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Around the fourth of July, someone on Quora asked folks from other countries how they felt about not having the kind of freedom we have in the USofA. I saw very similar answers from Australia, Canada, and several European and Nordic countries. Basically, they said that while we are all about freedom to, they are looking for freedom from. The one example used across the board was that they want freedom from being shot, not the freedom to own a gun.
While we are all about the government protecting our right to do what we want, other countries expect their governments to protect them from harm. They want to be free to walk down the street without fear, free from oppression, and free from the fear that an illness will bankrupt them.
I’m not looking to argue the obvious political issues this raises, but I did find the perspective interesting. Especially since it was so widespread.
Isn’t “freedom from” what Jesus came to give us? He died and rose to give us freedom from sin and death.
So what about marriage and headship? I am called to protect my wife. That’s freedom from. I am commanded to provide for her, which is also freedom from.
Do what you will with this. I think it’s worth thinking through it a bit. One way to look at it is a caged bird that is free from fear of cats or hunger, but not free to fly when and where it wants. Most Americans proclaim the freedom to fly without restraint as worth the risks, but apparently, this is not universally seen as the best choice. I see the wisdom of choosing the caged life, but it feels wrong to me.
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Sounds like the Quora folks were debating the old trade-off of freedom vs. security. “Freedom from” is another name for security. Freedom and security are two poles that are always in tension, for to bolster one means to threaten the other — a free press, for instance, can be used for inciting violence. The solution is not to muzzle the press but to have some limits on it when security is threatened. All of our freedoms have legal limits on them for this reason. The difficulty is always determining what those limits should be, and so we are in the soup over it all at the moment.
@Arch – I think that is most of it. Security, safety, sanity, whatever you want to call it.
We do this with our kids. If we do it well we slowly move from “forced” safety to greater freedom, with the prayer that they have become mature enough to make sane choices.
God did the same with us moving from the Old Covenant to the New. But just as our kids can make stupid choices, so can we. God gives us the freedom to do things He knows we should not. Are we wise enough to choose well?
“but it feels wrong to me”.
That is because it is. Jesus came to offer people the opportunity to be free of the guilt of their sin. But though he could he doesn’t force anyone to accept it. People in God’s system have a choice. It is the other side that is all about eliminating choices.
@Ant – I said, “I see the wisdom of choosing the caged life” – I was very much talking about a choice.
True. The problem is people can generally choose to get in the cage. They can’t usually just choose to get back out.
@Ant – True enough. But if it’s where God wants us, I assume it’s safe.
This is given as a justification for the theocracy in the Handmaid’s Tale. It’s a choice between oppression or anarchy.
“ There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it.”
It is a bit funny to me to hear that argument is being used by people who are probably secular and liberal.
@G – It dates back 70 years at least, so hardly new. And yeah, anarchy is all freedom to, and no freedom from.