A Tale of Two Freedoms (Part 5)

Whose freedom are we going to choose: God’s, or our nation’s? 

Let’s review the facts. In one corner, American individual liberty. Our nation provides a constitutional promise that we will have the right to do what we deem best within the confines of American law. As long as we abide by those legal restrictions, each of us is fit to use whatever measure we see fit in order to decide how we will live. We can say what we want; believe what we want; and for the most part live how we want. That’s what the United States means by freedom. 

It might surprise people to hear I think Christians should be deeply grateful for this freedom. I know too many people serving Jesus around the world think otherwise. I am far from ignorant of the fact that my nation’s definition of freedom provides me the opportunity to worship Jesus freely, openly, without fear of institutional backlash. My nation even provides me the freedom to openly criticize it, as I sometimes do in these posts. 

I also think we can be grateful, and still find American freedom insufficient.

America’s definition of freedom fails in far too many ways to meet the standards set by our Lord. Most importantly, American freedom can never expect me to be holy. Since the United States cannot pass a law establishing a specific religion, it can never fully align itself with Jesus’ will. Therefore, if I am going to follow Jesus—who demands I deny myself, take up my cross, and follow his example as exactly as I can—I cannot embrace American freedom. 

I am, then, left only with God’s definition of what it means to be free. As we’ve seen, when God speaks of being free, he means we are free from the captivity of sin. We are free to live our best possible lives; to bless others in ways beyond our comprehension; to obey the will of God instead of succumbing to self-destruction and selfishness. 

We are, importantly, also still what America would consider captives. Jesus followers are not—according to the United States—free. We cannot, for example, speak however we want. If we are to follow Jesus’ example, we should only speak that which echoes the voice and will of God. True followers of Jesus aren’t even allowed to be free in our thoughts. Scripture teaches that we should devote our very minds only to what is pure, true, excellent, and praiseworthy. Even this is only the barest glimpse of the distance between a life of American freedom and what God expects of his people. Were the Kingdom of God fully manifested in the world, it seems likely the United States would denounce it as a hopelessly repressive regime. 

What America can’t understand is that godliness is infinitely better than what our nation calls freedom. 

I hope this point is more obvious than we might initially think. After all, we need to only compare the life of Jesus to anything accomplished by any American to see the truth in this claim. Jesus consistently denied his personal liberty, even giving up what Jefferson would call his unalienable right to life. As a result, he removed all potential division between God and humanity. By rejecting what Americans call freedom, Jesus opened the way to save everyone, everywhere, for all time. Let’s remember: Jesus did not want to do this. Instead, he modeled what it looks like to live unbound from our small idea of what we consider best. He showed what it means to be a slave to righteousness. 

Considering all this, I think I need to revise my question from the beginning of this post. If we are going to follow Jesus, it no longer seems we can even consider the American definition of freedom. If we are supposed to live like Jesus, we cannot embrace individual liberty. We must always leave ourselves open to obeying the will of the Lord, even when it deems forsaking what we want to do. We don’t get to live however we want. After all, that’s what got humanity into so much trouble in the first place. Instead, we get to do something much better: follow the will of God, who desires to bless everyone with the knowledge of Jesus’ saving love. 

A new question, then: are we going to follow Jesus, or not?