Some Thoughts on Freedom

The recent annexation of Tibet by Communist China has given me pause for thought about freedom. How I pity any country unjustly invaded and subjected to the oppression of a totalitarian regime! What a great blessing freedom is, and how often we take it for granted.

But what is freedom? Nowadays it is confused with license, and people claim the “right” to do whatever they please without thought for their fellow human beings or the common good of society. So we see sodomy and abortion claimed as “rights” even though both are against the moral law and crimes that call to heaven for vengeance. Both are fatally destructive to the family and to the common good of society. What a vile caricature of freedom it is when such aberrations are called “rights”!

Freedom is a gift from God for one purpose: that we may be free to choose the good and serve God as He intended in this life so as to merit heaven. Freedom brings with it an obligation. We are not morally free to willfully embrace error, to commit sin, to oppress our fellow human beings, or to transgress against the rights of others. We may be free to do these things according to civil law, but we are not free to do them according to God’s law, which is the highest law.

Western civilization became great because it adhered to God’s law, which was reflected in the civil laws of nations. It should come as no surprise, then, that when the Western world abandoned the law of God, tapped into the keg of Liberalism and became inebriated with the strong ale of Humanitarianism, Western civilization went into a tailspin from which recovery seems impossible. Liberty became synonymous with license, and in no little time crimes became “freedoms”. For example, murder of the unborn became “freedom of choice”; the practice of sodomy became “freedom to live an ‘alternative’ lifestyle”; propagation of intellectual error became “freedom of Press”; and atheism became “freedom of religion”. But these aberrations are not freedoms! Is one free when enslaved by ignorance of truth? Is it freedom to be a slave of disordered passion? Is a woman who murders her unborn child a “free woman” or a barbarous monstrosity? Freedom gives us the right to choose the good, not to practice evil.

Is it too late to recover Western civilization? No. With God all things are possible, but without Him we are doomed. When people begin to recognize God’s rights as Creator and Redeemer, and once again take up and live the moral law, our society will slowly climb out of the liberal cesspool which threatens to drown it entirely. But this must be a “grassroots” effort - we must each begin with ourselves. And what is the best way of beginning? By getting down on our knees and raising our hearts to God. He always listens if we are in earnest.