Everyone Claims Freedom Today–But What is Freedom?

With all the shouting today about “freedom from,” it’s time to remember that an equal or deeper freedom is “freedom for.”
 
Freedom “From” 
 
It’s not often that a Bible verse finds its way into American history, but this one did: “A city set on a hill cannot be hid.” (Mat. 5:14) 
 
The Puritans who came to New England were not simply seeking freedom from an oppressive state church in England. According to their own writings, they were coming, as they put it, “on an errand into the wilderness to establish a “city on a hill.” They came to rocky New England shores to demonstrate the possibility of a truly Christian society, that would become a beacon light to the decadent societies of Europe.
 
Unmentioned in most of our history classes, the Puritans believed once Europe saw their “city on a hill,” they would be asked to return to Europe and found a new social order. That invitation never came.  But the Puritans contributed mightily to the idea that America was founded on by those seeking religious freedom. 

(Of course, by far the majority of the new colonies were founded by the ‘venture capitalists’ of their day for a very different reason–extracting profit, pure and simple.  That story is well-told in a book I just finished reading: American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, Colin Woodward)
 
20^th century historians also showed us that American icons like the landing at Plymouth Rock and the first Thanksgiving hid a darker underside of Puritan life.  They were so convinced they had the right ideas and that God was on their side, they brooked little disagreement .  Quakers, Baptists or others of dubious theology were banished (or worse) from the Massachusetts Bay colony.   Indians were evangelized, but also at times grossly mistreated.

Yes, the Puritans crossed an ocean seeking “freedom from” religious tyranny, but when in power themselves, they selectively denied that same freedom to others.
 
Yet while religious people (and others) today use the Puritans as our founding story of “freedom from,” the Puritans had an even deeper commitment to “freedom for.”  This is what their “city on a hill” was all about, although that part of their story is now hidden or lost.

One historian has written “John Calvin stands out in the history of the church as one who was more vividly aware than almost any other of the mighty working of God in human history and of God’s call to his people for service in the world.”
 
How did Calvin and those who followed him gain this vision of God’s call to serve the world around us? They read the Old Testament prophets and saw how again and again the Lord calls his people on the carpet for neglecting to care for their communities, especially rejecting the poor and denying them justice.

Calvin and those who followed him saw their obligation to care about the social order around them–fighting injustice, caring for the poor, the hungry, the hurting–all because GOD obviously cared about all these things. 
 
In one of my favorite quotes, the great Dutch Calvinist preacher Abraham Kuyper captured the impulse that motivated the Puritans:

“No single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’

What are the implications of Jesus’ claim to be sovereign over all? 

• Jesus Christ looks at each of our careers, our homes, our incomes, and cries  “Mine!” 
• Jesus Christ looks at our hobbies, our boats, our second homes, our sports, our TV and movie watching and cries “Mine!”  
• Jesus Christ looks at our retirement plans, our investments, how we spend every hour of the day, and cries “Mine!”  

But that’s just on the individual plane.  More difficult for some of us to accept is the fact that, if Jesus is indeed sovereign over all, he makes demands on us socially as well: 

• Jesus Christ looks at our political parties and how they operate, how we conduct our economy, how our justice system works and cries “Mine!” 
• Jesus Christ looks at how our police treat those they are sworn to protect and cries “Mine!” 
• Jesus Christ looks at homeless people shuffling along sidewalks, at how we care for our elderly and most vulnerable fellow citizens, at how we treat the immigrant and sojourner in our land (you would be surprised how many OT verses uphold immigrants) and cries “Mine!”  

Study social reform in American history—whether it be the abolitionist movement against slavery in the early 1800’s, or campaigns for decent living conditions in teeming cities of early 1900’s, or the civil rights movements in the 1960’s–and you’ll find Christians who are descendants of John Calvin and the Puritans in the center of every issue. 
 
Here’s the point: The Puritans used their freedom for something larger than themselves!  They were free to build a community they believed would honor God. Yes, they made many mistakes along the way–many mistakes we Christians continue to make today. 
 
But the Puritans had a high value for the “common good,” which to some today seems superfluous.   Freedom to do whatever I want (and who cares about anyone else) is simply selfishness.  It is not Christian. It is also not the religious freedom on which America was founded, nor the freedom that America has expressed (often very imperfectly) to the world throughout most of its history.
 
Jesus uses the phrase “city set on a hill” as he calls for his disciples to be light to the world (Mt. 5:14), light that reveals to a surrounding world what the Kingdom of God looks and feels like. 
 
This time of national crisis, and especially the recent protests of police brutality, is a good time to ask: what is our freedom for?  As Americans we have the freedom to disagree and express our diverse opinions. We also have the freedom to act responsibly for the greater good–and especially the good of the most vulnerable and marginalized among us.

At times like this, expressing and acting on our freedom should ultimately pull us together, not tear us apart. And if this is true for all of us, it should especially be true of Christians, who Jesus calls to be his salt and light.