Monthly archive: July, 2009

Why we were made for freedom

July 30, 2009, by No comments yet

Great quote from Murray Rothbard:

If men were like ants, there would be no interest in human freedom. If individual men, like ants, were uniform, interchangeable, devoid of specific personality traits of their own, then who would care whether they were free or not? Who, indeed, would care if they lived or died? The glory of the human race is the uniqueness of each individual, the fact that every person, though similar in many ways to others, possesses a completely individuated personality of his own. It is the fact of each person’s uniqueness—the fact that no two people can be wholly interchangeable—that makes each and every man irreplaceable and that makes us care whether he lives or dies, whether he is happy or oppressed. And, finally, it is the fact that these unique personalities need freedom for their full development that constitutes one of the major arguments for a free society.

Doug

Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.

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The Common Good Gospel

July 27, 2009, by No comments yet

One of the fallacies I learned after I left college, and when I got to seminary, was the belief that the gospel of Jesus Christ was all about our private, inner lives. I grew up believing that a “social gospel” was not the true gospel, and that people accepting Jesus into their hearts and obeying the Bible was the “pure gospel.” In seminary, I learned so much more about how the gospel is not only personal, it is also politically, socially, and culturally subversive. I learned that Jesus didn’t come to save individuals so they could go to heaven when they die (funny how he never taught that in the Gospels, yet it became a core part of protestant theology). Jesus came to reconcile humanity and creation to himself.

Back in the Garden of Eden, human beings began a course that not only separated them from fellowship with God, it separated them from fellowship with the creation. The decision to rebel was a decision that affected the whole of Creation, not just the inward and private lives of individuals. God’s plan from that point forward was to reconcile humanity to himself for the purpose of rescuing those who had gone astray, and to manifest his own glory among his Creation as it was in Eden.

When Jesus came, he preached the good news, not only that individuals could be reconciled to God, but also that the whole of Creation could be and someday would be reconciled to God. He began his Kingdom, a movement so revolutionary that it was to affect every part of the lives of those who were to be part of it. It affected the way they treated one another, the way they treated the poor, the way they treated the sick, and the way they treated the environment. Jesus’ followers were not just to be better people for the sake of being better people, but they were to be a blessing to the world. Even those who did not follow Jesus would and could benefit greatly from its presence in their lives.

So I empathize and affirm greatly the gospel that preaches to society, not just to individuals. I wince at the phraseology of preachers when they speak to individuals only, as if Jesus were a commodity to purchase by individuals solely for the benefit of going to heaven when they die (with a few benefits while here on earth). If you want to preach the whole gospel, then preach the whole gospel, which includes the social elements as well.

As individuals we are called by Jesus Christ to follow him and join his revolutionary movement to change the world. When we work together, we do much better than if we try to do it on our own. In the book of Acts, the apostles and followers of Jesus joined together, sold their possessions, and lived together in such a way as to live out the Kingdom. I believe that the fundamental reason this was successful to a large extent was the degree to which joining this revolutionary community was voluntary. It was done by willing individuals because they believed in what they were doing. It was effective because all were focused on a common good, and were agreed as to what that common good was.

In today’s world, our political leaders and many Christian leaders who claim to be “progressive,” are leading the “common good” charge, claiming that if we all work together, we can accomplish more. So far as it goes, this is certainly true. But at what point is banding together as citizens a replacement for the community called the Church? What at what point do we confusingly (yet cleverly) equivocate on what it means to be part of a group dedicated for the common good? When does “common good” become camouflage for the power to manipulate or orchestrate society to an agenda?

Banding together to do good is one thing. Making people band together to do the good you want them to do is quite another. Seeking out people to join a revolution is a noble and worthy cause, and is what Jesus called us to do as Kingdom people. Dragging people along behind you against their will to accomplish Kingdom goals is certainly not what Jesus had in mind when he said, “Go and make disciples.”

Doug

Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.

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Toddlers and Freedom

July 7, 2009, by 2 comments

[Postscript: My wife insists that I've painted a bad picture of our household by the way I've crafted my story below. It was never my intent to impress upon readers that our house is a bedlam or that our son runs the show. Our son is very well-behaved, but he's not perfect; he picks up his toys when we request it of him, and he goes to bed extremely well with nary a fight 99% of the time. The freedoms he enjoys is in large part due to the boundaries we place around him. And for the record, he's never broken a lamp...yet!]

Our home is not particularly messy. My wife keeps things clean, and I tend to keep things orderly. We have an upstairs, a downstairs, and a finished basement where we have an office/playroom and a living room where we hang out. We have two children, one of which who is a toddler, and he is very much on the go and exploring everything. Needless to say, there are toys and remnants of toys strewn throughout the house. And since toys are not sufficient enough to keep our little boy occupied forever, hair brushes, deodorant sticks, and other various everyday “stuff” is also around somewhere.

Tonight, I realized that I actually relish seeing a few things scattered throughout the house (most of the unkempt stuff is upstairs contained within three small bedrooms and a short hallway). Why? Because it is a sign of childhood freedom. My son has the freedom to play without fear of being chastised for every little deed. He has the freedom to go upstairs, downstairs, and he has the choice to play in whatever room he wishes. He’s a pretty safe guy, and understands his limitations (for the most part), and we’re sure to keep him alive.

As parents, we are very much aware of the distraction and burden of children; no matter how much we delight in them, enjoy them, and love them to death, they slow us down and cause us pain and irritation. Every now and then, returning them to the baby factory for a few hours would be the course of action were it actually an option.

As a parent, I’ve had to wake up to the cold, hard fact that children are not perfect. They make choices we don’t like. They make dangerous decisions, sometimes with dangerous consequences. They act deceitfully, perform deeds behind our backs, or trick us into believing they “accidentally” spilled the juice. In short, they create a world where we must accept their choices, good or bad, and live with them. We can choose to accept those choices, or we can try to stop every bad choice, prevent every bad fall, cover up all consequences, and consider them “too little to fail.” But that would not only deprive them of maturity and growth, it would be contrary to our responsibilities as parents and fellow human beings to respect their individuality. If they were made in God’s image, we must respect them as God’s image-bearers in the world, and delight in their unique ability to display God’s glory in ways that we cannot.

One of the reasons I don’t mind the toys strewn about the upstairs is that it reminds me of the vision of society I share with millions of other Americans. That vision is one where individuals run free, hindered only by their limitation to harm someone else. There are two competing visions of society——one in which individuals must be able to freely choose actions that benefit them without doing harm to another, and another in which some people are rightfully wiser than others and should arrange the rules in such a way that manage the rest of us. The former treats individuals with respect, believing their rights trump the rights of a “collective” or “common good.” The latter look at people collectively and treats them as part of a greater cause, dispensable if necessary to that cause. (For those of you who would try to reconcile these with a both/and response to my either/or proposition, remember that you cannot treat somebody as unique and an individual, then deny him his individual rights by claiming he is part of a greater cause and forcing him to give up his rights. You cannot reconcile contradictory themes.)

Those scattered toys remind me that living with the freedom to make choices is more important than engineering society in such a way that everything works out perfectly, fairly, equitably, and equally. I’m not God, I cannot guarantee those things; neither can any politician or president. I’d love for my son to put everything away exactly as he found it; I’d love it if he always went to bed without a fuss; I’d love it if he never threw the ball and broke the lamp. But I live in the real world, and in the real world the freedom to play is the freedom to make mistakes.

Doug

Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.

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The Root of All Evil: Part 2

July 1, 2009, by No comments yet

In an earlier post, I wrote about the need to ask good questions, no matter how satisfactory the answers are to the ones we currently ask. They’re simply not good enough if we’re asking the wrong questions. I followed that post with Part 1 of a series, “The Root of All Evil.” In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul wrote that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. In today’s world, controlling money, and using that control for one’s advantage, is surely even worse than merely wanting more money. Or, as John Piper explains, money is a symbol of buying power, or “stuff,” and even the old translation, “the root of all evil” (as opposed to “all kinds of”) is accurate.

Regardless, understanding the Federal Reserve System is key to understanding our monetary problem. Below is a video that describes the operations of the Fed, and an explanation as to why the Fed is responsible for so many misdeeds.

Doug

Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.

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