1-31-11<\/p>\n
Recently in this space we regretted aspects of contemporary American life that tend to turn many a meaningful thing into meaningless bling. Our sound-bite society has been fed, and therefore has come to prefer, life\u2019s pleasures as if they are spectaculars on an IMAX screen; and life\u2019s challenges to be as brief as\u00a0 downloads on an iPod.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019Tis a Gift Be Simple,\u201d\u00a0began the old Shaker hymn of the 1840s. At one time\u00a0this could have been the anthem of the American folk. Modesty, industry, simplicity: not goals inculcated by teaching and preaching, but ways of life, of living and giving; willingly embraced.<\/p>\n
The next line of the sacred American folk hymn is significant today, perhaps honored most in the breach. \u201c\u2018Tis a gift to be free.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like many virtues, \u201cfreedom\u201d is inchoate. Is it the right of Americans? Is it a birthright \u2013 inherited but able to be squandered? Freedom from what? Free to do what? Jesus said, \u201cYou will know the truth, and the truth will set you free\u201d (John 8:32). Free from sin; and there is no other way to this glorious freedom. At the same time, we are free to<\/em> sin. In Galatians (5:13) we are told, \u201cYou were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity to indulge your flesh, but through love serve one another.\u201d<\/p>\n It would seem that, more than a right, freedom is a gift. A gift of God, not of governments or any other agencies of man. Not an entitlement to be indulged, but a privilege to be worthy of\u2026 to become worthy of. Continually.<\/p>\n The question in those lights is pertinent this week. Societies squandering their rights, people rallying to demand their rights, and regimes denying rights, are all in the news. Street protests across the Arab world are being met by repression… and leaders who flee with their lives.\u00a0We find ourselves suddenly in a historical moment, as during the French Revolution or the fall of Communism, when hour by hour, seismic changes occur. Scenarios that seemed impossible yesterday are reality today, and might be obsolete tomorrow.\u00a0Political boundaries might not be changing,\u00a0but societies are transformed overnight.\u00a0\u201cThe old order changeth.\u201d<\/p>\n Also this week, Freedom House, a human-rights group, issued its annual report. It documented \u201cthe longest continuous period of decline since it began compiling the annual index nearly 40 years ago,\u201d according to Agence France-Presse.<\/p>\n Repression and widespread denial of rights is nearing levels of the post-Cold War era, the report says. Areas of deep concern include press freedom, political and civil rights, ethnic prejudice, forced prostitution, arms and drug traffic, corruption, slavery, and genocide. Two fewer governments than in the previous report are characterized as \u201cfree\u201d (87 countries in all; only 43 per cent of the world\u2019s population). And, alarmingly, religious persecution and deadly violence sharply\u00a0are increasing. We read the news; we see the reports \u2013 and yet we don\u2019t know a fraction of the horrible occurrences.<\/p>\n Christians frequently are the targets of prejudice these days, in democracies that are familiar to us; and expulsion\u00a0or murder, in countries that are strange to us. It increasingly seems that the strange is becoming familiar, and the familiar is becoming strange.<\/p>\n A thousand years ago, there were lands of legend \u2013 not only of fiction \u2013 where individuals had to fight for freedom, defend their faith, and \u201cearn their spurs.\u201d And they did! Today, in this land, if it were to become the case that it is against the law to be a Christian\u2026 would there be enough evidence to convict you?<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n Here is a song about that time in history, when knights earned their spurs, standing for God and valor when \u201cfreedoms\u201d were not automatic. It is sung by the London boys choir Libera.<\/p>\n