I think we really don’t know what freedom is. We talk about it. We claim to experience it. But do we really know what it is? I’ve become aware of the fact that we can claim to be free when it is very obvious we are not. We might think we are free. We might feel like we are free. But we don’t realize that we are in fact in some kind of bondage. We are not free, and we don’t have the discernment to understand the insidious nature of our bondage, and we don’t have the language to articulate this bondage.
Fear often blinds us. I’ve often said that fear is a gift to prevent us from harm. Fear is good sometimes. If I’m walking along a path in my wife’s home state of Alabama and I see a snake a few feet away, my immediate reaction is to leap backwards. Fear can prevent physical harm in such situations. But I also think fear applies to our primitive reluctance to walk into freedom. We know, intuitively, the cost of such freedom. We know that it means leaving some comforts and securities behind. It means walking into a pathless land beyond theology, doctrine, rituals, tradition, norms and custom.
Which explains why we can be so wrapped up in our theologies, etc., and think and feel like we are free. It is because they provide a warm security against the truth of reality which seems brutal, cold and fearful to us. The truth is, the beauty of Truth and Love lies beyond our fears. It takes courage, insight and honesty to move into this place beyond fear.
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I recently read Time Magazine’s Person of the Year issue for 2007… the articles on Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia. The more I read the more parallels popped out at me between what Putin is doing in or for Russia and the modern-day church. Here’s the tension: Putin is getting Russia back on the map as a world-player. Wealth is increasing, poverty decreasing, their national debt of 2 billion has been paid off, and on and on. It is almost all because of Putin’s strength, vision and steely determination as a leader. On the other hand, there have been costs to this success: Putin has shut down TV stations and newspapers, jailed businessmen who challenged the Kremlin, neutralized opposition parties and arrested anyone who resisted his rule. In spite of this, Putin’s popularity ratings hover over 70%. The conclusion is that Russians would rather have security and success than liberty. I think as a gloss veneer to the questionable reality, it is called a “sovereign democracy“. As one author, who was persecuted for his writings, put it: “Russians come to love their bonds“.
I by no means wish to insist that this is an easy tension to decipher or solve. In fact, the trend is irresistible. If I were in Russia, which would I prefer? Poverty or liberty? The fact is, Putin’s method of rule seems to be working for Russia’s success on the world stage. But the price seems high to me. Journalists end up missing or murdered. Putin’s regime suggests that this is being done by people wishing to shed Putin in a bad light. Few people would insist that Putin himself would be corrupt. Why, he’s a Christian and reads the Bible! Bush read his soul by looking in his eyes and saw a man of conviction. But the power that he exerts and the regime that surrounds him has created, some believe, this culture of unquestionable autocratic rule. Putin is indeed creating a strong state, and anyone who stands in the way of it (it is implicitly but definitely understood) will pay for it. Some of the dissenting Russian journalists interviewed requested to remain nameless for fear of repercussions. They knew they would lose their jobs, or worse! There is no outright blanket of terror, but it is underwritten throughout the culture that dissent will be isolated and punished.
I am a dissenter. I realize that. But it is because I love the church. Not because I wish to see her destroyed. Who would question the courageous loyalty of a Russian journalist wishing to uncover the questionable policies and practices of their beloved country? This same tension exists in the church as anywhere: we’ve come to love our bonds because we are granted a measure of success by keeping them. The church, I think, is willing to sacrifice basic human and civil liberties for good and noble results. We prefer success or even just stability to freedom of expression. Freedom of expression is messy and unmanageable.
So after I read that issue of time, I set it back down on our coffee table more determined to raise my voice of dissent, to persist in voicing my opinion, and, bottom line, to believe in the Holy Catholic church and the communion of saints at all costs. I will not be enamored by success or relevance in the world if it costs the life or liberty of even just one.
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After this post from the other day, I got some responses that seemed to say, “We’re glad you’re back!” But I’m not back. I haven’t returned the same man. Even though I sensed a strong recall of what I’m to be doing: inviting people to freedom, and once they’re there or on the way, to work to provide a community where this freedom is not jeopardized. And this, I’ve come to experience and know, is rare as hen’s teeth!
You see, once I’d seen the dark side of organized religion and managed spirituality, I would be a fool to go back into it the same way. I have seen the dark side… many times. I could solve it personally by retreating into the solitary life of a hermit. And believe me, I’ve been seriously tempted. But that’s not my task. My task is to do what I said above, and that requires community. How can people be free and also love others? Is it possible for a liberated person to commit themselves to others? Is it possible to be a free person as well as a part of a group or even society? Is it possible to be free as well as responsible? Is it possible to be free and married? Is it possible to be free and have children? Is it possible to be a child and be free? Is it possible to be free at all in community? These are serious questions that must be asked by communities and their so-called “leaders” everywhere, never mind religious ones. But nobody seems to be asking them.
What seems to be consuming our time is exploring how to make our loss of freedom more tolerable. We are more concerned with how to make the community more pious, permanent, plausible and prosperous without making coercion, manipulation, abuse and bondage too obvious or distasteful. We are so into means-to-an-end theology that everybody everywhere seems willing to sacrifice their liberties for the sake of the herd. To me, this is a critical mistake and a fatal error, not only to the individual but to the community. We are like a dysfunctional family protecting an alcoholic. No one’s willing to rock the boat by addressing the real problem. Rather, we tweak, adjust, fine-tune, renovated, reform and accommodate in order for the community to succeed according to its own wishes. There really does seem to be only two options out there: leave the community in order to be free; or give up freedom for the sake of the community. Neither, in my opinion, is healthy or helpful. There must be another way, but so few seem to care.
The fine art photograph is the creation of my friend Howard Nowlan. It is cropped for your viewing pleasure. I used it today in reference to being “back“. Haha.
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David Hayward is a pastor artistically stripping to the essential.
