Safeguarding America’s God Given Liberty

Precious gifts often go unnoticed in life, until they are lost, or begin to be lost. So, faithful Christians in the West are now discovering, is the case with religious liberty. So it is as well with life itself, its colors and sounds, its excitement and humdrum existence; it is a short run, which we did not ask for and cannot have again. These points were well made by Eric Metaxas in addressing the central them of Alex MacFarland’s Truth for a New Generation Conference in Spartanburg, S.C., “Life and Liberty, Given by God” on September 4.

We now face some discomfort because of our faith, Metaxas suggested, because the Lord loves us. “He doesn’t want us to be too comfortable … He wants us to be challenged, to be forced to depend on Him.” Referring to religious freedom, Metaxas said until recent years he “didn’t know what it meant … we’ve had so much religious liberty in America, we’re like the fish who doesn’t know what water is.” Writing his biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer helped Metaxas to understand what religious freedom is. Events in the world of Bonhoeffer seemed familiar. Metaxas found that the similarities were between the way in which freedom was lost in Germany in the 1930s and the incremental loss of religious liberty in contemporary America. Like America, Germany was “culturally Christian.” Historically, the German Protestant church had a close relationship with the state, was supported by the state, and was little concerned with the state’s secular policies. This meant that the church in Germany in Hitler’s time unthinkingly yielded to the state in whatever the state wanted. Similarly, American Christians are not used to regarding the American government as hostile, and regard as good, even providential, the American founding and history at least until the mid-twentieth century.

While Metaxas asserted that “God was in the [American] founding,” he warned that this must not lead us to unthinkingly accept governmental rules and policies as legitimate. Our pride should be in Christ, not in Americanism. God gave America liberty to bless the world; our freedom should be an example to others, and our prosperity should be shared with others. “American exceptionalism” is intended to be a blessing to the world, although this has not been taught in public schools in the last two generations as multiculturalism has been dominant. Consequently, many younger Americans are not familiar with it. The idea of America is what makes Americans. The country is “a truly great idea, but it’s also a truly fragile idea.” Both liberty in general and religious liberty in particular are fragile, Metaxas said.

In Germany, Hitler proposed to run the church the same way the government ran the post office or the army, as another governmental department. Similarly, in America, financial aid received from the state, and the benefit of tax exemptions granted by the state, may make the church and Christians “lean in places toward things you would not [otherwise] lean to.” The Nazis attempted to “redefine the church.” The close relationship between the church and state led the German church to accept the rule of the state over the church as proper. Church leaders practically had a policy that “we never stand up against the state.” To the contrary, Bonhoeffer said to the German church that “it is the role of the church of Jesus Christ to be the church of Jesus Christ.” Metaxas said that similarly, for America Christians “independent of the nation” there is a “liberty that God has given us” to obey Him rather than the state.

He noted that Bonhoeffer also said that “it is the role of the church to be the conscience of the state.” We must therefore make sure that the church is never “co-opted by the state.” But beyond the claim of freedom for the church, Bonhoeffer asserted that if the oppression of the state becomes severe enough, the church must act to “arrest the progress of the state.” The growing oppression of the state in Germany was harder to recognize because it was “incremental … a tiny law here,” another a bit later, and so on. “Nobody thought, now we’ve got to stand.” Metaxas compared this incremental strategy to Gulliver and the Lilliputians, in which small cords were applied to Gulliver one by one. One or a few of these cords would not have bound the giant Gulliver, but together, all the cords, applied while he was asleep, did bind him. This, Metaxas said, “is a picture, a warning, to the church of Jesus Christ in America.” And, “the bad news is, this is not way in the future, these things are happening now, and we have to take it seriously.” Because a degree of freedom remains in America, Christians can still speak out, “we have a voice. But are we going to use our voice?”

Gifts from God tend to get taken for granted. The gift of life is another striking example, yet many or even most people proceed thoughtlessly through life, not recognizing it as a gift. Americans have had so much freedom for so long, that they do not recognize freedom as a gift. All God’s gifts, which include everything about ourselves, “God gives us for His eternal purposes …The gift of liberty that we have in this country is an outrageous gift, an unbelievable, historically unprecedented, amazing gift.” Those old enough to remember World War II know that freedom can be gravely threatened, but middle aged and young Americans have no memory of freedom seriously threatened. Because American Christians have championed persecuted Christians in the non-western world, more is in danger than American Christianity. The loss of religious liberty will endanger not only Christians in America, but also “our children and grandchildren and people around the world who are depending on us.” Our purpose in life is not “to live a nice life, watch our TV programs, and die quietly.”

However, those who have liberty must know how to use it. “Liberty is incredibly fragile, it can’t be handled easily.” Metaxas went on to suggest that as far as liberty is concerned, many nonwestern societies, and now the two most recent generations in America, “don’t know what it is, or how to use it.” He referred to Os Guinness’ recent book, A Free People’s Suicide, to note Guinness’ observation of the doctrine behind American freedom. Guiness calls this “the golden triangle of freedom.” It involves governing the passions. Freedom requires virtue, virtue requires faith, and faith requires freedom, in an unending cycle. Although the “faith” required need not be the specific faith of a given religion, faith in something beyond ourselves is necessary to complete the triangle. Although contemporary Americans have been conditioned by our mass culture to live by an appeal to their senses, and thus their feelings, in the eighteenth century, when the American republic began, “we had a tremendously educated populace,” people were familiar with English common law, and were “trained to think.”

“Religious liberty is at the heart” of other liberties, according to Metaxas. Just as a free market economy requires that the government be “agnostic” about which goods and services are worthy and desirable, allowing people to pick what they want, so with respect to ideas, the government of a free society must be “agnostic,” not supporting particular doctrines about ultimate reality beyond such general concepts as deity and virtue. “The government cannot pick winners” in the world of ideas, Metaxas said. There is thus a “free market of ideas” in a free society. In contemporary America, however, the government is taking a “secular humanist view of sexuality,” and identifying that as the correct doctrine about sexuality.

To be especially chosen by God to be a blessing to the world, as America has been, is a “dreadful and terrible thing,” Metaxas said. Similarly, “the Jews were chosen by God,” which is a “frightening and awesome burden and a responsibility.” Our God given mission is “to export these ideas [of virtue, faith, and freedom] to the whole world.” America, Metaxas said, has been “blessed to be a blessing,” but “we are very much in danger of losing what we have.” Referring to Benjamin Franklin’s observation that the founders sought “a republic … if you can keep it,” Metaxas claimed that “we are not keeping it very well,” and that Americans, and “the church especially” need to be re-educated in the basic American ideas that support freedom. This is because the church “is the conscience of the state,” calling America to “be what it is supposed to be, a beacon for people around the world.”

A cautionary example is the German church, which “failed God.” In contrast, Christians in America must say “Lord, use me as you will, I will get my hands dirty for Your eternal purposes.” Each generation “has a quick shot at obeying God, and then it’s over,” Metaxas exhorted. We must respond in gratitude to the precious gift of freedom that God has given us, and for the miracle of life (which is indeed a miracle, with the odds overwhelmingly against physical processes forming it). We should ask, “how special are we” to God? These gifts are a “painful burden,” Metaxas claimed. “Life and liberty, given by God, these are gifts, these are holy, sacred gifts.” We should respond with highest praise, and deepest gratitude and service.