminar: attendcandles.com

• Larken on X: x.com/larken_rose

• Larken on YouTube: youtube.com/user/LarkenRose

• Approaching Humanity event tickets: therosechannel.com/humanity

• Approaching Humanity pre-order the book: therosechannel.com/humanitybook

Also Mentioned in This Episode (Approaching Humanity Speakers)

• Sheriff David Hathaway: Sheriff of Santa Cruz County, Arizona; previously featured on The Bad Roman Podcast, Episode 53, “Love at the Border with Sheriff David Hathaway”

• Jason Bassler: co-founder of The Free Thought Project and founder of Police the Police

• Patrick Smith: host of Disenthrall

• Mark Maresca: host of The White Pillbox

• Carey Wedler: voluntaryist content creator; former editor-in-chief of Anti-Media

• Derrick Broze:  journalist, author, and founder of The Conscious Resistance Network

• James Corbett: independent journalist, The Corbett Report, joining remotely from Japan

• Rebecca Anzini: speaker on the hidden dangers inside “freedom-minded” intentional communities

• Brittany: homeschooling mother, comedian, and past cast member of The Jones Plantation

Highlights & Takeaways

• We often follow beliefs we never really chose. 

• Most of us are shaped by rules, fears, and loyalties we picked up along the way, and we rarely stop to notice the difference.

• Being consistent shows what we actually believe. 

• Larken's big challenge isn't "believe what I believe." It's "does what you do match what you say you believe?"

• Jesus turned down power more than once. 

• Both on the mountain after feeding the crowd, and later before Pilate, Jesus refused to build his kingdom through force.

• "Give unto Caesar" is not a blank check for obedience. It's actually a trap turned back on the people who set it, built on the truth that nothing ever really belonged to Caesar at all.

• Different starting points can still lead to the same place. 

• A sheriff, an atheist, a homeschooling mom, and a Christian podcast host can all land on the same idea, that no one has the right to rule over another person, even coming from totally different directions.

• Discomfort is often a sign that something true is being noticed. 

• The people in this episode who flinched or froze or smiled too hard weren't bad people. They were standing at the edge of something they didn't know was there.

• Even freedom movements can rebuild the very thing they meant to tear down. 

• The temptation to say "just let me hold the power, I'll use it responsibly" shows up almost everywhere, even inside movements built to fight against it.

Listen

Listen for how many different words are used in this episode to describe the exact same discovery, "unbound," "the blind spot," "no king but Christ," and notice how closely they line up.

Reflect

Think of one belief you've never really chosen, something you just picked up along the way. What would it cost you to take an honest look at it?

Read

Read Matthew 22:15–22, John 6:14–15, and John 18:33–37. Notice what Jesus turns down in each story, and what he offers instead.

Practice

Try Larken's question on one belief you hold strongly: are you really being consistent with it? Or have you carved out a quiet little exception for the parts that are inconvenient?

Episode Timestamps

(00:00) Announcing Approaching Humanity

• Event details: Sedona, Arizona, July 18th

• Larken Rose returns to the show

• What this bonus episode is about

(02:02) Who Actually Shows Up

• Why the Rose Channel audience spans every belief system

• Labels versus consistency

• Craig on discovering The Most Dangerous Superstition

(05:27) Faith, Atheism, and Getting Shut Out

• Being sidelined by atheist anarchist circles for having faith

• Is any man fit to rule another?

• The question underneath every political argument

(09:24) The Core Challenge

• Are you consistent with your own moral code?

• Amanda's shirt: Jesus arrested by ICE

• A wall most people don't know they've built

(13:10) Renaming the Book

• Minds nobody knows are bound

• Why “Unbound” almost became the title

• What being unbound actually means

(15:30) Rereading “Give Unto Caesar”

• A trap sprung on the people who set it

• Two favorite memes: the cross, and “let the state do it”

• Render unto Caesar as admitting who you belong to

(18:52) The God Nobody Names

• “Government is the God they actually believe in”

• Worshipping Babylon without noticing

• The void: what people don't know they don't know

(23:06) Candles in the Dark

• The seminar built to change minds without arguing

• The $50 test for cognitive dissonance

• Craig's own uncomfortable awakening

(25:55) Why Approaching Humanity Brings Together So Many Beliefs

• Different starting points, same discovery

• Meet the speakers: Sheriff David Hathaway

• Jason Bassler of The Free Thought Project

(33:22) Meet More of the Speakers

• Brittany on homeschooling and “children are people”

• Pre-recorded talks from Carey Wedler and Derrick Broze

• Patrick Smith of Disenthrall

(36:30) Even More Speakers

• Mark Maresca and The White Pillbox

• Rebecca Anzini on a “freedom community” that hid a tyrant

• James Corbett joining remotely from Japan

(41:04) Why the Event Won't Hand the Ring Back

• “Give me the ring of power”

• The Boromir bit, freedom events that quietly rebuild the throne

• Building something all the way consistent

(48:45) Getting to Sedona

• Larken's last planned in-person event

• Tickets, the book, and the July 18th release

• Closing thoughts

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78. The Role of Propaganda in Abusive Relationships with Derek Kreider

About this Episode

Derek Kreider, host of pacifist podcast “The Fourth Way,” joins Craig for a discussion on his latest season about propaganda. What is propaganda? Who propagandizes? And what benefits do they receive from doing so? From personal relationships, church institutions and the state, propaganda plays a part in how people organise themselves and Derek and Craig discuss them all.

The conversation starts with institutionalised abuse within the Southern Baptist Convention and how poorly churches deal with allegations of sexual abuse. Every year allegations of sexual misconduct are the church’s biggest problem. Even higher-ups who are not abusers are incentivized to cover up for underlings abusing their authority to keep the money flowing. We also learn that propaganda is not just what is communicated, but also includes leaving out important information, in this case to avoid “tarnishing God’s reputation” or other reasonable-sounding excuses.

Next, they discuss state propaganda. The state is basically an abuser who feels the need to control through the usual methods: charisma, controlling the flow of information and if these things fail then resorting to violence. Finally, Craig gets vulnerable about his abusive second marriage, the isolation and altercations, ending the episode with a note of hope for those who believe they are stuck in a situation of domestic violence: it is possible to escape.

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Episode Timestamps:

3:08 - Who is Derek Kreider?

• Raised conservative with Christian education

• Likes apologetics

• Currently in Romania as a missionary

4:22 – What is causing the rise in atheism? 

• Institutionalising religion ruins it

• There’s a lot of people leaving the church in America, but it’s the institutions they are leaving

• Church could also be people gathered in Jesus’ name

9:19 – The Fourth Way Podcast

• 2016 and the election of Donald Trump made Derek want to start a podcast

• The ends don’t justify the means, but the evangelical community tried to justify Trump’s actions

• Consequentialism

• Watched a video on pacifism

• Pacifism works better than grasping for power in the political realm

• Made the podcast to explore his own Christian reasoning

• The name comes from Walter Wink’s “The Third Way” but Pacifism is a fourth way, not fight, flight or freeze, but being active in pacifism

• Families who allow their loved ones killers live on death row rather than have them killed have changed those people

• Pacifism requires a whole lot more creativity to solve problems

• It brings the humanity back to the killer 

• There is nothing in the writings of the early church that indicate they were not pacifists

20:06 – What’s happening with the Southern Baptists?

• Recently it has come to light that some of their prominent leaders have abused people and other leaders have covered it up

• Then asked others to be silent about it

• Rachael Denhollander – What is a Girl Worth?

• Famous for coming forward after being abused by a doctor

• Talks about how terrible the church was at dealing with that

• Became an advocate for abuse within the Southern Baptist Church

• Although it’s not specific to the Southern Baptist Church

• Sexual allegations are the biggest problems for church every year

• When people take advantage of their positions of authority it doesn’t look like Jesus

• There should not be flawed human beings being given power in the church

• “It shall not be so among you”

• Individuals must take personal responsibility for their actions

• A lot of times power ends up corrupting people

• The Southern Baptist Convention also had leadership that covered up abuse

• In order to keep their own power

• So they don’t loose funding or control

• Do it in the name of Jesus – don’t want Him to look bad

• This is simple consequentialism

• After studying conspiracies for a year Derek thinks lots of people can hide a conspiracy

• This is not a uniquely church thing, people are corrupt

• A new structure would be full of people doing the same thing

• Maybe people are pulling back from the church because it looks just like government politics

• Sometimes members of churches solely blame individuals for problems that may be systemic

• Pastors are celebrities not shepherds, leading to people abusing power

35:09 – Propaganda, the state and abusers

• Politicians are going to go wherever the funding comes from

• This is a structural problem

• Propaganda is 100% intentional

• But its often done by people who are sincere about their cause

• A jerk on a power trip is easier to disbelieve

• Everyone propagandises

• Derek educates his kids therefore by some definitions he propagandises them

• We use the word for education that we don’t like

• In the Southern Baptists the higher-ups silence the news media that’s also propaganda

• Because it shapes your understanding

• The higher-ups say they prefer to highlight the good and leave out the bad

• It’s propaganda to leave information out

• Its an intricate web of self-justification and gaslighting

• Trump was worse on the second amendment than Obama

• Jacques Ellul – Propaganda and The Technological Society

• Propaganda produces extreme polarization

• And other quotes that could have been written yesterday

• Propaganda seeks to isolate individuals

• Repeats simple content

• Creates a problem to resolve then offers itself as a saviour

• Abusers do the same thing

• Craig’s second marriage was abusive like this

• Derek’s episode about marital abuse: Propaganda and Domestic Abusers

• You can escape an abusive relationship and God won’t be offended

• Things escalate when the abuser feels like they are out of control

• Craig’s second wife threw knives and had him arrested

• Then moved in next door when he left

• Its different in every situation

• David Graber – The Dawn of Everything

• Talks about how the state functions

• The state is basically an abuser who needs control

• Violence is risky but effective if you are stronger

• Information can also be used to control

• Charisma can be used to control others, this is the most effective

• States work like this too, when charisma (stories) stops working then they try manipulation then violence

• Abusers isolate their victims

1:00:21 – The conspiracy of corporatism

• How do we discern truth and how are beliefs formed?

• How was propaganda implemented?

• A 70 episode series on propaganda could have been much larger

• Corporations and businesses propaganda

• How do they do it?

• What effect does it have?

• What should you look out for?

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33. Politics & Religion Roundtable with Two Christian Anarchist & Two Atheist

What does Christianity look like to a non-Christian? How does the secular world view Christian involvement in politics? Craig and Abby Cleckner(well know Bad Roman Christian-Anarchist) sit down with Nick and Josh(self-proclaimed atheist, who come with a mix of libertarian and socialists political views) to discuss faith, the state, and the mixed messages they see from Christians when these two worlds collide. In a true demonstration of how to have a civil conversation, we invite you to join us, from whatever political or faith background you may hail from, to keep asking questions and having hard conversations, especially with those you may assume you disagree with. Maybe God gave us atheists so we never stop asking questions in a pursuit to follow Christ.

Timestamps and Starting Points:

00:22 Episode Intro - What does christianity look like from a non Christian perspective? 

01:28 Josh’s Background

•  Atheist

•  Studies Mathematics at graduate level, undergrad in Physics 

• Libertarian/socialist political views

2:06 Nick’s Background

•  Atheist

• Socialist(technically)

• Non-religious background

3:48 Fundamental opposition to Christianity itself or how Christians behave vs. what they claim to believe?

• Josh’s background with Christianity and religion

  • Science and religion

  • Difference of geography

  • Christian believers and Islamic believers devoutness is the same

  • Poison of religious beliefs in politics

  • “Going to hell for voting for a democrat”

• Nick’s experience with religion

  • Never brought up with the Bible, has not read the entire things

  • Christians seem to not care about Bible in way they act

  • Told he was going to hell the one time he went to church

  • Fear based religion contradicts with idea of “loving God”

13:27 In John 3:6 Jesus says “if you do not remain in me you are like a branch that is withered, such branches are picked up thrown into the fire and burned” - is that not aggressive from a pacifist stance?

• Diversity in Christian Belief, we read the Bible with baggage

• Bible uses hyperbole

• Jesus never said to subscribe to certain beliefs, but to follow him and how he treats people. If you try to rule over them you will experience being “cast out like a branch”

16:55  Abby and Craig’s stance on scientific knowledge, how does it affect your views? 

• Craig keeps it simple, follow Christ is the best he can do

• Abby - the bible is not a scientific document, but science can have religious elements.

  • As anarchist, money for science comes from government which is a contention

21:18 How has Josh’s understanding of science discount the existence of God, why couldn't he be the one who generated the science? 

•  No physical/natural evidence for God

• Perfectly ok imagining God as the master mathematician

• Cannot accept monotheistic view of something that can be a part of the natural world, but also not be

24:02  Mythology & Religion

• Means to explain the unknown(pre-science and pre/within religion)

• Search for simple pleasant answer

28:13 Science is always pitted against religion, but are the two really opposed?

• People have different levels of need for certainty

• It is important to keep asking questions on both sides 

• Religion ask us to follow faith, feelings/belief, to be accepted, while science requires replicable evidence before it is accepted as knowledge 

33:57 Christians and Government 

• Josh - very hypocritical, evangelical shouting

• Nick - sickened on every level by the hypocrisy and lack of empathy for fellow man, amplified even more in evangelical movements

• Praying for votes?

• Equating Trump as chosen by God and America as doomed by his defeat

• The Rapture

39:18 Fear based gospel & the evangelical love for Trump

• Franklin Graham

• Early church and the state

• What does God care about? 

• Romans 13 

41:28 If Christians were not being hypocritical how would they act in the political realm?

• Josh- Government would tend toward a secular system if beliefs were “checked at door” and there would be no issue. The problem begins when a narrow view from the Bible is imposed on laws today.

• Nick - when Christians get into gov’t it’s their rights above all others, which seems to be in bad faith, when rhetoric of the evangelical base seems hate filled.

• Where were the evangelicals speaking out against kids in cages?

44:57 Christians need to understand the Republican party is not pro-life or Liberty

• Why do they care more about fetuses than people who are already alive?

• Never ending wars? 

47:17 Donald Trump is more akin to the antiChrist

• Trump “I never had a reason to ask for forgiveness”

• Is he what Christians actually stand for vs. what they proclaim to stand for?

53:11 People raised in the mindset of all powerful God, adopt a very top-down authoritarian worldview, does this prime these future voters to fall for someone like Trump?

• Mass incarceration, uncountable amount of laws, need for authority

• Theocracy is equally unsettling  

• Avoiding extreme positions, forgetting the nuances - math and life

• Thought crime

• Authoritarian political candidates and authoritarian view of religion

58:10 Is there Hell?

• Universalist Ideal

• Hell is an experience we have in life not eternal torment

• Jewish Mysticism - Kabbalah and Hell

• Worshiping the Bible vs. Jesus

1:01:46 Is the Bible the word of God or translation from others?

• The bible is a translation and collection of stories written by multiple people

• Just follow Jesus

• We are not going to full understand it in today's terms because of its origin

1:03:15  Dangers of having multiple interpretations of the BIble - is this the reason why it needs to be out of politics and why we need some level of secular governance?

• “The evangelical vote”

• Josh - don’t we need government to do some level of things

  • Markets can be forms/sources of authoritarianism?

    • Free market - Libertarian right, eco-libertarian, anarcho-capitalist

      • Monopolies that suppress rights of people

  • Abby - not possible without gov’t support to get Barons of industry, we don’t have true competition in the market because of regulations stopping it

1:07:15 The freer the market the freer the people?

• Josh - market is a tool, in some circles the market becomes the government

  • Things like climate change or harmful products require some kind of oversight to remove dangerous things from being freely traded

• Clear Patterson - geochemist, discovered age of earth and that lead content in water/atmosphere was toxic

• Are oil companies the market? No, because it is controlled by the government, not a free market.

 1:11:05 What can Christians do differently to make non-christians be non-resentful towards Christains? 

• Nick - Christianity is too far gone? 

• Religion vs. Christianity 

• Why Craig is not a big fan or religion anymore 

• Josh - ignoring science in facts is where he loses them, if in any sort of public entity that has to be checked at the door 

• Morality can not be legislated

11:16:16 Outsourcing morality to the state, Is the state evil?

• Nick - tries to be cautious of notions of good vs. evil to avoid black and white dichotomy.

  • Bigger issue is our system is broken on almost every level

  • We all have our individual ideas but putting them into action is what's difficult

  • Is there a system now that truly benefits everyone?

•  Can you change the mafia from the inside?

•  Josh - saying all government does is evil ignores success of government, it is a tool that can be used both for “evil” and “good”; government meaning a collection of people who have come together to navigate something

• Abby - initiating violence is never permissible

1:21:23 Violence by government - what do we define as violence? 

• Josh - harming human beings is violence or but being taxed?

• Craig - majority of taxes go to military to kill people we will never meet in our lives

• Voluntary Taxation Systems - base taxes then option to choose where your tax portion goes

1:24:18 Majority of Christians celebrate war

• Blind patriotism - weird sense of freedom

• Care more about soldiers who have died than those who come back injured

1:29:57 American exceptionalism & Christianity

• God created everybody

• Being a living God means he doesn’t control anything

• Can’t pray cancer away with enough faith

• Story of three boats

1:33:21 Prosperity Gospel - televangelist - the people who exploit people’s faith and profit

1:36:14 Be a Cheerful giver - Doctrines and Children

• Science must exist in free system

• How can a Christian grow in their faith without questioning what is going on? 

 1:39:39 Josh’s Plug’s

• Articles at universe today Josh Campbell

• Journey to the Stars

19. John Dangelo - The Battle of Two Faiths - Politics & Christ

In this episode of the Bad Roman Podcast, Marine Corps veteran and former atheist, John Dangelo joins Craig for a conversation on the disconnect between what the state does and its compatibility with living the way a faith in Christ challenges us to live. They explore themes of war, contemporary progressivism, and how Christians on the right and left have forgotten how to separate political and religious faith.

As Christian Voluntaryist/Anarchist, we put our faith in Christ, not the authority of man made states. When we take a step back, most of our life, from who’s going to fold the laundry, to where we should go on vacation, or to whose turn it is to pick the kids up from soccer practice is done without government intervention, it is voluntary, it is the true definition of voluntaryism/anarchism. So why did Christians cry out at a man kneeling before a flag rather than kneel before that same flag for the sake of Christ? The realities of this entanglement is what we explore in episode 19 and the cornerstone of what the Bad Roman Project seeks to explore.

Timestamps and resources for further exploration:

00:51 John’s background

• Nursing & time in military

• Camp Leatherneck

• Being an atheist

• Anti War propaganda (antiwar.com)

01:47 Clinging to faith in political parties instead of in Christ

03:59 Does it benefit politicians on the right to ban abortion

05:24 “Where else would they go”

• the state, the Christian, and Trump’s lasting impressions on the Republican party

06:38 Theatrics in place of debate - contemporary progressivism

• Michael Malice, The New Right

• Progressivism and totalitarianism

• Social process v. political change

09:13 Evangelical left

• Pew data on evangelicals and protestants political bends

13:06 Push back from other veterans on John’s writings

13:57 Talking with other Christians

• Being a Sunday school teacher

• Thrive Church

15:04 Where is the disconnect for Christians when it comes to war?

• “Mission creep”   

• How 9/11 was used to rationalize US federal power expanse 

• Syria, Somalia, Niger

• Use of sanctions

18:58 What is the hold up for Christians?

• Losing site of faith when talking politics

 22:23 The failures of the two-party system & the path to anarchy

• Is a third party possible?

• Malice and technology reshaping the political landscapes

• Voter turnout in the 2016 US presidential election

25:56 Colin Kapernick kneeling and the response from the right

26:37 Overtly political symbols in Church

• You cannot be a servant to two masters

• Peaceful protest

• Anarchist are supposed to be peaceful

29:50 We are anarchist in 99% of our lives

• Reject rules, chose it voluntarily 

32:10 Collapse of the Soviet Union

• Was relatively peaceful, things did not go up in flames

35:40  Government as Mad Max analogy 

38:16 John’s plugs

• Website: antiwar.com

• Personal site: antiwarwarvet.com

• Instagram @antiwarwarvet

• God Weeps for His Church, article on the Bad Roman website