Liberty is a concept that has been around for a long
time. It is not something that man invented;
liberty was conceived in the mind of God before the very dawn of Creation. Liberty is not something that everyone has,
nor has every man in history been blessed with such a privilege, but every
person bears a longing for it, inherent to his nature. Liberty has seen many proverbial ups and
downs throughout history, and it seems that America today is in one of those
‘downs.’ My question is one many are pondering:
what can we do to restore true liberty to America? First, I’d like to take a look at the history
of liberty, for it is a timeless struggle.
Travel back with me to approximately 2,000 years before the
birth of Christ, and around the world to a beautiful, lush garden in the Middle
East called Eden. Life in that garden
was perfect in the fullest sense of the word, and true liberty thrived. The only two people on earth lived in the
garden; they had dominion over the animals and were allowed to eat and enjoy
all that God had created – with one condition: that they not touch the fruit of
the tree that grew in the middle of the garden.
They obeyed and lived in that glorious, untainted liberty for a length
of time – we don’t know exactly how long, but we may guess it was many
years. God’s perfection was spoiled,
however, when a serpent came to the woman and convinced her that she could
actually have something better than that perfect liberty—that by eating that
fruit she could be like God—and she and her husband tasted the forbidden
fruit. They sinned against God, soiling
the beauty and perfection of His creation, and from that moment forward, man
has been in bondage to sin.
But God didn’t forget his vision of liberty, and generations
after that first man and woman he chose a man named Abram through whom he would
carry on that design. He called Abram
out of his land—out of bondage to sin—and gave him a new life and a new name:
Abraham. God built the Nation of Israel
out of Abraham’s offspring, with the promise that Abraham’s grandchildren and
great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren would become a mighty nation
and thrive in God’s plan for liberty.
Soon, however, God’s people were no longer free: they were in captivity
in Egypt. After much suffering under the
power-hungry Pharaoh, God called a timid man named Moses to lead his people out
of Egypt and into liberty once again.
Israel lived in peace and freedom for many years, under what
is today called a Theistic government: it wasn’t a monarchy, or a democracy, or
a republic, or a dictatorship. God, the
only wholly just King, was sole ruler of Israel, and spoke through his prophets
and judges. Before long, however, they
decided they wanted a king that they could see—they weren’t satisfied to have
God ruling directly over them—so God gave Israel a king. Freedom given by man always results in
tyranny, and soon God’s people were in captivity again, sometimes under their
own king, and often under the cruel kings of neighboring countries. Israel fell away from God’s precepts
countless times, and each time they were taken into captivity. They bore the yoke of bondage in Assyria and
in Babylon, and the oppression of the Philistines, Persians, Midianites, and
others; and God never gave up his plan but liberated them each time. Throughout all those generations, Israel was
captive to sin.
Finally, when the Nation of Israel had long been subject to
the tyranny of Rome and the domination of sin, God sent the ultimate Deliverer. He sent his One and Only Son, who “was sent
to heal broken hearts and proclaim liberty to the captives” (Luke 4:18). Jesus Christ, God’s Son incarnate, took the
sins of all humanity upon his shoulders; he brought liberty not only to God’s
chosen nation, but also to all of mankind—all one has to do is repent and ask
Jesus to free him, and the chains of all manner of evil fall from his wrists
and his soul is liberated for eternity!
Still, the struggle for earthly liberty continues. Travel forward with me to October 31 of the
year 1522, when a poor monk nailed a document to the door of the Catholic
Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Martin
Luther’s Ninety-Five theses pointed out fallacies in the philosophy of the
church and advocated reform. Luther
spoke up for religious liberty and protested the stiff doctrines, rituals, and
ecclesiastical structure of the church.
People began to break away from the strict doctrines of Catholicism, but
the church recoiled, tightening its grip on the people. Thus began the battle for religious freedom
that eventually gave birth to the United States of America. This Protestant Reformation spread from
Germany into other countries throughout Europe, reaching England in 1529.
The Anglican Church vacillated for nearly a century between
Protestant sympathies and the strict doctrines of the Catholic Church; the
period of unrest and indecisiveness culminated in the birth of the Puritan
movement. The Puritans, named for their
desire to ‘purify’ the church of Roman Catholic doctrines, were reformers who
sought relief from the overbearing Anglican Church. These seekers of religious liberty finally
received it through the Puritan Migration, when nearly twenty thousand Puritans
relocated to the ‘New World’ and founded the colony of Massachusetts and
commenced the American search for liberty.
The framers of our Constitution recognized the danger posed
by government-instituted religion, and sought to restore religious freedom as
one of the protections enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Contrary to many assumptions today, their
intent was not to protect the government or the state from religion, but to
protect religion from the government. Even
since the ratification of the First Amendment, we have seen countless instances
of the government attempting to limit freedom of religious expression. Common misunderstandings and disputes are
embodied in the phrase “wall of separation of church and state,” about which I
have already written. The battle for
liberty of conscience, though certainly momentous in the history of America, is
only one part of a bigger picture.
