Why is Freedom in America so Important for Christians?
I think when this topic comes up the underlying foundations that i always find myself coming back to is freedom. I'm not simply talking about the wave your flag, shoot your guns into the air freedom alone, but the freedom we have in Christ setting us free. So what exactly is this "Freedom". According to the dictionary on google, we find a few different definitions, ranging from "not under the control or in the power of another; able to act or be done as one wishes." or "not or no longer confined or imprisoned." I found these definitions to be thought provoking because they are stating elements within the aspect of life that are escaped from, or fleeing away from the pit of negativity. The scriptures also speak of freedom, this escape from confinement or control. The verse that popped out to me is one that I'm sure most of you are familiar with, John 8:32 "and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
Take a moment to really think about this verse within the context it was written, John is the only book of the Bible that is written to those who do not believe in Christ, why is that important? Mainly, because these are people who live in bondage, they are slaves to sin as we can see a few verses down in John 8:34 "Jesus replied to them, "Truly, truly I say to you, that everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin." The "YOU" portion of these verses is directed toward those who are slaves, the unsaved, those who have no idea what the concept of freedom is. Those who are unsaved are slaves too sin, this sin that is within their lives can feel good, and give a sense of happiness in the moment, but as the Bible states, they are slaves.
Let's take a quick pause and interject a couple of viewpoints before we move forward on John 8:32. I want to talk about the concept of truth and how it is viewed within the "World". I have taken some time to try to place myself within the shoes of the world and how it is i would define reality without the foundational support of scripture and this is what i came to the conclusion on. Through a viewpoint that we were created without a creator by random chance through millions of years that makes you the average human a randomly generated being out of 7.8 billion people, on one of 9 planets (Pluto is a planet, fight me) floating around one of more than 500 solar systems in one of billions of galaxies. Now that makes a person feel pretty insignificant as well as gives you a rather impossible feeling of coming to grips with what is actually real. So there was a man by the name of Plato, who came up with this theory, called "The Theory of Forms" . Based upon the inability to grasp what is human in both a psychological standpoint as well as the physical how then can you know what something as simple as an apple may be? So within this "Theory of Forms" outside of reality he placed the absolute perfect item of whatever said item is, for simplicities sake we will say, an apple. This is where "The Perfect Apple" resides, and it is the only one of its kind because within reality there are always blemishes and imperfections, thus leading to no item being exactly the same. Which is true on a basic standpoint, when you take anything down to the molecular level or the atomized level everything is different to some degree based upon that items molecular count, the protons/electrons speed within the nucleus, there is just no way any two items can be the exact same. Now this is simple considering we are only talking about an item, an apple. But think about this in regards to something complex like a human being made up of multiple functions, a mind with thoughts that differ from everyone else, DNA that differs, a soul, feelings, mind, life experiences, all of these complex ideologies as well as physical differences. I mean its mind blowing, and an extremely complex way of looking at the world, but through this viewpoint you are not attached to reality instead you can morph it and mold it to fit your narrative to be whatever it is you want it to be. And my friends that is chaos, how in the world do you expect a world of intelligent human beings to be able to have a simple conversation in a dialogue where nothing is real, and everything is subject to that individuals viewpoint of said object/word within their own world of "Forms". Ah, but this is where Pythagoras steps into play, he realized that you cant function in a world like that so he created "math" yes, "math" he believed that mathematics ruled the universe and had a motto that was "all is number".
Think about this, you are in Plato's world within reality outside of the "Theory of Forms" and you have two apples, well considering you are within reality and not within the world of Forms, you truly can not know if you have two apples. In fact you do not have two apples, because of deformities and blemishes, yet here you are. It's quite a difficult place to be even though we are using apples as examples you truly do not know what it is you have. Then Pythagoras comes along and sees you weeping to the sky out of your mental confusion upon not knowing what it is you have, and he takes pity on you. Beings that we have to function within reality, there must be an established set of rules through which he believed math would solve based upon the consensus of the people. So he gathers a bunch of people around your pitiful confused self and picks up the two apples and holds them into the air and says, "These two items, based upon their chemical makeup the amount of matter within them, and the other various similarities shall be called apples" Upon my cleverly summarized words of this smart man, the people around him, including your pitiful self, agreed that though there are differences they are similar enough to be grouped under the same word as "Apple". This became a consensus as to how people formed truth, you would find similarities and based upon the consensus of the majority that is what became truth. This, this right here is why they believe that a male can be a female, or that a fetus is not a human, or racist can just mean someone you disagree with. This is why "truth" is subjective to the world, because it is founded upon the consensus of the majority and can be manipulated within its fluidity by simply getting enough people to believe the same truth you believe.
The second viewpoint is that of us as Christians, and they vary from the world absolutely dramatically. Lets start from the same ground you are a single person, created specifically to be you, in a world of 7.8 billion people that were also individually created, in a world that was created, in a solar system that was created, within a galaxy that was specifically created for you, the singular individual that you are. That has some absolutely insane meaning, because if you were specifically created to fulfill your specific roll that has so much more meaning in your life that to be some sort of space dust floating around meaningless, but I digress. The fact of the matter is, we were created, this earth was created, therefore there is a creator that knows the ins and outs of this entire crazy cosmos in which we all reside, because He built it! Now, not only did he build it but he left the handbook behind as to how it is all meant to be ran, in a book that is easy enough for all of us to understand through in depth study of the scripture. Now we as Christians take our truth from the Bible because it is TRUTH. John 14:6 "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."" Well thats a crazy thought, because here we see that God, is truth, and then we go to John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God". The "Word" is scripture! This means we have the Bible as our guide, the guide in which we base our TRUTH. In fact, back in Genesis, we see that the world in Genesis 1:25 was good. "So God made wild animals according to their kind, and every creeping thing of the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good." This is an incredibly profound statement, we know that God does not make mistakes, therefore at this time the earth was indeed perfect, Plato's theory of forms was in fact an absolutely true reality at this time on earth. It wasn't some made up dimension living in a mans head, but it was physically here on this earth. With God and with his word we have a foundation that we can base truth on. The Bible is truth and anything that deviates from that is a lie.
So that brings us back to John 8:32 "and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." It is only through truth based on the foundation of scripture that you are truly free. Now to get to my point, The founding fathers were hard Christian men, who know what freedom was, because they had an absolutely firm understanding of the scriptures and who God was, and they created the United States of America. Seeing as how theocracies and monarchies have risen and fallen through the past and subjected mankind to to slavery and destruction they decided to form this insane crazy country that allows people to decide for themselves what they should or should not do. Now thats an insane thought, to give people the ability to preform the actions of free will. But these Christian men, set up laws, that allowed people to preform whatever it is they wanted to preform as long as it did not obstruct another mans performance of his free will. The founding fathers knew that for freedom to exist, there must be a biblical foundation, when that biblical foundation is gone, the aspect of "Free Will" will turn individuals against one another in a religion of self, and the country will fail, because without the word of God we no longer have a foundation for morality. We as Christians are the only people on this entire earth that have an understanding of what freedom is, because we have the Bible as our foundation in truth, and when christian men and women fail to act within the culture and fail to act within the political realm, you are actively promulgating those who live in a world of lies to take your place. By staying out of politics, and out of culture, by hiding the truth from these ways of life is an act of cowardice, and i blame each and every one of you for the way this nation has turned out to be. You are weak minded, and afraid to take a stand for Truth, for God's word, FOR FREEDOM. We are not electing a pastor this year, nor do we ever elect presidents to fulfill the role of presidents, but rather we elect those who allow us to promulgate our free will, to live and preach the Word of God in this nation so we can spread the absolute truth of what Freedom is. So get out from cowering behind your pulpit while it's still there, get your congregation equipped to bring Freedom to the United States of America and to those who don't know Truth, the Christ our Savior. Freedom within the United States is more that shooting guns, and freedom of speech and even more that the constitution, it is Scripture, it is Truth.
-The Shoe.
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