What is the freedom we seek?
Frequent visitors to Culturewarcollege.com and those who have ventured in to the Basic Course on these pages know that I would rather talk about the source of all true freedom: Truth. In both spiritual and secular contexts, truth is preeminent to freedom. Perhaps we will approach that more when I take up the definition of civil authority next time.
But, in a culture drunk on its own freedoms, it is instructive to review, from time to time, the nature of the freedom we seek for those of us who are Christ followers. Quite frankly, our enemy Satan would rather have us concentrating on our freedoms, and not truth. Our founders, who first held truth to be self-evident, only then turned to equality and the Creator-given rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, and then the government created to secure these Creator-given rights.
But the freedoms we see discussed non-stop on cable TV or in our courts or in our classrooms are not the same freedoms the founders were talking about. Our nation is inebriated on freedoms to do whatever the heck we want to do. And yet, this is not the freedom God gives us through His son Jesus Christ.
Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. – 1 Peter 2:16
Commentaries suggest that this verse “does not authorize rebellion against a constituted authority but urges believers freely to submit to God and to earthly authorities (as long as such submission does not conflict with the law of God).” But the verse goes further and suggests the freedom believers seek is the freedom to live as we ought to live according to God and the law, and not the freedom to do whatever the heck we want to do. “Liberty is not license to do as we please.”
What is the freedom we seek after the culture war is over? God leaves to every man the fundamental decision of existence: whether or not to follow Him and embrace Him and relate to Him with heart, soul, and mind love. Therefore, perhaps all the freedom we should hope for is a postwar landscape which allows every human being the freedom to choose for or against God.
Our secular opponents will likely challenge me at this point. They will suggest that we already have this ability. Yet, how can this be so when an aborted child does not, or when a child lured into homosexuality does not? Secularists make their arguments while at the same time seeking to remove all evidences and vestiges of God from the public discourse. Yet, we are aggrieved when someone chooses separation from God. We battle for that individual to be able to make an informed decision.
Compelled speech in a California crisis pregnancy clinic, or what a counselor can say in a Colorado Christian counseling practice, or a business who’s threatened because the business model is based on Christian principles, or a school which tells my grandchildren the lie that it really doesn’t matter if their parents are married or of the same sex, are examples of the state inserting itself between believers and our God. I’m sorry about this, but the way I read this verse, I’m compelled to respond to that civil authority. More on that response in a couple of days.
For now, Christ followers don’t really ask for much. The freedom we seek is the John 8:32 freedom: the freedom to approach in a truly unhindered, unfettered way, the living God. Christ’s sacrifice has made it possible for us to do so without the threat of our old sin natures separating us from a Holy God. That is God business and to some extent, our decision.
But we are finding more and more examples today of the civil authority burdening our freedoms to choose for or against God, especially in the public square. It seems that these entities are more cavalier as the weeks and months go by. It is because of that burden brought about by the civil authority, that we are compelled to respond. After all, we must not use our “freedom as a cover-up for evil.”
Tomorrow: What is (civil) authority?
Thursday: When is civil disobedience appropriate?
Friday: What’s Love Got to Do with It?