Holy Roots of Liberty

This week I taught a class I titled The Holy Roots of Liberty. I can not remember where I got that name but it may have been from my friend Marshall Foster. If so, then thanks Marshall, if not then you can use my phrasing at your next seminar, no charge.

The concept of liberty having holy roots is one that is derived directly from Scripture. It is a part of the larger story of liberty woven throughout the entire Biblical text. Christian Scripture is the only place we can go to get an accurate view of the meaning of liberty: why we need it, where it comes from, and how we get it. It’s all in the Book and not terribly difficult to discover. The foundational principles of freedom are found in those pages God gave us so many centuries ago.

I have been listening to the Occupy crowd to understand what exactly they desire and why they are so persistent in their presence. Although their message seems to be a tangled jumble of socialism, communism, and unwashed laundry, there is coming through it all a sense of their desire for freedom. They want to be free from the effects of thieving corporations and bankers. They expect freedom from the moral standards of western society, as little as yet remains of them. They want to be free from financial needs, hunger, people who dress in suits, and from reporters who research deeper than their mise en scène demands for change. The stage and the players may shift in shadows and light but still the message revolves around the occupiers’ desires for both liberty and anarchy. Our crimes will save us from their crimes seems to be a part of the unfolding plot.

When Christians teach on liberty we are not making an attempt to just get our enemies off our backs. Nor are we seeking freedom to do as we please morally. We, rather, try to define and live according to God’s standards of justice and right and to live obediently to our King in all things. The most accurate definition of civil liberty consistent with Scripture that I have is that we have a right to obey God’s law without interference and to never be coerced into disobedience (Don Schanzenbach definition, so any blunder here belongs solely to me). This I am confident captures the Scriptural concept of civil liberty. We find righteous liberty through Biblically-informed thinking and definitions that bring our lives into conformance with God’s standards. God is, after all, the One who rightly defines and dispenses freedom for His own.

Christians understand that it is sin that lies at the root of all slavery binding the unredeemed as “slaves to corruption” (2 Peter 2:19) and Hagar as being “in slavery with her children” (Romans 4:25). Slavery then, is not a condition that primarily descends from the outside but rather a corruption that ascends from the inside. Man is enslaved by his own sin and man henceforth becomes the enslaver. It is an iron circle broken only by the power of the risen Savior and His culture-changing power. Nothing else will free man from his wicked dispositions. This is why unconverted nations always traffic in slavery in one form or another. It is the nature of man to enslave.

The libertarians of our day typically define liberty as being allowed to do as I wish as long as I do not hurt others. This wrong notion carries forward several sinful and misguided ideals. One is that hurting God and His kingdom are irrelevant. It is typically supposed that either God does not exist or that man is sufficient in himself to determine which of his actions God must hold harmless. Conceptually, this is man establishing himself as god. It takes us back to the garden. Hath God said? When libertarians define freedom as not hurting others they rarely mean to include the unborn. It seems that humanist libertarians think themselves sufficiently omnipotent to determine exactly who is human and who is not and who may be discarded without breaking their not-so-golden rule. They have no moral conception for justice and so necessarily impose tyranny on their enemies just as any pagan people would. Man without recognizing the Creator or His revealed law cannot produce liberty any more than a thistle may produce grapes.

Non-Biblical thinkers seek liberty by focusing on the powers without. They believe that if they can find a way to over turn specific laws from the IRS, the EPA, or some other set of unjust impositions, that freedom will be reborn. What they are miscalculating is the nature of man, the nature of men, and the invincible strength of slavery over the souls of all who live outside Christ’s kingdom. Many of us now yearn for the liberty of our founding fathers. We live in fear of a central government whose manifest destiny for us seems to be absolute tyranny. Jesus told us that “If the Son sets you free you shall be free indeed” and the apostle Paul wrote ”Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17). Our pietistic church culture has taught us to believe that these kinds of promises only apply to the Christian’s heart and not to the larger world. But, God did not set such limitations. Civil liberty is again possible and is in fact the direction of earthly affairs (Romans8:21). If we wish to experience renewed liberty in our or our children’s lifetimes then we need to pray diligently for spiritual renewal in our land and work toward that end. A return to God’s gospel and His law are the only path to freedom. There is no substitute.

For Christian Culture,

Don Schanzenbach

Hope for America Project    11-19-11