Enjoying and Expanding Liberty

Liberty is the fourth of “the 4-Ls,” and this post is the last of the five-part series that I started on March 9—and it is not completely coincidental that I have written this article in Liberty (Mo.) where my wife and I have lived since 2005.**

The school song of Seinan Gakuin, the large school system in Fukuoka City, Japan, where I served for 36 years (1968~2004) as a university professor and the last eight of those years as Chancellor, contains the Japanese words for Life, Love, and Light, the first three of the 4-Ls.

But I thought/think Liberty needed/needs to be emphasized also. 

In my May 10 post on Light, I linked light to truth—and then truth is linked to Jesus’ words about freedom/liberty in John 8:32: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (CEV). And there are other important words about freedom/liberty in the New Testament.

According to Luke 4:18, in the synagogue of Nazareth, Jesus read these words from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me…To proclaim liberty to the captives…To set at liberty those who are oppressed.” Then Galatians 5:1 says, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free” (NKJV).

Since I was emphasizing the 4-Ls at Seinan Gakuin where about 98% of the students and more than half of the faculty and staff were not Christians, I didn’t talk/write a lot about these Bible verses. But I did regularly emphasize the close connection of liberty to the light of truth.

Also, I always talked about liberty being accompanied by responsibility, emphasizing that true liberty doesn’t mean freedom to do as one pleases; it is not a license for self-centeredness. Liberty means we are not enslaved by another person or by the power of any ideology (“ism”).

There is both negative and positive liberty, and both are important. Negative liberty means freedom from, but positive liberty means freedom for—and emphasis on the former should include stress on the importance of the latter.

Serious problems arise when only negative liberty is emphasized and liberty is used in inappropriate ways. For example, liberty is misused when it means “free speech for me but not for thee.”*¹ In this connection, consider these limited and inferior uses of liberty/freedom in the U.S. now.

◈ The “Freedom Caucus” in the U.S. Congress. According to Wikipedia, this U.S. House caucus was formed by Republican Representatives in January 2015 and “is generally considered to be the most conservative and furthest-right Congressional bloc.”

◈ “Freedom Summer” in Florida. As part of what Florida Governor DeSantis calls by that name, his Transportation Department has declared that only the colors red, white and blue can be used to light up bridges across the state. (For what that implies, see this May 23 Washington Post article.)

◈ Liberty University in Virginia. Jerry Falwell’s university changed its name to Liberty Baptist College in 1976 and to Liberty University in 1985. A Washington Post March 2015 article was titled, “Virginia’s Liberty University: A mega-college and Republican presidential stage.”

Liberty, nonetheless, is an important traditional value of the USA. The Declaration of Independence speaks of the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” And since 1831 Americans have sung about their nation being the “sweet land of liberty.”  

Even though the scope of those thought to have the unalienable right of liberty in 1776 or 1831—or even in 1942 when the Pledge of Allegiance was officially adopted—was much too narrow, it has increasingly been recognized as meaning liberty and justice for all.*²

On January 6, 1941, President Roosevelt delivered what is known as the Four Freedoms speech, declaring that people "everywhere in the world" ought to have freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

These are freedoms that we all should be able to enjoy and seek to expand. And the liberty expressed in those four freedoms is still badly needed in the world today.

Further, we citizens of the USA must work energetically to preserve those (and other) freedoms in the light of the Christian nationalists who are seeking theocracy and of the Republican candidate for President, whose speeches (past and present) evidence racism, xenophobia, and a trend toward authoritarianism (fascism?).

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*¹ My wife and I moved to Liberty about three months after our marriage in 1957 and enrolled as students in William Jewell College, from which we graduated 65 years ago this month. We lived in Liberty again during the 1976-77 academic year. Then we bought our retirement home in Liberty and have never regretted our choice in the least. Somewhat tongue in cheek, I have sometimes said, slightly altering Paul Revere’s famous words, Give me Liberty until my death.

*² These words, harking back to 1798, are the title of the editorial in the March/April 2022 issue of Liberty magazine, a Seventh-day Adventist publication established in 1906. Please take a look at this article if you want to learn more about the context and meaning of those words.

*³ The U.S. Pledge of Allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy in 1892. The original version was later expanded, but from the beginning, it ended with the words “with Liberty and Justice for all.” For more about this, see my August 30, 2021, blog post about Bellamy (here).

Note: It is also problematic when liberty is conflated with libertarianism. That political philosophy, which over-emphasizes negative liberty, strongly values individual freedom and is skeptical about the justified scope of government, especially the federal government. 

Resisting White Christian Nationalism

“Christian nationalism” has become a widely maligned target for many in the mainstream and left-wing news media, for many former (especially “exvangelical”) Christians, and for many “nones.” But there are also Christians who (mistakenly, I believe) promote that position.

The term “Christian nationalism” is used, and misused, in a variety of ways, and it is not easy to define it non-controversially. Here, though, is a succinct definition by two sociologists that gets to the heart of the matter:

Christian nationalism is a cultural framework…that idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civic life.*¹  

MORE² is a local group in the Kansas City area,*² and its “clergy caucus” is actively resisting White Christian nationalism—and it should be recognized upfront that Christian nationalism is largely promoted and abetted by White (and male) Christians.

The picture above is of a poster given to each of us who attended the May 9 rally sponsored by MORE² and held in Quindaro, Kansas City (Kan.). Stephen Jones, co-pastor of the First Baptist Church of Kansas City (Mo.), is the leader of the clergy caucus, and his church emphasizes the Beloved Community.

There are many good resources for learning/sharing about the meaning of White Christian nationalism and its threat to democracy and religious freedom in the U.S. Here are some of those for you to consider:

◈ The Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty (BJC) has long been working on issues related to religious freedom and church-state separation. At the meeting on resisting Christian nationalism organized by Pastor Jones in Kansas City on March 7, a staff member from BJC was the guest speaker.

In 2019, the BJC launched a new movement called “Christians Against Christian Nationalism.” In December 2022, Time magazine ran a rather lengthy article about Amanda Tyler, the executive director of the BJC, and the work of that new group she started.

◈ The documentary movie Bad Faith was released on March 29, and it is a highly informative film depicting the growth of the Christian nationalist movement in the U.S. from the 1970s to the present. I encourage you to read about this powerful film on their website*²—and to see it, if possible.

In stark contrast to my high praise of Bad Faith, it is strongly criticized by some conservative evangelicals. For example, a review on MovieGuide.org says that it is “a bad, abhorrent piece of progressive propaganda” produced by “Christian socialists” such as William Barber, the “heretical black activist.”

◈ Jim Wallis’s new book The False White Gospel was published on April 4, and as I wrote in my review of that book,*⁴ he avers that the old heresy of white supremacy is now operating with a new name: white Christian nationalism.

That heresy, he says, is “the single greatest threat to democracy in America and to the integrity of the Christian witness” (p. 17). 

◈ The Summit for Religious Freedom, conducted by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State (AU) was held in Washington D.C. on April 14. The May issue of Church and State (C&S), AU’s monthly periodical, is largely about that. I encourage you to read about it here. *⁵

As Rachel Laser, the Jewish woman who is the president and CEO of AU, writes in the above issue of C&S, “The wall of separation between church and state is not a wall that divides us; it’s a wall that unites us—that ensures no one is favored, that allows us to thrive in our differences.”

In summary, we who oppose White Christian nationalism need to clearly state what we are for, not just what we are against (as Wallis emphasizes in the last chapter of his book). Broadly speaking, we are for the freedom of religion for everyone.

We are also for the freedom of Black people, Latinx people, Indigenous people, LGBTQ people, immigrants seeking asylum, and others who are so often mistreated and scorned by those who foster Christian nationalism. (I will be writing more about freedom (= Liberty) in my blog post planned for May 30.)

Let’s resist White Christian nationalism and welcome all into the Beloved Community!

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*¹ Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God (2020), p. 10. Whitehead is also the author of American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church (2023).

*² MORE² stands for the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity. It was formed in 2004 and is financed by supporting “members,” most of whom are churches in the area, now including Rainbow Mennonite Church (where I am a member). Ruth Harder (my pastor) spoke at the beginning and end of the May 9 rally.

*³ One of the many prominent progressive Christians speaking in that documentary is Randall Balmer, an ordained Episcopal priest and a professor of religion at Dartmouth College. Balmer (b. 1954) is also the author of Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right (2021). Further, last month he wrote an important article on Christian nationalism, published here.

*⁴ The book review I submitted to The Englewood Review of Books (ERB) last week is available for your consideration here. It should be available on the ERB website before long.

*⁵ Last week I learned that after 20 years of writing for Baptists Today, Baptist News Global, and Good Faith Media, Thinking Friend Bruce Gourley has become the new editor of Church and State.  

 

Receiving and Reflecting Light

This is the fourth post in my 4-Ls series introduced on March 9 and continued with articles about Life (March 30) and Love (April 20). I plan to conclude this series with a post about Liberty on May 30. But now, let’s focus on Light,  the third of the 4-Ls. 

Light is a pervasive symbol in world religions and has played a central role not only in Christianity but also in the histories of Judaism, Islam, and some Hindu and Buddhist traditions, including some new Japanese religions.*¹

Light and darkness are prevalent symbols in the Bible. The opening verses of the Gospel of John state, “What came into being through the Word was life, and the life was the light for all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light” (vv. 3b~5, CEB, bolding added).

“Word” is the translation of the Greek logos, which has a broad and deep meaning, expressed as Tao in China and as dharma in India. Thus, the light of the logos has enabled the Chinese to speak of Heaven, the Asian Indians to speak of Brahman, and the Native Americans to speak of the Great Spirit.

According to John’s Gospel, “The Word became flesh and made his home among us” (1:14). Further, John reports Jesus saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me won’t walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (8:12).

These words are best interpreted not in a narrow, exclusivistic sense but inclusively, seeing Jesus as the “cosmic Christ.”*²

In his epic poem Paradise Lost, John Milton in the 17^th century referred to Satan as “the Prince of Darkness,” the embodiment of evil. The Gospel of John says that the devil (=Satan) is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). By contrast, light dispels the darkness of ignorance and illuminates truth.

The English word enlightenment is often used to refer to a core emphasis in Hinduism and especially Buddhism, but the core idea of the Sanskrit words moksha and bodhi is more about being liberated and/or awakening rather than being enlightened.

A major intellectual and philosophical movement that occurred in Europe in the 17^th and 18^th centuries has long been called “the Enlightenment.” This new emphasis on using human reason and empirical science was an important development in human history.

But there was a basic problem: it was right in what it affirmed but wrong in what it denied. Yes, the light of reason is important for understanding the truth about the physical world. But the physical sciences can’t explain the truth about everything, especially the non-physical realm of reality.

Thus, my emphasis on the light of truth has long been, and still is, on faith and science rather than science without faith (or faith without science). It has also been on revelation and reason, rather than science without revelation (or revelation without science).*³ And I am convinced that “all truth is God’s truth.”

We are all called to receive and to reflect the light of truth. According to John, Jesus invited people to “believe in the light so that you might become people whose lives are determined by the light” (12:36). If our lives are determined by the light of truth, we will be an influence for good in the world.

This influence is not spread just by “religious” activity. Consider, for example, these notable people who reflected/reflect the light of truth in the world around them:

◈ Abraham Lincoln was a man whose remarkable life was determined by the light. Historian Jon Meacham’s nearly 700-page biography of Lincoln is titled And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle (2022), and as he wrote in the Prologue, Lincoln “shed that light in the darkest of hours.”

◈ Ida B. Wells (1862~1931) was a noted civil rights activist and investigative journalist. In 2021, The Light of Truth: Ida B. Wells National Monument was unveiled in Chicago. The sculpture takes its name from Ms. Wells’s oft-quoted words, "The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them."*⁴

◈ Ahmad Abu Monshar, a Palestinian man, and the Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT) Palestine have produced Light, a documentary film that premieres online on May 18. A CPT spokesperson invites us to join them in finding the light to carry us all through the long struggle toward justice. 

How can each of us become better receivers and reflectors of light?

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*¹ Mahikari (“true light”) is the name of a new Japanese religion, founded in 1959. and now with over one million members worldwide, including a Facebook friend Susan Nakao and her Japanese husband Koji who live in Pomona, Kansas (about 75 miles from my home in Liberty, Missouri), and head one of the Mahikari centers in the U.S.

*² This is an important claim about Jesus, and I invite you to read what I have written about this in past blogs (on 10/15/15 and 1/30/18) as well as briefly in my book The Limits of Liberalism (2010, 2020, pp. 232-3)

*³ I remain indebted to Swiss theologian Emil Brunner for his book titled (in English translation) Revelation and Reason: The Christian Doctrine of Faith and Knowledge (1946), one of the most important books I read as a seminary student. Offenbarung und Vernunft, the German edition, was originally published in 1941.

*⁴ My blog post on March 25, 2021, is partly about Ida B. Wells and mentions that a 2014 anthology of her writings is titled The Light of Truth: Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader.