Our Independence Day

The Fourth of July was always one of my favorite holidays growing up. The City of Paragould hosted a municipal fireworks display on the grounds of Paragould High School, and we'd always head up there with the rest of the town to wait until dark so the show could begin.

Like any other holiday, the traditions surrounding the day itself could sometimes obscure the reason you were celebrating in the first place. But all it took was one replay of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A." to remind me that I should be "proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free."

I take seriously the liberty that we enjoy living in American society. I've had the opportunity to travel some in my life, and I admit I wouldn't want to live anywhere else - at least not on a permanent basis. And I think there's some truth to the old saw by Churchill that democracy's the worst form of government, except for all the other forms of government. As a pastor, I particularly appreciate the way I am able to gather my flock for worship and preach the gospel as I am called to do without any fear of government persecution. Not all Christians have that same privilege.

But then, I also agree with theologians like Stanley Hauerwas, who argue that liberal democracy is dependent on an essentially violent mythos. It defines a peace-loving and democratic "us" over against a depraved and totalitarian "them," which must occasionally be engaged militarily in order to remind "us" both why we need to stick together and why our way of life is superior.

But on an even more intimate level, liberal democracy also posits property rights as one of the fundamental liberties on which society is based. This means that consumer capitalism has to be allowed to flourish in as unfettered a form as possible, which as an economic philosophy encourages us to disregard the good of others in our own individualistic "pursuit of happiness." And if you doubt the violence of that particular modus vivendi, you only have to look at the suffering of hardworking people at the hands of large corporate employers, the suffering of unborn children in the womb at the hands of abortionists, and the suffering of the environment at the hands of all of us in our chronic overconsumption.

So, is there a way we can celebrate a kind of freedom that is not freedom against tyranny, but rather freedom for something good and holy? We see evidence of such a freedom in Galatians, where the Apostle Paul says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free" (Gal 5:1). This freedom teaches us that we are neither bound by our sinful nature nor by the law that would serve ultimately to convict us in showing us a holiness that we cannot achieve.

But it is also more than a freedom from these things. It is also a free for something wonderful.

"The only thing that counts," Paul says, "is faith working through love" (Gal 5:6). And to that end, he encourages us to "live by the Spirit," which we can know we are doing when our lives - as individuals and as the church - are bearing fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Such a life is a life of freedom.

And that life was offered to us on our true Independence Day, which didn't occur in 1776 but rather in 33 A.D.