If what Paul intends to say here is that Christianity and libertarianism are amenable to one another because Christianity provides the moral compass libertarianism doesn’t have – that is, that one can protect marriage and defend against oft-objected to practices like abortion through the selective reference to Christian values by otherwise libertarian political agents – the question is: Why would someone with such a commitment to Christianity ever commit themselves to a political philosophy without a similar commitment?
Rand Paul’s audacious new sham: A phony religious epiphany. I’m not interested in Rand Paul, but as to the question, I can think of some answers. Maybe you don’t see politics —in the narrow, governmental sense of the term — as the prime carrier of human values and commitments. Maybe your primary politics is that of the Church, and you think the best you can accomplish in the City of Man is to render it less capable of infringing upon the City of God. Maybe you think that it’s not good for Christians (or Christianity) when they try too vigorously to impose their convictions through law. There are any number of reasons why seriously committed Christians might prefer a relatively minimalist model of politics.
