ON BEING A FREE PERSON

“You, my friends, were called to be free men; only do not turn your freedom into license for your lower nature, but be servants to one another in love.” (Gal. 5:13)

It is difficult to live in a carnal world without being carnal, and it is hard to be a part of a sectarian brotherhood without being sectarian. But both are possible with God. One cannot rise above the materialism of this world without drawing upon the spiritual resources that God supplies. Neither can one be free of sectarianism except by the strength that comes from God.

“I have strength for anything through him who gives me power.” (Philip. 4:13)

This point may be illustrated by reference to the man who commented to me that it is almost impossible for a man to keep his mind clean when there is so much filth thrown at him every hour of the day. He had reference especially to the alluring “sex appeal” advertising on TV, radio, magazines, billboards, newspapers; and to the way women dress and conduct themselves on the streets and on dates. Even shoe polish, floor wax, and automobiles cannot be advertised except by reference to some feminine beauty. And yet the good man is expected to keep his thinking clean! This can hardly be in our kind of world, the brother insisted.

One can talk the same way about the desire for money and property. It is virtually impossible to be “free from the love of money” in a culture that places such importance to it. Mammon is truly a god, and who is it that does not do some prostrating at his throne? Most of us are in a rat race, and is it not to gain the almighty dollar? We must confess our failure to “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” in our mad dash for more money. Even with the whole family working, which is so often to the neglect of spiritual things, we still are not content with what we have.

“No servant can be slave to two masters; for either he will hate the first and love the second, or he will be devoted to the first and think nothing of the second. You cannot serve God and Money,” (Matt. 6:24)

What can be said of trying to live in a money-mad, sex-crazed world can be said of trying to live in a factious religious brotherhood. They are parallel in their tremendous erosive effect upon the spirit of man. Jesus referred to the choking influence of “worldly cares and the false glamour of wealth” (Matt. 13:22), and Paul refers to the “time of troubles” as the time when “men will love nothing but money and self” (2 Tim. 3:2).

As for our sex-crazed world, the Bible seems to be addressing our own nation when it says: “They have eyes for nothing but women, eyes never at rest from sin” (2 Pet. 2:14), and let us not forget that Jesus refers to “this wicked and adulterous generation” (Mk. 8:38). Billy Graham may have it right when he says that America is on the biggest sex binge of any nation in history.

How can one live a pure life in such a world? We repeat that the only answer is the one Paul found: “I have strength for anything through him who gives me power.” The problem is the same in respect to sectarianism. We can say “everybody is doing it” and find comfort in doing it too. Or we can choose the more difficult course. Some college leaders speak of “the vanishing virgin,” and some surveys (such as the Kinsey Reports) indicate that sexual virtue is indeed a rare commodity among young adults.

I am convinced that a free religionist, one who is motivated by the deep convictions that come from his own growing soul rather than sectarian orthodoxy, is likewise a rare commodity. The temptations to be sectarian are just as real as those of the glamorous world. The “party man” is accepted and respected, and he has a job! The one thing that man cannot stand is rejection, for this strikes at a most basic psychological need. I sense this keenly when one of my children comes in from play with a broken heart, crying: “They don’t want to play with me!” A grownup who is rejected by his peers at church or a preacher who is ostracized by his party’s leading paper has the same problem. Loyalty is the price for party acceptance, and it is so easy to equate loyalty to the party with loyalty to the Christ — when there may well be a big difference between the two!

James Russell Lowell’s often-quoted “Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne” may not be an overstatement, and the free man will agree with Lowell when he adds:

“Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.”

While we have Lowell on the phone regarding the question of freedom, we can ponder these words from his A Fable for Critics:

I honor the man who is willing to sink

Half his present repute for the freedom to think,

And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,

Will risk the other half for the freedom to speak.

Jesus promises us that truth will make us free, but he never suggests that freedom is the easy way. As Lowell avows that the freedom to think and speak has for its price a man’s reputation, so Jesus contends that the way of freedom has a small gate and a narrow road.

“Enter by the narrow gate. The gate is wide that leads to perdition, there is plenty of room on the road, and many go that way; but the gate that leads to life is small and the road is narrow, and those who find it are few.” (Matt. 7:13-14)

I appreciate the way the discerning Emerson expressed it:

“God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take what you please — you can never have both.”

Ponder those words! Believe them! Surely no man is ready to be free who is not willing to sacrifice repose for truth. — The Editor