Freedom
Chesterton writes, “According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free” [Orthodoxy, Doubleday, 1959, p. 78]
The right to freedom
The right to freedom inspires breadth of vision. However, if not bedded in a strong Christian ethic, the right to dispute, and to question, unravels at worse to revolution, and at best, to various forms of relational deconstruction. In contrasting the French with the British in the 19th century, Burke described the Christian ethic that gave rise to human rights. Speaking of the British mind constrained by Christianity, he wrote, “They despise experience as the wisdom of unlettered men… They have the ‘rights of men’“ [Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1955, p. 66]. A Christian ethic, in the words of Holland-Rose, tends towards “tentative methods and to rejecting wholesale schemes” [J. Holland Rose, William Pitt and National Revival, George Bell & Sons, 1911, p. 7]. At the heart of British thinking in the 18th century was openness toward the ideal of justice, and a mistrust of untested moral values [MQ, p. 47]. This ethic opened the way for radical groups in mid-seventeenth century England, such as the Levellers, to emphasize democratic reform. They opposed various forms of oppression. The existing sociological conditions at the time seeded the modern values of freedom and human right. Barry Reay, in his book, “The Quakers and the English Revolution”, describes that a broad based church existed, that “permitted a wide range of opinions”, and that religious tolerance was “de facto rather than de jure”, in other words, already happening in reality, rather than by law [Reay, The Quakers and the English Revolution, Temple Smith, 1985, p. 15]. He stated also that with the increasing presence of wholesale challenges, expressions of faith and thought at the time were exploded into hundreds of emerging independent and semi-independent congregations. We ask: is there a price to pay for this freedom?
The price for freedom
The price for freedom instills the depth of values that sustains growth! Freedom of expression and the ‘right to know’ in North America did not come cheap! We have mainly British believers to thank. Mid-seventeenth century persecution of the Quakers, Anabaptists, and other radicals, and after them, the British press, saw many pilloried, and imprisoned. Supporters of freedom in 17th century America did not fare much better. Again, many were punished by imprisonment, whippings, branding, boring through the tongue, banishment, or even death. In effect, the Quakers in England had led the way with their rejection of religious rituals, and governmentally imposed tithing. Reay stated, “Quakers proclaimed their message in churches and churchyards, and pinned pamphlets to market crosses… It seems that several had been in conflict with landlords in the 1640s, over their opposition to excessive rents and manorial services. Others had been refusing to pay tithes. From the start, the Quaker movement was a movement of political and social as well as religious protest” [Reay, 1985, pp. 8-9]. At the root of the claim for individual freedom lies the Christian ethic. The Christian ethic provoked the collective request for freedom from rule, and for individual ownership in 1215 that resulted in the Magna Charta. In the words of Rodney Stark, it was a moment where “did cross and sword combine”. He explains how this particular Christian act of legitimating private property began “taming the state and to give the English individual freedoms and secure property rights far beyond anything known on the continent of Europe at that time” [Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason, Random House Inc., 2005, p. 80]. English capitalism’s unprecedented development was the result of the “unparalleled levels of freedom” they enjoyed [Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason, Random House Inc., 2005, p. 158]. The Christian ethic in some ways makes it safer for the nonconformist to flirt with, but not to fall into anarchy! It reconciles opposites. It administers to diversity. It teaches circumspection. To a Christian nonconformist, social and religious interaction is intertwined. He learns to administer to conflict from early on in family life, such as that of the conflict between the need to gratify his own desires, and the need to respect the limited resources within a family. From the first day of his existence, he is constrained within a set of relationships that teaches him responsibility. Moreover, concepts of government [leadership], justice [fairness], policing [discipline], and of social order [administration] are birthed in a Christian household long before they ever bear fruit in the pubic arenas.
The challenge in freedom
The challenge in freedom teaches restraint from temptation. Temptation is the negative edge of inquisitiveness and freedom. Eve’s newly acquired freedom was a material, and not a formal freedom – i.e. the freedom to choose God. God was not the author of her suspicions, or of her rebellion. He said, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” [Genesis 2:15-17]. Formal freedom is the freedom to choose between good and evil, and God, in making man in his image, had ruled out that option. Adam and Eve effectively died spiritually when they yielded to temptation. They had used their freedom to turn their inquisitiveness from God’s Word to their own way.
Eve, tempted by Satan to question God’s instruction, succumbed to carnality. It led her, and then Adam, into death! The question to be investigated is how God has, despite our death, formed a plan for eternal life. A moth that flies close to the fire may escape with its life… or with only a singeing of its wings, but how many times do zealous moths lie dead at the foot of a candle stand, their wings engulfed in a casket of melted wax with no hope for resurrection? It should overwhelm a man with joy to see, despite the consequences of human behavior, that God’s grace has constructed a path to eternity for the guilty-set-free. Yet, sinning men have wished that they might have been more like Jean-Henri Fabre’s Caterpillars. The caterpillars once set on their course head to tail at the rim of a bowl, made no adjustments when food was placed into the bowl, and so, they were oblivious of their restricted existences. We were created for much more than that, but with all of it, comes the risk! “Wishing” does not satiate the hunger that temptation creates. Looking a little too long can tumble us down a slippery slope. We were created with the brains to be aware of our surroundings, but not with the sense to resist sin. Only the Holy Spirit gives us the discernment to say “no”, and He is the only means for us to break free, and to stay free. Our freedom, inspired by God’s Spirit, initiates all the desire we need to make responsible choices. The full consequences of faulty living have already been buried by God’s grace in Christ, who readily forgives the repentant. Through Jesus Christ, faultiness is no longer a threat; it only emphasizes His awesome grace! He, who is Holy, has proclaimed us free in Himself. No fire, no matter how hot, can overcome the faith God fuels in us. No obstacles, however high, can stop a love-struck saint. God’s freedom comes with His power, but we will need to humble ourselves, and to invite input from outside of ourselves, first from God, who alone gives Life, and then through Him, from those who live an exampled life!
The longevity of freedom
The longevity of freedom teaches the value of opposition. Vatican’s Promotor Fidel has become known today as ‘the devil’s advocate’. The office was created in 1657, and charged with the task of playing the skeptic in cases considered for ‘sainthood’. Journalist Paul B. Carroll and strategy consultant Chunka Mui, in their book: Billion Dollar Lessons examine why 750 publicly traded US companies faltered between 1981 and 2006. They recommend including a strategy they call the ‘Devil’s advocate review’ in the corporate strategy process. They identity the problem as the absence of a formula to build ‘disagreement’ in the boardroom!
We may consider the progress of freedom from the Quaker, Thomas Maule’s, arrest, and imprisonment in 1695, for having criticized civil and ecclesiastical authorities in his book “Truth held Forth and Maintained”, to what we call ‘freedom’ today! What would the Promotor Fidel’s perspective be of a woman’s right to choose to abort a fetus? Or, of an individual’s right to end his own life; Or, of the right to view, own, and access pornography; Or, of the right to same sex marriage; Or, of a woman’s right to sell her body; Or, of the right to clone a human; Or, of the right to use a fetus for stem cell research?
Who can deny that the freedom given by God was never intended to disadvantage another, and that sadly, that is what it has become? Who would not benefit today by taking stock and inviting a fresh skeptic’s input into our choices, into our use of finances, time allocations, relationships, or into our habits? That said, it remains the safest route for our future as a species to trust a loving God to lead us, and then perhaps, in the words of F.F. Centore, the range of our swinging arm can be maximized without hitting someone else on the nose [MQ, p. 154].
Loys