Enemy of Freedom

In an article at First Things, Ross Douthart explains something that Christians need to understand in this season.

The question of the nature of freedom is, I believe, crucial to a proper understanding of Christianity’s decline, because secularism has always opposed Christianity in the name of freedom. In taking on the mantle of freedom, secularism has turned Christianity’s own claim of being a gospel of liberation against Christianity.

In late antiquity, Christianity was the cause of truth, justice, and freedom. The Christian gospel was defeating superstition, oppression, and vice.

Christian reform movements throughout the ages would recall the same -dynamic: seeing themselves as championing truth, justice, and freedom against superstition, oppression, and enthrallment.

The Protestant Reformation saw itself precisely as the cause of truth and freedom against ignorance, superstition, and oppression.

The Enlightenment began as a movement among believing Christians, but with time its more radical proponents came to see themselves as championing reason against Christian pretensions of revelation.

Now the script has flipped.

The spirit of Christian reform is turned against Christianity itself. Now Christianity is ignorance, superstition, and oppression, while secular reason is the cause of truth and liberation.

This change is the result of excessive use of salvation by law.

See Season Change.

Freedom (6) Basic Freedoms

In their book called The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber and David Wengrow give a different description of freedom. They suggest that in primitive societies, three basic freedoms were important.

• freedom to move
• freedom to disobey
• freedom to create or transform social relationships.

They described these freedoms in this way.

The freedom to abandon one’s community, knowing one will be welcomed in faraway lands; the freedom to shift back and forth between social structures depending on the time of year; the freedom to disobey authorities without consequence – all appear to have been simply assumed among our distant ancestors, even if most people find them inconceivable today (p 132).

The English word “free” ultimately derives from a Germanic term meaning ‘friend’ – since, unlike free people, slaves cannot have friends because they cannot make commitments or promises. The freedom to make promises is about the most basic and minimal element of our third freedom, much as physically running away from a difficult situation is the most basic element of the first.

One might ask, how could that most basic element of all human freedoms, the freedom to make promises and commitments and thus build relationships, be turned into its very opposite: into peonage, serfdom or permanent slavery? It happens, we’d suggest precisely because promises become impersonal, transferable – in a nutshell, bureaucratized (p. 426).

The freedom to ignore people who want to control others was basic.

The real puzzle is not when chiefs, or even kings and queens, first appeared, but rather when it was no longer possible simply to laugh them out of court (p.133).

In contrast, the moral basis of a nation like the United States is largely formal freedoms, mostly defined in relation to the state.

American citizens have the right to travel wherever they like - provided, of course, they have the money for transport and accommodation. They are free from ever having to obey the arbitrary orders of superiors-unless, of course, they have to get a job (p.131).

These thre basic freedoms are worth pondering.

Previous posts here

Freedom (5) Clash

If we participate in society, most of what we do will affect others and often limit their freedom. Here is another example. In the UK a significant percentage of the people hospitalised with Covid were unvaccinated, despite the unvaccinated being a significantly smaller proportion of the population.

If a person who is not vaccinated gets infected with Covid, Tuberculosis, Smallpox, etc. becomes seriously ill and needs hospital care, they will expect nurses and doctors to risk their own health while taking care of them during their sickness. The nurses (who will be doing most of the care) and the doctors who support them don’t get a choice. Most nurses hate having to wear PPE all day because it is massively unpleasant and hard to wear safely, but they don’t get a choice. The freedom of the person who chooses not to get vaccinated comes at the cost of the freedom of those who have to care for them.

Not everyone who chooses not to be vaccinated will get seriously ill, so they can choose to run the risk, but a percentage of the group will end up needing hospital care. The risk for each individual is small, but the risk of the group as a whole is certain. At the time when they make their decision, the individuals don’t know if they will become seriously ill or not, but they hope not. The nurses have to deal with the risk that comes from the entire group, which is serious because it is certain that some of the group will get seriously ill.

This is a situation where a whole lot of low-risk, self-interested decisions by individual people create a significant risk for the nurses who have to care for those in the group whose choice proves to be wrong. And the more people that choose the self-interested option, the greater the risks for nurses become. This is not a trivial risk, because numerous nurses have died of Covid contracted while caring for others.

If the illness gets really serious and the person spends a couple of weeks in an Intensive Care Unit, several people who were booked for surgery will have it cancelled, because the ICU beds necessary to diminish the risk of complications from the surgery are not available for the couple of days when they might need.

The free actions of people in a group can often reduce the freedom of others. The choice of one person might not make much difference, but the choices of the group as a whole do. That raises the question of how committed people are to putting their own benefit and needs ahead of the good of society ahead.

In these situations, where there is a conflict between freedoms, I notice that the people who are actively pursuing their personal freedom, the self-interested usually come out ahead of those who are committed to serving the needs of others. This tells us something about the state of our culture.

Freedom (4) and Government

In the modern world, everyone wants their nation to be governed by a government (I don’t, but that is another story). Expectations of governments have vastly increased and people now expect their government to resolve all the big problems that hinder their living. Modern governments see themselves as responsible for solving all problems that may arise in their society. And most people seem to be happy with this. Even farmers, who were once ruggedly independent, now call on the government to help when they face labour shortages, droughts or flood damage.

The corollary is that modern governments have demanded more and more power to deal with their increasing responsibilities. And most people seem to be happy with that too.

However, we need to understand that when we submit to our government by voting in an election, we are giving up considerable freedom. We are giving the government authority significant power to interfere in our lives to limit what we can do, and to force us to do things that we don’t want to do. A human government can decide how much of our income they will take in taxes. They can take land and use it for public purposes. They can conscript young people and force them to fight in wars that they don’t support.

The distinguishing feature of every government is that it has a monopoly to use force and coercion to get its will done. Government is the only agency in society that has this power. That is why people like it; because they hope it will force people whom they think are bad to do the right thing.

This problem is not new. Back in the time when Samuel was a prophet to Israel (1 Sam 8), the people said,

We want a government, like the other nations.

Samuel warned them what will happen,

You will lose your freedom.

This was a serious loss. When God gave the Torah through Moses, he gave Israel a legal system that would allow the people to live in close proximity and interreact with each other within society with minimum loss of freedom. Unfortunately, the children of Israel rejected God’s system, and chose to be ruled by a government like the heathen nations around them.

People in the modern world have made the same choice. They have rejected the Government of God, and chosen to be ruled by a human government. However, the cost is a loss of freedom.

In New Zealand, the parliament has absolute sovereignty. (This is different from the United States where the constitution places a few limits on what Congress can do). The elected government can pass any law for which it can get a majority of votes. There are no limits on what it can do, except that if people hate its actions too much, it might be voted out in the next election. However, if both main parties are in agreement, the parliament can pass unpopular laws and enforce related regulations. Our bill of rights is relatively weak, because the specified rights can be proscribed by any “law that can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”.

People are currently protesting against their loss of freedom due to vaccine mandates. The reality is that freedom disappeared long ago when people decided to put their trust in governments to resolve the problems of life. The governments that are enforcing vaccine mandates are just doing what governments everywhere are doing and have always done. In every situation, they decide what should be done and people have to go along.

Forcing the minority to go along with majority wishes is what democratic governments do. During the second world war, young men were sent off to war whether they wanted to fight or not. Many of those who refused to fight were imprisoned and treated brutally. I recently read about a farmer of German extraction living in the rural district where I grew up. The rumour circulated among his Christian neighbours that he would climb up into the hills at night and flash signals to a German U-boat out in the Pacific Ocean. Although he was more than thirty kilometres from the sea and there was no military activity in the area to report, he was interred for the rest of the war and lost his farm.

During the 1951 waterside lockout in Auckland, emergency regulations were introduced to allow people could be imprisoned for supplying food to the workers who were locked out from their work. During the decade when I was growing up, children of Maori parents were forced to stop speaking their native language. Homosexual men were harassed and put in prison. This was at a time when there were more Christians in Parliament than there are now.

Governments have always forced minorities to do things In the United States and Australia, indigenous people were herded onto reservations against their will. In numerous American states, blacks were forced to go to different schools from whites, and sit on different parts of the bus. Many of these actions seem shocking today, but they were all done with the support of the majority. And usually, they were usually supported by Christians because they were part of the majority.

Christians have tended to support government power because, until recently, it has mostly been on their side. However, many minority groups have suffered terribly at times under government power, so now that Christians have become a minority, their complaints are a bit lame.

If you give people power, they will always try to use coercion and force to make the world better, even if they are good people. Therefore, human governments will always force minorities to do things they don’t want to do. If you believe in government power, when you are in the majority, it is a bit hypocritical to complain about losing some freedom when you become the minority.

Freedom (3) True Freedom

Jesus spoke about the nature of true freedom.

If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free...
Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin...
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed (John 8:31-36).

He explains that there is a paradoxical side to freedom.

Jesus explains that most people are not truly free. They may believe that they are free, but if they choose to sin, they are actually partly controlled by the spiritual powers of evil. Most people believe they are free, but Jesus reminds them that they are actually slaves to sin, even if they don’t know it. The spiritual powers of evil have more influence on what they do than they realise.

Jesus promised that he will set free those who trust in him. He gives a very strong promise. Those who he sets free will be truly free. However, there is irony in this promise, because to obtain the freedom that Jesus promised, we need to submit to his teaching and do his will. In other words, to get the freedom that Jesus promised, we need to give up our freedom, and submit to his authority and obey the voice of the Holy Spirit.

We can’t obtain true freedom by exerting our right to do whatever we please. That just opens the door to control by the spiritual powers of evil. In contrast, if we give up our desire for freedom, and choose to obey Jesus, he makes us truly free.

Freedom (2) Participation in Society

When a person chooses to participate in a community/society, they have to give up some of their freedom to accommodate the needs and actions of other free people that they encounter. The irony is that when we give up some of our freedom to share our lives with others in this way, it opens up a whole range of freedoms that a person living in isolation does not have.

When a man and woman decide to get married, they have to give up some of their freedom to meet the needs of their spouse. Because they love each other they will often put their spouses needs first, instead of just doing everything that they would normally choose for themselves. However, this loss of freedom opens up the possibility of doing things together that they could not do on their own. They get the freedom to have a family and create a family heritage. This brings joy and freedom that living in isolation cannot deliver.

When we join a club, social organisation or church, the same applies. We have to give up some freedom to comply with its rules and requirements, but we gain the freedom to participate in its activities. For example, a person living in isolation can kick their football wherever they chose, without any restriction. However, when a person joins a football club, they have to submit to the rules of the game. and obey the instructions of the referee. They are no longer free to do what they choose, but have to submit to the instructions of their coach and the captain of their team. They don’t always get a choice about who they will play alongside.

The person joining a football club gives up some freedom, but they gain the freedom to enjoy the beautiful game. If a midfielder sends a perfectly-weighted pass, that puts them into space behind the defence, they get the freedom to score a goal.

When we take up paid employment, we have to give up our freedom for eight hours a day and submit to the will of our employer. An employer can decide what our tasks will be, who we will work with, and who will be the manager that we report to. The employer can specify requirements for the way that we will work and how we will dress. If an employee cannot meet the needs of the employer, they can end the employment relationship.

In exchange for this loss of freedom from submitting to an employer, we get a wage and or salary that opens up freedoms that we would not have without it. We can buy things that we would not have if we remained in isolation from society. Submitting to an employer is voluntary and most people choose an employer that does things that they like doing, but that is not always. For some people, employment is a hard grind, but they continue to submit to their employer requirements, because they value the freedom that their income brings.

In an employment relationship, the employer has most of the authority. However, the relationship is voluntary, so if the employer becomes too demanding the employee has the option of leaving the role and looking for a better employer.

Some people who participate in society will decide to start or buy their own business. They don’t have to surrender any of their freedom, but they are not totally free either. They cannot choose when they will work, but have to ensure that their business is open for business when customers are likely to need it. The business owner is not free to do what they like, but will have to submit to the requirements of their customers and meet their needs, or they will lose them, and their business will become unprofitable. The business owners will have authority over their employees, but they have to treat them well sufficiently well to retain them. If they are continually losing staff their business will suffer.

Full participation in society requires some loss of freedom, but it opens other freedoms, which are very rewarding.

Freedom (1)

We are free when no one can force us to do things that we don’t want to do. We are free when we can choose how to live without any person or group interfering to prevent us from doing things that we want to do, or forcing us to act against our will.

There is a lot of talk these days about freedom, but freedom is a funny thing. If we cling to it too tightly, we can lose it. And if we give up some freedom, we can often gain more.

A person living alone in a cave in the bush is totally free. He can choose when to go to sleep and when to get up. He can decide when to go hunting for food and how much of what he finds to eat or store. He can choose to wear whatever he likes.

However, he is not as free as he feels. If a snowstorm comes unexpectedly, he might not be able to go hunting for food on the day he had planned to. If a drought occurs, his water supply might run out, and he might have to travel several miles each day to get the water he needs.

But in a way, his freedom is limited. He is not free to go to the movies, because he has no money. He can’t choose to eat a restaurant meal, because he cannot afford it. So although he is totally free, his freedoms are quite limited.

Society
The person living alone in the bush is almost totally free to live in a very limited way. However, a person who chooses to live in a society/community quickly finds that their freedom comes up against other people exercising their freedom. When two people want to do the same thing at the same place at the same time, there is often a clash of freedoms. People living in society find their freedom is limited by other people taking free actions that disrupt their planned activities.

• If someone chooses to park their car across my driveway, I cannot drive my car out to buy a cup of coffee when I choose to.

• If I go to a coffee shop at a time when it is very busy, I might not be able to sit at my favourite table, because someone has got their first and is seated at it drinking coffee.

• I might decide to study at a prestigious university, but if I am rejected because my school grades were not good enough, I am not free to follow my chosen path.

These are just a couple of simple examples that show that we do not have absolute freedom. When we participate in society, we cannot always act according to our will. When we take a free action according to our own will, we will often end up limiting the freedom of other people. People living in society have developed various practices of handling these conflicts of freedom.

• Patience, courtesy

• First come, first served; wait your turn.

• Respect for the property of other people.

• Laws or regulations that deal with conflicts of interest.

These are just a few practices that commonly affect our freedom. If you ponder your freedom, you will think of others that limit your freedom. The following are examples of these practices enabling people to live freely without disrupting the lives of other people.

• If I go to buy a cup of coffee at the same time as a number of other people, a queue will usually form and people will get their coffees in the order that they arrived. This is a peaceful and acceptable way to resolve the clash of freedoms.

• If I am about to go out the door of the building on a stormy die, but pause to let a person who is outside come in first, I am showing patience. I was free to go first, but I decided not to exercise my freedom because I took into consideration the needs of the other person who was wet and cold.

• I can go to bed at night when I choose without having to worry that I might find that another person has chosen to sleep in my bed because most people in society recognise my bed as my property. And I recognise that the beds of other people belong to them. I don’t consider myself free to get into the bed of someone else if it is more convenient.

• If I choose to drive across a one-lane bridge from south to north at the same time as another person has chosen to drive over the bridge from north to south, disaster will result if we both claim the freedom to do our will. One person will have to exercise patience and let the other go first. In many situations like this, local customs or laws will dictate which person should give way. We accept this limitation on our freedom because it makes driving safer.

• Laws forbidding theft and assault give us the freedom to participate in a society without fear that other people will feel free to steal our property or to assault us when we obstruct their free actions.

Once a person agrees to participate in society, the need to accommodate the actions of other people places limits on our freedom. Hopefully, most of these limits will be voluntary, but a few will be enforced by the community or the government.

Freedom and the Gospel

Our freedom is in Jesus. The only freedom that really counts is the deliverance from the spiritual powers of evil that he wrought for us on the cross.

War rarely establishes true freedom, because the tumult and violence of war allow the spiritual powers of evil to have a field day, so people on both sides are made worse off.

I don’t know of any situations where economic sanctions have produced freedom and advanced the gospel. The ordinary people suffer, and the powerful get rich on the black market.

The efforts of the United States to impose freedom and democracy by war have a pretty ugly record. An honest observer cannot pretend otherwise. Iraq is still a wreck. The Iraqi church has been dramatically weakened, because Christians have been forced to leave the country. Libya has gone from having the best health care and education in Africa to been a disaster. Yemen is currently being wrecked with US support and weapons. The twenty-year war in Afghanistan has produced terrible suffering and very little peace. The gospel has gone backwards. Bombing Vietnam produced a disaster in Cambodia.

Relying on governments to provide freedom is a mistake. Even in the United States, government surveillance and controls are reducing freedom.

The gospel can prosper in places where dictators rule. In the twentieth century, the gospel has been far more effective in China with limited political freedom, than in the United States with greater political freedom.

In the nations like Iraq, which the United States has invaded or imposed sanctions, the gospel has done badly, because the local people see their nations being attacked by a Christian nation and resent it. You can go with a gun and the gospel and expect to be taken seriously.

My confidence is in Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The Kingdom of God cannot be established by political and military power.

I have written about these themes in more detail in my books Kingdom Authority and Government of God.

Freedom and Truth

To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticise power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.
Timothy Snyder in On Tyranny (p 65).

Freedom

Freedom allows people to succeed and fail. This inevitably leads to inequality.
Therefore, freedom cannot stand alone. It needs a counter force to give those who fail a second chance.

God has always provided that counterforce. In the Old Testament land-based culture, he provided the Jubilee land law. In the more-diverse economy of the New Testament, he provided giving and sharing, and giving away unrighteous wealth.

More here.

When

When did selective truth become freedom of speech?

Freedom to Starve

Buying and selling in a free market is lawful, unless there is coercion involved. However, the employer-employee relationship is not a pure market relationship. Once a person is dependent on employment, they have limited their freedom, so some market transactions become coercive for them.

When you employ someone, you are taking time from them, so you have a moral responsibility to ensure they have sufficient income to live from day to day. It is not sufficient to pay a market price.

A starving person is not free. When a person is in extreme poverty, they are vulnerable. Some market transactions become coercive, because they have to sell their labour to survive. They poor person does not have the option of rejecting a poor offer for their labour, because freedom to choose starvation instead, is not true freedom.

Freedom

I dislike the way that the representative of the armed forces claim that they fought to preserve e my freedom, and their assumption that without their efforts I would not be free. At a superficial level, that is true. The reality is that they fought to keep us from living under a bad government to preserve the power of a government that was better. However, that better government still places severe limits on my freedom. They fought for political freedom, but that is not our ultimate goal.

True freedom is far greater and totally different. It was purchased by Jesus when he died on the cross, and we receive it by believing in him. The Holy Spirit sets us free from bondage to sin (Rom 8:21). He transfers us out of the dominion of darkness and into the kingdom of Jesus (Col 1:13). This is real freedom that no evil government can take away.

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed (John 8:28).

An evil government cannot prevent me from obeying the voice of the Spirit. It can harass and persecute me for worshipping Jesus, but that just ushers me into the fellowship of Jesus sufferings (Phil 3:10), which is a blessing. If it kills me, it is sending me directly to the glorious freedom of eternal life.

True freedom cannot be brought by winning wars. It is a gift from God through Jesus and the Spirit.

Not Freedom

The news media are claiming that the people of Egypt want freedom and democracy. They have already had democracy. Unfortunately, it was the kind of democracy where the ruling powers gets 97% of the vote, billions of dollars in wealth, and the people get poverty, and harassment if they complain.

The Egyptians don’t want freedom, they want western democracy, and its spoils.

Western democracy works like this. The government provides cradle to grave security, guarantees jobs for everyone, and ensures that food is cheap. If political leaders do not deliver all this stuff, they are chucked out at the next election, and replaced by a group who promise to do a better job. Politicians get rich by getting a good deal on their memoirs. This is what the Egyptians want, and who can blame them.

It is not freedom, but the people of the west do not want freedom either. The responsibility that freedom brings is far too scary in a world without faith.

Sovereignty and Freedom

The sovereignty of God is a bit of mystery. The amazing thing about it is that God can achieve his purposes without contradicting human freedom. I believe that God sovereignly chose to make us truly free. I also believe that he is sovereignly accomplishes all his purposes.

His wisdom is so great that he can put people together in such away that they freely interact to accomplish his will. He throws in a large dose of influence by the Holy Spirit and his angels. He accomplishes his purposes despite our free will, not by nullifying our freedom.

For example, when God wanted Pharaoh to rescue Joseph from prison, he gave him a dream that he could not resist. Pharaoh did God’s will without God forcing him to do it. I presume that when God wanted Cyrus to invade Babylon, God put the idea in his mind, and being a big shot, Cyrus could not resist the idea.

I can see this pattern working in the way that I became a Christian. I was walking away from God, when a whole lot of things happened that turned me back towards him. This was the Holy Spirit drawing me to him. The pull was strong that it was almost impossible for me to resist. That is the sovereignty of God. Yet at the same time I freely chose to surrender to him. My freedom was not abrogated.

What I did not realise at the time was that before I surrendered to God, I was not free. I was actually a slave of sin. The other thing the Holy Spirit did was to rescue me from the dominion of darkness and bring me to a place where I was free to choose to serve God. I could not have made that choice, if he had not made it possible.

The irony is that we are only truly free when we are submitted to God. When we think we are free from God, we are actually slaves of sin.

Freedom and Virtue

Men cannot be forced to be free, nor can they even be forced to be virtuous. To a certain extent, it is true, they can be forced to act as though they were virtuous. But virtue is the fruit of well-used freedom. And no act to the degree that it is coerced can partake of virtue — or of vice. (Frank S. Meyer, In Defense of Freedom, Chicago 1962, p. 66).

If I am forced by the state to assist the poor, my actions have very little moral value.