Imagine a fish who one day decides that the real source of his problems in life is not his family, not his “school,” not his friends…but water. “Water,” he assumes, “is so restrictive, so limiting. It’s time to start to think outside of the box.” What he wants is a new life, free from the mundane and the usual. So to that end, he decides one day that he’ll leave the confines of the water for the happier shores (literally) of dry land where there is warm sun and beautiful beaches, but most exciting of all…air! Forthwith, he throws himself out of the water and onto the ground. But it doesn’t take long before he realizes that the “warm sun” is hot and burning. The beautiful beach is scratchy and rakes across his scales. And the first big gulp of air he tries to take chokes him. Freedom from water is not so freeing after all.
I recently heard Tim Keller contrast the difference between the present generation and our grandparent’s. He said that for our grandparents, the highest good was “being good.” Most valuable to them was the thought that they had done what was right, they have been a “good person.” However, for those calling the cultural shots in our day, freedom is the highest value. The knowledge that I was not coerced or manipulated in any way, that no one was trying to pull the wool over my eyes, that my choices were, indeed, uninfluenced…this, says Keller, drives the heart of contemporary culture.
Of course, there are two problems with our culture’s thinking here. First, is there really anything like an “uninfluenced act” in human experience? This kind of atomistic thinking sees man a bit more radically separated from his environment than he actually is. Human beings are deeply influenced by each other’s actions…especially our words. The connections between our sense of “self” and our environment are much more powerful than we would often like to admit. Every act of mine is “influenced” in some way by the human forces around me.
But the second problem with our culture’s blind pursuit of “freedom” so called is that it fails to account for the fact of man’s design. That is, the self is not random. There is order to our existence in every facet. So persistent is this order that when we violate that design, we experience dysfunction. Our lives fall apart. For instance, if you fail to account for fact that your body runs on food, and instead feed it, say, motor oil, your intestinal tract will begin to experience alienation.
So the question before us is this: what if the human soul has a design, a pattern? And what if my most acute problems in life—heartbreak, loneliness, sadness, bitterness—are all functional results of my pursuit of freedom in a way which violates my soul’s design?
Further, what if when I honor that design (what we call in Christian parlance “obedience”) I actually broaden my human flourishing instead of diminishing it, and thereby, increase the enjoyment of my life? I once heard a preacher tell a story of a Pennsylvania public school system that had a large playground on one end of its property. Over the years, the neighborhood grew up around the school and the streets bordering the playground became busy and full of traffic. Fearing an accident, school administrators put up a large fence all the way around the playground.
Well, parents were deeply offended. It looked like their children were in a prison. The fight became so heated that the conflict went all the way to the city school board where it was decided that the fence would be torn down. What do you think happened the very next day? If you are thinking that a car struck a child, you’d be wrong. The children huddled together in a tiny clump in the middle of the playground, dreadfully afraid of the expanse of the playground all around them.
Do you see the point? The fence actually GAVE them the playground. What if God desperately wants to give this culture the playground? But we are so offended at fences (and screaming “Legalism!” at any sniff of them) that we either race out into dangerous traffic OR we huddle together in tiny clumps, never seeing just how much joy might actually be “out there.”
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Les, Thank you for the apt
Mon, 02/12/2007 - 10:20 — Barrett (not verified)Les,
Thank you for the apt playground metaphor! Since my generation has such a disdain for authority, the fences that give life do seem restricting. As we grow older and mature, the fences become ever more limiting and even evil. For many of us, at the earliest possible moment we reject authority, including parental authority. It is not easy for me to think about myself as a perpetual child, always learning, always growing, always in need of guidance from my Father in heaven (who often times guides me still through my eartly parents, whether I easily accept it). Instead of rejoicing in my position of a child of God, I hate that I never "grow up"--perhaps similar to the first children of God, Adam and Eve? I should rather learn from my Lord Jesus, who was never loath to be called the Son of the Father.
Les, Thanks much. I want to
Mon, 02/12/2007 - 14:49 — Paul (not verified)Les,
Thanks much. I want to push back a bit on a few points, recognizing some of this is well outside the scope of your brief article (and I know how hard these are to write). Thanks for sparking some thinking.
First, (maybe it's the San Francisco in me) something doesn't resonate about the above description of freedom as applied to our generation. I think these are aspects of it, but this is the "freedom from" -- freedom from being (inauthentically) influenced. Maybe I missed it, but there is also the hunger for "freedom to" that permeates our generation-- to be authentic, to discover and be true to one's self, to enjoy and experience and change the world. And at its best, I think this begins to resonate with the end hope of the Gospel (Galatians 5:1, "For freedom Christ has set you free"). I want to guard against a straw man here.
Second, freedom can be dangerous and can be abused (just like "being good" or "obedience" can be abused). But an argument against abuse is not an argument against use.
Third, I'm not sure more "obedience" and authority is the answer to the abuse of freedom challenge of our generation. I think "heartbreak, loneliness, sadness, bitterness" come from abuse of freedom, but also from interacting with a broken world, and a promise that "obedience" will avoid or solve all these pains strikes me as, well, false.
At bottom, I think our generation "gets it" (and gets it right) that freedom involves being who we were meant to be (the design issue), and to the extent we are inauthentic to that we cause ourselves pain. Our generation is also disillusioned with authority because, well, the church has been pretty good at abusing the design/obedience line (e.g., interracial marriage is against design and against the natural order) -- and talking the line about playgrounds while really putting up prisons. Some of this is because the church hasn't known any better than the culture what to do with its freedom.
So what do we do? I think we have been set free not to live out of a design as much as to live out of a call -- and that call is to love God and others, radically. This provides common ground in our generation as well as an answer to the question of what to do with our (incredibly valuable) freedom. To me, it resonates better.
Anyway, thank you again for the inspirational piece. I doubt this was a response you were expecting, and thanks for making me think. Yours sincerely,
Paul
Les, Thanks much. I want to
Mon, 02/12/2007 - 14:54 — Paul (not verified)Les,
Thanks much. I want to push back a bit on a few points, recognizing some of this is well outside the scope of your brief article (and I know how hard these are to write). Thanks for sparking some thinking.
First, (maybe it's the San Francisco in me) something doesn't resonate about the above description of freedom as applied to our generation. I think these are aspects of it, but this is the "freedom from" -- freedom from being (inauthentically) influenced. Maybe I missed it, but there is also the hunger for "freedom to" that permeates our generation-- to be authentic, to discover and be true to one's self, to enjoy and experience and change the world. And at its best, I think this begins to resonate with the end hope of the Gospel (Galatians 5:1, "For freedom Christ has set you free"). I want to guard against a straw man here.
Second, freedom can be dangerous and can be abused (just like "being good" or "obedience" can be abused). But an argument against abuse is not an argument against use.
Third, I'm not sure more "obedience" and authority is the answer to the abuse of freedom challenge of our generation. I think "heartbreak, loneliness, sadness, bitterness" come from abuse of freedom, but also from interacting with a broken world, and a promise that "obedience" will avoid or solve all these pains strikes me as, well, false.
At bottom, I think our generation "gets it" (and gets it right) that freedom involves being who we were meant to be (the design issue), and to the extent we are inauthentic to that we cause ourselves pain. Our generation is also disillusioned with authority because, well, the church has been pretty good at abusing the design/obedience line (e.g., interracial marriage is against design and against the natural order) -- and talking the line about playgrounds while really putting up prisons. Some of this is because the church hasn't known any better than the culture what to do with its freedom.
So what do we do? I think we have been set free not to live out of a design as much as to live out of a call -- and that call is to love God and others, radically. This provides common ground in our generation as well as an answer to the question of what to do with our (incredibly valuable) freedom. To me, it resonates better.
Anyway, thank you again for the inspirational piece. I doubt this was a response you were expecting, and thanks for making me think. Yours sincerely,
Paul
Greetings from
Mon, 02/12/2007 - 19:30 — Kean Loong (not verified)Greetings from Singapore!
First off, I would like to express my thanks to Les for this thought provoking and timely reminder on the dangers of freedom. I write mainly, however to provide some counterpoint to Paul's discussion.
Point in question - we always miscommunicate when we define things differently. Paul is right when he talks of the Bible's definition of freedom - freedom from slavery to sin as per Galatians (ie freedom from the inability to recognise and stop our own sin), as well as freedom from the Law (the Judaic laws as Paul the Apostle mentions) in order to be saved.
However what we see in our current generation (mine included) would be the propensity to take the word freedom and use it for all kinds of freedom issues. Such as - freedom of speech, freedom to do whatever I want, freedom to skip school, freedom to eat unhealthy food, freedom from AUTHORITY (emphasis in caps as I don't know what tags are usable). Is this what the Bible talks about when dealing with freedom? Yet in the case of the parents' outcry about the playground, this is a classic case of carrying freedom too far.
I live in a country where freedom isn't total - and some of my generation continue to chafe at the controls that are imposed such as the draconian law of banning chewing gum. Yet it feels so refreshing to not have to go into a cinema and check your seats in case someone stuck a wad of gum on the chair pad when they last left. Or take controlled speech. We may say that we should have freedom of speech to be totally democratic - but it's so nice not to have to worry about racial riots and unruly mobs. I think one of my American friends summed it up the best (he's been staying here for a while) - "It's a controlled democracy - but it's so nice to be able to walk down the streets in the middle of the night not having to worry about getting mugged."
Now that's going to raise a hornet's nest. :) But I shall now respond directly to Paul's comments.
Firstly, with the definitions as I listed above, I think if we're talking about freedom from sin or Judaic law, then we're on the same page. But if we're looking at general freedom, then I don't think it really resonates with the end hope that the Gospel has. In fact, we are to subject ourselves to our Lord and God - that in itself is not total freedom as defined liberally.
Secondly, even if an argument against abuse isn't an argument against use, it still remains valid as a strongly worded caution. Les is not advocating a total lack of freedom, but a revaluation of the total freedom we hold dear as a complete and total right. Such as the right to abort children, or sleep with whomever we like, whenever. Or the right for teenagers to return home late. Or the right for children to complain about abuse when they have been lightly spanked for being naughty.
Thirdly, disillusionment isn't a valid reason for doing something and calling it right either. If we are unsure, we need to return to God's word. Try Ephesians 6:1 and 6:5 in context, or Heb 13:17. We aren't given much room to say that we don't obey because we are disillusioned - no mention is made of "unless they make mistakes".
However, I agree with you that control can and has been abused. We are called as a people to obey God first and foremost - and that is to love Him and to love our neighbours. The Bible's definition of that is indeed radical, and it is indeed a massive task. But part of loving God is obeying Him, and part of obeying Him is obeying the authorities He placed above us. Even loving others is part of that obedience. I would like to push Paul to think of how more obedience may be necessary, but an obedience always linked to the Bible and God's word to us, an obedience rooted in love for God and for His people. Which means if the church tells you to kill as part of your obedience - return to His word to determine what is right or wrong. It's not about what we think is right - it's about what God's word says, and how we then decide how we should live our lives to reflect God's glory.
In Christ,
Kean Loong
Les, Great post. The idea of
Sat, 02/24/2007 - 17:06 — Paul C. Quillman (not verified)Les,
Great post. The idea of freedom jas been so perverted that we now deal with certain cultural realities that are the un fortunate by-product of a "free for all" understanding of freedom.
PCQ