IS FREEDOM AN ILLUSION?

Happy Fourth of July! At the suggestion of a reader, today’s posting is a reprise of one originally published on May 31, 2013

I do not have in mind political freedom, which is always limited. Fortunately in a representative democracy, however, the citizen has a voice in setting the limits and deciding how free "freedom" should be. Political freedom is not absolute. Ideally laws are drafted to give all groups the greatest amount of freedom possible under the law in a way that does not unnecessarily abridge the freedom of others who share minority views. So in a representative democracy all give a little to get a little.

       In this essay, however, I have in mind the ability of individuals to make decisions that have not been influenced, whether overtly or subtly, by their environment. From the earliest moments in life no one can independently envision their course of life. You cannot pick your parents, their social and economic status, or their prospects. You take what fate decrees for you. You cannot pick where you were born. Your birthplace is chosen by your mother. You cannot pick your native language, your skin color, or nationality. All these things happen by chance. Your religion or non-religion in the early years is the choice of your parents whom you did not pick. You are indoctrinated by their religious views, or lack thereof. You do not choose in the lower grades your educational institutions. Schooling hinges on where you live and/or your parents' economic circumstances. So the attitudes, values, quality and kind of instruction, inductively learned prejudices in the region where you live, and the acquired knowledge (both formal and cultural), which subtly mold and shape you, are also not of your own choosing. Your socialization happens almost by osmosis. By the time you think you have gained control from the dominant powers in your life (parents, local educational and political systems, religious institutions, regional cultural mores, etc.) you have already become something that may not be able to be changed, even if the thought occurred to you to do so. Your future choices have already been influenced by the powers outside you in your past. Thus people are free only to the extent that they can escape their own pasts.

       In later life you find yourself immersed in a culture whose expectations, moral values, and ideals demand compliance if you are to live successfully in society. The compliant are rewarded with status in the community and those who resist are marginalized. In later years you marry and become focused on job and advancement—each economic institution has its own rules that must be mastered. There are children to be tended, a home to be kept up to community standards, taxes to be paid, medical bills to be met, the children's future to consider, and retirement to be planned for. The demands are such that you have little time to give to abstract things as thinking about becoming—and anyway you have already "become" by buying into or resisting the culture and its expectations. You simply meet the requirements, without thinking, or challenge the expectations. In any case you are simply too far in to life to make radical changes.

       Nearing the age of retirement, some do find time for reflecting on where life has brought them, or perhaps better: on what their past and present have made them. In retrospect, they look back over their lives searching for the turning points that shaped them.

       Religion is part of the problem rather than the solution. All religions claim to possess Truth, particularly the missionary religions in their traditional forms: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. All three of these have attached themselves to certain cultures sympathetic to their religious systems.  They reciprocate symbiotically by helping to reinforce the cultural norms in their chosen societies.  This has always been the case with Christianity, for example. In the first century Paul urged his churches to be subject to the governing authorities, "for there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God" (Romans 13:1-7)—and he said this about the Roman Empire, no less! The author of Revelation, whose time and situation were different, disagreed—calling the Roman Empire "Babylon the Great, a dwelling place of demons" (Revelation 18) and "mother of harlots" (Revelation 17:5). Paul, a Roman citizen found in the Empire a symbiotic partner; the writer of Revelation did not.

       Christianity in America thinks of its gospel as "freeing." Jesus said to the Jews "who believed in him": "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). And Paul wrote: "For Freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1). He of course was talking about freedom from the Jewish Torah. But Christianity has assimilated to American culture and its political system to such an extent that "Americanism" has become a synonym for "Christian." The American flag is displayed in churches, the pledge of Allegiance is taught to children in church schools, and patriotic songs are sung in worship. Not all churches are as blatant about the "Americanism" in their religious programs, however. Nevertheless, the religious instruction and preaching in mainstream churches aim to produce good Christian citizens who reflect American societal norms, so that their lives reflect well on the church, something the early churches were concerned about as well (1 Thessalonians 4:10-12; 1 Peter2:13-15; Titus 3:1-2). The early churches rejected the radical ethics of Jesus (if they happened to remember them) and turned to the ethical values (called "household codes") that governed private life in the early Roman Empire (for example, Colossians 3:18-4:1).

       Growing up in a lower middle class family in the Mississippi Delta in the 40s and 50s leaves me to wonder just how free I really was.

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

CHRISTMAS IN AMERICA

               Christmas in America has something for virtually everyone—even Scrooges and Crachits.  Ancient customs (Christian and non-Christian) and modern secular traditions have become so intermingled that it is difficult to distinguish the individual trees from the Christmas forest.  Christmas in the marketplace now begins before Thanksgiving and ends sometime after the beginning of the New Year (or whenever you take down the tree).  Merchants capitalize on every aspect of Christmas from Rudolph to the crèche, and entertain our shopping with both secular and religious Christmas music. Marketing at Christmas is highly successful, and we all have the mood to be separated from our money—gift giving and/or donating to obscure charities (after a second trip to the wassail bowl, perhaps). Commercialism is not all bad, however.  In many ways, what is good for the marketplace is good for the country, and what is good for the country generally translates into chickens in our Christmas pots.

 

               True, the season has deep religious roots—a lot of different ones, in fact.  We are reminded of a Judean lad born in Bethlehem.  But before Christians started celebrating the birth of Jesus on December 25th (in the 4th century!), the Roman Empire had long celebrated Saturnalia, an agricultural festival incorporating many of the same customs we still observe today at Christmas.  Saturn was a venerable deity in Italy fabled to have reigned during a period of peace and happiness.  December 25th was also celebrated both as the birth of the Unconquerable Sun and Mithras, the Persian deity of light.  The ancient Jewish Feast of Hanukkah (the festival of lights) celebrating the rededication of the temple and Judean political independence also falls in December.  The customs and symbols of these non-Christian festivals have merged with the Christian, and we Americans celebrate them all during the winter solstice season with lights, candles, gift giving, family gatherings, shopping, evergreen trees, and garnishes of holly and mistletoe.  Somehow it all seems to make sense—even to largely Christian America.  There is something distinctly egalitarian and democratic in our celebration.  The "huddled masses," the "wretched refuse" from foreign shores, brought their religious customs with them, and we later generations have woven them all together (menorah, piñata, wassail bowl, parties, Santa Claus, Saint Nikolas, babe in Bethlehem, Christmas tree, midnight Mass, and yule log) into one textured tapestry of solstice traditions.

 

               I like the diversity.  The commercialism enriches the complexity of the season.  But it is difficult to know if it all truly fits together.  What meaning do we find in the collage and clash of our Christmas customs?

 

               We make little distinction between the secular and the religious.  We enjoy the secular festivities of the season, the cycle of parties and receptions, the tinsel and colored lights, foodstuffs and spirits; with equal gusto we sing "White Christmas," "Have a Happy Jolly Christmas" and "Little Town of Bethlehem." Yet lurking in the back of many minds is the sobering claim that some 2000 years ago the secular was invaded by the holy, and recalling that often occasions a momentary reflective pause in the festivities.

 

               Making sense of the diverse symbols and customs, and finding a comprehensive reason for the Christmas season is challenging.  Of course, some people have all the answers and dismiss the significance of everything except the lights at the end of their own myopic tunnels.  I, however, try to embrace all the diversity of the season.

 

               In reflective moments I see the American winter solstice season symbolizing a primal search for stability, happiness, and security in the world.  Faced by the uncertainty of our future, these traditions, as different as they are, serve to anchor the spirit.  We return to them annually because of the emotional comfort they bring.  They nourish a deep-seated hope in Western culture, best expressed for me by the ancient Israelite longing for the advent of an ideal ruler, whose eternal reign will be characterized by peace, justice, and righteousness (Isaiah 9:7).  All people of good will (Luke 2:13-14) share such a hope, and celebrating it in an American Christmas seems appropriate for a nation of immigrants.

 

Charles W. Hedrick

 

This essay appeared in the Springfield News-Leader sometime before 2006 and was later published in Hedrick, House of Faith and Enchanted Forest. American Popular Belief in an Age of Reason (Cascade, 2009), 70-71. It appears here in revised form.

Pondering the Repeal Election

This essay on the recent repeal vote on Springfield city ordinance 6141 was published in the Springfield News-Leader on April 13, 2015.

 

In the days and weeks leading up to the repeal election I was surprised and disappointed at certain voices publically raised in behalf of the repeal: a bishop, a mega-church pastor, a leader of an international religious denomination, as well as numerous pastors of local churches.  These religious leaders urged their memberships to vote to repeal city ordinance 6141, which extended anti-discrimination protection to lesbians, gays, bi-sexual, and transgender (LGBT) citizens in the city of Springfield with regard to housing, employment, and public accommodation.  They succeeded in convincing many of us that the election was about religious freedom rather than simple fairness.

The ostensible reason for their descent into hard-knuckle political activism was to protect religious liberty.  What that means in practical street language is that business owners who shared what was touted as the biblical view of marriage (one woman to one man) would not have to participate in LGBT marriages (i.e., by providing flowers, food, clothing, and/or facilities, etc. for the ceremony).  In other words, they argued that their religious views be accepted as legal justification to deny service to those citizens who did not share their religious views.

The fact that certain business owners, with the vocal approval of certain religious leaders of Springfield, apparently intend in the future to deny service to LGBT citizens was justification for affirming city ordinance 6141.

We live in a representative democracy in a secular state, where we elect our representatives who in turn make our laws, which seek to allow the greatest amount of personal liberty to the largest number possible (that is the ideal at least); we do not live in a theocracy, where religion mandates how we should conduct our lives (as would be the case, for example, in an Islamic state, or a Christian state).  Our system of government is secular (in spite of certain "Christian" trappings), and no particular religion, even though it represents the majority, should be permitted to impose its religious views on citizens who do not share those views.

The idea that "my" religious ideas can be used as a justification for causing harm to others is insidious, for it implies that religious ideas are more important than the civil rights of all citizens in a secular state.  Perhaps they truly believe this, but, if consistently applied, it will eventually turn a secular state into a theocratic state.

The public voices of the religious leaders were less than candid with their various constituencies by suggesting that the Bible reflects one particular concept of marriage, for the Bible reflects a range of ideas on the relationships between men and women—something they should have known.  What was noticeably lacking in their common opposition to city ordinance 6141, however, was a lack of compassion for the situation faced by the LGBT community, one of the "least of these" (Matthew 25:45) in contemporary society.  Perhaps that was their greatest leadership failure on this issue (Mark 12:29-31).

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

IS FREEDOM AN ILLUSION?

I do not have in mind political freedom, which is always limited.  Fortunately in a representative democracy, however, the citizen has a voice in setting the limits and deciding how free "freedom" should be.  Political freedom is not absolute.  Ideally laws are drafted to give all groups the greatest amount of freedom possible under the law in a way that does not unnecessarily abridge the freedom of others who share minority views.  So in a representative democracy all give a little to get a little.
 

In this essay, however, I have in mind the ability of individuals to make decisions that have not been influenced, whether overtly or subtly, by their environment.  From the earliest moments in life no one can independently envision their course of life.  You cannot pick your parents, their social and economic status, or their prospects.  You take what fate decrees for you.  You cannot pick where you were born.  Your birthplace is chosen by your mother.  You cannot pick your native language, your skin color, or nationality.  All these things happen by chance.  Your religion or non-religion in the early years is the choice of your parents whom you did not pick.  You are indoctrinated by their religious views, or lack thereof.  You do not choose in the lower grades your educational institutions.  Schooling hinges on where you live and/or your parents' economic circumstances.  So the attitudes, values, quality and kind of instruction, inductively learned prejudices in the region where you live, and the acquired knowledge (both formal and cultural), which subtly mold and shape you, are also not of your own choosing.  Your socialization happens almost by osmosis.  By the time you think you have gained control from the dominant powers in your life (parents, local educational and political systems, religious institutions, regional cultural mores, etc.) you have already become something that may not be able to be changed, even if the thought occurred to you to do so.  Your future choices have already been influenced by the powers outside you in your past.  Thus people are free only to the extent that they can escape their own pasts.
 

In later life you find yourself immersed in a culture whose expectations, moral values, and ideals demand compliance if you are to live successfully in society.  The compliant are rewarded with status in the community and those who resist are marginalized.  In later years you marry and become focused on job and advancement—each economic institution has its own rules that must be mastered.  There are children to be tended, a home to be kept up to community standards, taxes to be paid, medical bills to be met, the children's future to consider, and retirement to be planned for.  The demands are such that you have little time to give to abstract things as thinking about becoming—and anyway you have already "become" by buying into or resisting the culture and its expectations.  You simply meet the requirements, without thinking, or challenge the expectations.  In any case you are simply too far in to life to make radical changes.
 

Nearing the age of retirement, some do find time for reflecting on where life has brought them, or perhaps better: on what their past and present have made them.  In retrospect, they look back over their lives searching for the turning points that shaped them. 

Religion is part of the problem rather than the solution.  All religions claim to possess Truth, particularly the missionary religions in their traditional forms: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  All three of these have attached themselves to certain cultures sympathetic to their religious systems.  They reciprocate symbiotically by helping to reinforce the cultural norms in their chosen societies.  This has always been the case with Christianity, for example.  In the first century Paul urged his churches to be subject to the governing authorities, "for there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God" (Romans 13:1-7)—and he said this about the Roman Empire, no less!  The author of Revelation, whose time and situation were different, disagreed—calling the Roman Empire "Babylon the Great, a dwelling place of demons" (Revelation 18) and "mother of harlots" (Revelation 17:5).  Paul, a Roman citizen found in the Empire a symbiotic partner; the writer of Revelation did not. 

Christianity in America thinks of its gospel as "freeing."  Jesus said to the Jews "who believed in him":  "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).  And Paul wrote: "For Freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1).  He of course was talking about freedom from the Jewish Torah.  But Christianity has assimilated to American culture and its political system to such an extent that "Americanism" has become a synonym for "Christian."  The American flag is displayed in churches, the pledge of Allegiance is taught to children in church schools, and patriotic songs are sung in worship.  Not all churches are as blatant about the "Americanism" in their religious programs, however.  Nevertheless, the religious instruction and preaching in mainstream churches aim to produce good Christian citizens who reflect American societal norms, so that their lives reflect well on the church, something the early churches were concerned about as well (1 Thessalonians 4:10-12; 1 Peter2:13-15; Titus 3:1-2).  The early churches rejected the radical ethics of Jesus (if they happened to remember them) and turned to the ethical values (called "household codes") that governed private life in the early Roman Empire (for example, Colossians 3:18-4:1). 

Growing up in a lower middle class family in the Mississippi Delta in the 40s and 50s leaves me to wonder just how free I really was.
 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University