From his book “The Will of God as a Way of Life,” Jerry Sittser wrote of “Two Kinds of Freedom:”
. . . .Perhaps we misunderstand what true freedom is. Popular American culture defines freedom as the absence of external restraint and the protection—as well as the expansion—of personal rights. These rights are outlined in the Constitution, which grants us the freedom to believe, speak, in large measure behave the way we want, no matter what the outcome.
We can believe in many gods, one God, or no God. We can speak and write whatever enters our minds, even if it is false, sordid, or inflammatory. We pursue any interest we want, as long as other people are not harmed by it. We can read bestsellers, collect guns, keep snakes as pets, surf the net for pornography, or paint our living room black. We can make gobs of money and give it all away or spend it on foolish and vain pleasures. We have the right to pursue what is noble or vain, wise of foolish, visionary or selfish. No one in the United States has to be a Presbyterian; no one has to vote Democrat; no one has to believe that evolution is true or atoms contain energy or Abraham Lincoln was a great president.
Freedom is literally marketed to us. I read an advertisement recently that was trying to persuade me to buy a new cologne. The cologne is appropriately named “Freedom.” The ad copy read: “Go where you want to go. Do what you want to do. Live how you want to live. That’s what Freedom is all about. . . . Freedom. A new sound in fragrance.” Of course the ad mentioned nothing about where we should go, what we should do or how we should live. This appears entirely irrelevant. It is not what we do with our freedom that matter (except, of course, to buy the new product!). It is that we have freedom.
This quest for freedom has even wormed its way into Christianity. While pollsters keep reporting that Americans are still overwhelming religious, they are discovering that Americans are also drifting away from traditional Christian belief, preferring the new over the old. In “Spirit Search,” an article about new tastes in American religious belief, Boston Globe reporter, Scott Lehigh suggests Americans want their freedom to design their own religion. “God may have had the first word, but he sure isn’t having the last one. As we enter the twenty-first century, Americans have shrugged loose the strictures and are busy remaking the religious rules—and even the nature of faith itself—in their own liking.”1 below
Lehigh admits that not all “traditionalists” are pleased with the trend. Some theologians wonder what good Christianity is if it is always “evolving with the times.” If popular standards prevail, then Christianity does nothing more than reflect what people already believe, how they feel about life, and what they want from God. It puts people, not God, in charge of religion. Such religion upholds human freedom, to be sure, though sometimes at the expense of truth.
By contrast, the Bible defines freedom in different terms. True freedom comes when we become enslaved to Christ. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their lives will lose it, and those who want to lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?”2~Jerry Sittser, the Will of God as a Way of Life (Zondervan, Grande Rapids, Michigan, 2004). 56-9
- Scot Lehigh, ¨Spirit Search,¨ Section E, Spokesman-Review (Jan. 15,2000), 1,3,4
- Luke 9:23-25
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