Posts Tagged ‘freedom’

“O ye of little faith.” Jesus’ criticism of his disciples applies to all of us in a way that is not often considered. We do not recognize the depth and wonder of humans, even those of us who confess that we believe all humans are made in the image of God. Read the rest of this entry »

The 1956 French film A Man Escaped is a taut, tense drama of a resistance fighter imprisoned in Lyons by the occupying German forces during World War II. Based upon historical events, with minimal dialogue and an effective but sparse soundtrack, the film focuses on one man’s seemingly hopeless single-minded determination to escape.

In this sense, A Man Escaped is an outstanding suspense movie of the prison escape genre.  However, Robert Brisson, whose efforts won for him the Cannes award for Best Director, offers us much more than a great nail biter. In his hands the story becomes a metaphor for hope and freedom. Read the rest of this entry »

In the previous post it was my desire to help Christians understand the broader context for The Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision on June 6, 2015, which ruled that states may not prohibit same-sex marriages.  The post highlighted the importance of understanding classical republicanism as the background to much of the Founders of the American Republic.  Classical republicanism stressed that for self-government to work the individual citizen needed to be virtuous, by which they meant one who controlled his inherent selfish patterns and lived for society’s common good.  The virtuous man was the free man because he was able to control his selfish passions.  Recognizing the inherent selfishness of human nature and the impossibility living virtuously without the support of religion, the Founders looked very favorably upon the role of religion as a source of civic health and freedom in American society, even if they did not always agree on the specific form that role would take.

In this post I want to look briefly at the philosophical and theological currents that have led to the contemporary radical change in attitude toward religion.  The four points below represent a shift in how people view reality or what is often called their worldview.

  1. Fact vs. faith. Becoming quite prominent in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment was the idea that natural science was able to explain reality fully by means of the natural laws of cause and effect discovered through reason and experimentation. Science was true because it was based upon the facts.  The existence of God was not demonstrable by science, being by definition outside of the physical realm of cause and effect.  Religion was based upon faith, which was often seen as opposed to reason and without a factual basis and thus lacked a legitimate claim to truth.[1]
  2. Individual vs. society. Since faith in God was not supported by reason, man was born into a world without moral obligations to one another based upon universal divine authority. In contrast to classical thought—Christian and pagan—man was not by nature a social being with responsibilities toward his fellow human beings, but was an autonomous or self-ruling individual.  Consequently, society was no longer a positive field for the practice of virtue, but rather was a kind of necessary evil for the survival of the individual.  Therefore, working for the common good was a decision by the sovereign individual to help him survive and not a moral obligation or virtue as in classical republicanism.
  3. Negative vs. positive freedom. In a world created by God a person is not only obliged to obey God’s commandments and exercise love in society, his true freedom is to live according to his nature. This is what is meant by positive freedom.  In a world created by God one must conform his or her sexual practices to God’s will and there is no right to change the definition of marriage.   Indeed by living within God’s design for marriage the couple experiences a fully human relationship.  The predominant contemporary understanding of freedom is the lack of external constraints or negative freedom.  One must sacrifice some of his freedoms to live in society, but the truly free person may follow his passions as long as they don’t harm others.   In such a world individuals can demand that society permits them to fulfill their desire to have sexual intercourse with anyone who consents and to marry a consenting partner of the same sex.
  4. Self-divinization vs. sanctification. In Existentialism and Human Emotions the famous atheist existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, “There is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it. … Man is nothing else but what he makes himself.” Sartre recognized that without a creator God, it is up to humans to make themselves what they want to be.  Humans become their own creators, their own gods.  With a creator God out of the picture and the freedom to create ourselves, it is not surprising that the transgender movement is following right on the heels of the successful efforts to legalize same-sex marriage.  As our own gods, we are free to decide whether we are male or female.[2]  In the Christian view God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). We do not create our own nature.  We have received it and by sin have perverted it.  The Christian gospel promises the restoration of our human nature by means of the process called sanctification.  The free person through faith in God’s grace escapes the corruption of sinful passions and is able to practice virtue (2 Peter 1:3-7) in conformity to Christ, the true image of God (2 Corinthians 3:17-18).

What then is the place of religion in American society today?  The contemporary worldview that dominates not just America but Western society as a whole is hostile to most religion.  Religion is no longer is seen as a bulwark of civic health and freedom. The significant public role for religion at the beginning of the American republic was the product of a cultural-philosophical situation that no longer exists.  With the current worldview described above religious beliefs and practices are quickly being relegated to the strictly private sphere and necessarily so.  Many view membership in a church or a synagogue as on a par with belonging to a private club, except that a private club does not hold a philosophy of life that runs counter to the current cultural norms.  Also, the ever widening public sphere of increased government involvement in the daily lives of American citizens is resulting in a shrinking private sphere, which means that religion will play an even smaller role in American society.

These changes are why Christians feel increasingly marginalized in American society.  In my next post I will examine how Christians and the Church should respond.

[1] A similar approach taken by Dr. Steve Turley is worth reading.  See http://turleytalks.com/our-own-sin-writ-large-understanding-the-social-origins-of-same-sex-marriage-part-1-of-2/

 

[2] This is not to deny that there are people who suffer from a psychological and/or physical disorder that causes gender confusion.  They should be treated with compassion and professional help, but the transgender movement does not want that.  They want to have the right to decide for themselves what their gender is and to have everyone else accept that decision.

            When David Boudia was competing in the men’s ten-meter platform diving event at the 2012 London Olympics, this Carmel High School graduate managed to put aside, at least temporarily, his loyalties and root for someone from archrival Noblesville.  More importantly, after Boudia won the gold medal, I discovered that he is an example of the power of the peace of God. Read the rest of this entry »

My last post was inspired by the following quotation from G. K. Chesterton.  “Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.”  I reflected on how we criticize sins in others that we aren’t susceptible to but excuse those which we are more inclined to commit.  I also pointed out how strongly Jesus condemned this kind of self-justifying personal hypocrisy. 

This time I’d like to look at the issue of institutional hypocrisy or the way in which political “liberals” and “conservatives” often agree on evils but find different ones excusable.  Read the rest of this entry »