3 ways our most treasured American value stands in the way of us knowing Christ
The United States of America has a very polarized climate nowadays. From both sides of the political aisle, we don’t have a lot in common. On nearly every issue imaginable, conservatives and liberals can find something to disagree on. Through all the battles, though, there’s one value that everyone agrees is among the highest of human goods, and most of our battles center around our different understandings of this shared value, and that is freedom.
The Bible, of course, also talks about freedom. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free,” Paul told the Galatians. James says we are to be judged under the “law of liberty.” Jesus promised that the truth would set us free. Americans are eager to latch on to statements like these and talk about how the American ethos is right in line with the biblical one.
But the American understandings of freedom are not the same as the Bible’s presentation of it. The striking thing about American politics now is that there are Christians on all sides who insist that their values match up with a proper understanding of biblical values, and this includes the value of freedom. And I am convinced that they are all wrong.
Perhaps you may ask, Who cares? No one expects politics to exactly line up with what the Bible says. Politics is about modern issues that the Bible doesn’t address. But it does matter. It matters because many Americans hold freedom to be among the highest human goods, and many Americans read the Bible through the lens of 21st-century American culture. If we look at what the Bible says about freedom and impose our modern American understandings on it, we are not going to understand what Jesus meant when he talked about setting us free. In fact, we will end up pursuing exactly the wrong kind of freedom, and it will keep us from accurately presenting the gospel or growing in our relationship with God.
There are two different ways Americans understand freedom, and they roughly align with the two main political factions in America: conservatives and liberals/progressives.
The conservative understanding of freedom tends to be the freedom to be self-sufficient. You don’t have to depend on the whims of a tyrant king or provision from the government to live your life. You earn what you get, and no one can take it away from you. The conservative understanding of freedom holds up the self-made man who achieved great things through his own hard work and determination, all the while maintaining his integrity. Self-improvement is a major virtue, and helping others improve is one of the most generous things you can do. To many a conservative, that’s what a successful life looks like.
The liberal/progressive understanding of freedom is a little different; the tends to be the freedom to choose. For the recent progressive movement of the last five years, their concept of freedom also highly emphasizes freedom from oppression. You don’t have to conform to what other people expect you to do, or to anyone else’s values. You do what you want, and so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one can take away your choice. The liberal understanding holds up the free-spirited man who follows his dreams, whatever they are, and lives life without regrets, unhindered by the expectations of others. Self-actualization is a major virtue, and helping other people find their own true selves is one of the most generous things you can do. To many a liberal, that’s what a worthwhile life looks like.
Both concepts of freedom are foreign to the freedom Jesus promised us: in one key way for the conservative view, one key way for the liberal view, and an even greater key way for both views.
1) For the conservative view, Jesus had no praise for those who were self-sufficient or thought they had gotten where they were by hard work and integrity. He had no praise for those who took pride in their own abilities or credited themselves for what they had earned. He had no praise for those who thought their earthly achievements and riches mattered at all. Independence from obligation to others is good, but Jesus taught that no life could be worthwhile without total dependence on our heavenly Father. He not only saves us from our sins, but gives us every breath. Anything we are able to do is because God graciously bestowed upon us the ability to do it. During a July 2012 debate, then-President Obama famously said, “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.” Conservatives were angered by this statement, and in context he was referring to all the work other people did that led up to your success, but at the core of his statement he was right. You didn’t build it — God did. And when you stand before God at the judgment, he won’t ask how much you accomplished or how hard you worked to achieve your dreams. He’ll ask what you did for the kingdom of God.
2) For the liberal view, living with complete freedom of choice is not what it appears to be. Some people see God’s commands as limiting our freedom because they restrict us from so much. Why shouldn’t we be able to do what we want? Why shouldn’t we have freedom of choice, so long as we don’t hurt anyone else? Because total freedom of choice is a delusion. What appears to us to be freedom is in fact slavery. We might think we’re breaking free from the bonds of others’ expectations and traditional norms if we decide to live a life without worrying about what God commands, but in reality we are enslaving ourselves to something else: the unbreakable power of sin. We think we are breaking free from hindrance and oppression, when in reality we are creating it for ourselves.
3) Both views tend to direct our attention toward the affairs of this world, and toward attaining freedom as the highest of goods in this world…and completely neglect preparing for the next. Behind each of these ideas is that if the world would just follow this principle and grant everyone this kind of freedom, the world would be a sort of utopia. And so we should devote all our energy and time into making this world like that … instead of worrying about that other world up there.
But according to Jesus, that world that’s not quite here yet — the kingdom of God — is the world that matters most. This world is just the preparation for it. It’s not that we shouldn’t try to make this world better, but improving this world is not the end goal of our lives. We can’t put our ultimate hope in this world. And when we start blending the gospel with our American ideals of freedom, that’s exactly what we are prone to doing. We’re prone to making the gospel about experiencing our best life now in this world, at the expense of preparing for the next. We’re prone to storing up treasures here on earth for ourselves that are going to be completely annihilated at the end of this age. That’s not what we were designed to live for.
If we misunderstand what Jesus says when he offers us freedom, we will not have the kind of relationship with him we were meant to have, and we may totally misunderstand what a relationship with him even means. If we understand the freedom Jesus gives us as the freedom to be self-sufficient, then we will start giving ourselves credit for what we do instead of God. If we understand the freedom Jesus gives us as the freedom to choose whatever we want, we will start making excuses for sinful behavior. But if we understand freedom as Jesus meant it — the freedom to live as God designed us to live, in relationship with him — then we will know him.
