Free Thinking

Since when has having a conservative perspective been considered closed-minded? I've heard it said to me, I've heard other people say they've been told it. It happened when I was in high-school and took the modest stance in a mock-debate on women being allowed to go topless as men can. (If only I had enough sense and rhetorical ability back then. . .)
Now it's even happening in the church. Liturgy is for stodgy old fogies who are backward thinking. Confessions and Christological preaching is for maintenance-only ministry. Pastors and wanna-be pastors and laymen and laywomen who hold to such are exclusivists. And I dare you to find a faculty of conservative teachers, Lutheran or otherwise. Few exist.
Maybe the problem is that we have considered the possibilities with an open mind and come to the conclusion that a liberal bent is not the way to go. We are asked in society to be free-thinkers and conclude that the values held by pro-choice, anti-family, anti-religion, large socialist government folks are correct. We are asked in church to think for ourselves and conclude that the social gospel with 7-11 music (7 words sung 11 times with a key change between the 10th and 11th time) and empty of Christ is proper worship and will make people flock to church. It is not unlike the commerical where the folks are staring at cars with a blank look and saying, "I have been told to desire a car. . ." Sorry. I will not fall for the identical-mindedness under the guise of free thought.

Freedom

If I were a real writer, I would be able to explain myself better; however, I will do my best to convey my thoughts. Maybe it’s just because I’m on my second Monday this week. . .
I tried to go here yesterday as I pondered the fact that it was Martin Luther’s birthday and the anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald; now I’m back to it today as it is Veterans’ Day and my brother’s birthday. I keep thinking how much we take for granted.
We especially take freedom for granted. Here it is, I live in the United States of America , a country which touts its freedom. I can paraphrase Tootie in Meet Me in St. Louis : “How lucky I am to be born in my favorite country!” I don’t know what it is like to live in a land where I need to be fearful of the leaders, lest they kill me for not holding the same ideology. I don’t know what it is like to live in a land of intense poverty. I don’t know what it is like to live under a king, a czar, brutal military rule, communism, or a spittle-ridden fascist dictator.
We live in a country rife with freedom; yet, how little we think of it. We can mock our leaders; believe in one God, no God, multiple gods, or ourselves as god; we can even bear arms and vote.
It seems as though freedom is so commonplace that we have become slaves. We are so free that we have freed ourselves from the responsibility which freedom entails. We are so free that we have freed ourselves from the morality which freedom requires. Once one sheds morality and responsibility, one opens the self up to slavery. If I cannot be responsible for my own actions, I become a slave to others telling me what to do; or worse, I become a slave to irresponsible and irrational behavior. I expect the results of freedom without realizing there is a price. If I am immoral or amoral, I am a slave to chaos. If my mantra is “if it feels good, do it,” then I am a slave to pleasure-seeking. Freedom, responsibility, and morality must work in concert.
I look at yesterday—the birth of the great reformer and the death of 29 hard-working sailors; I look at today—the life of a sibling and the sacrifices of so many men and women: I see the ebb and flow of human existence, which is birth, life, death. We cannot take these for granted. We must not take liberty for granted. For our true liberty in is Christ. He is not some mere moral teacher, nor is He a distant God off in the cosmos. No, He is Jesus, true God and true man. He was born, He lived the life we could not, He sacrificed Himself for us and died our death. All this so that we might be freed from slavery to sin. This we can never take for granted.

Election Day

In another few hours, Election Day will be behind us. As of this writing, some polls are closed. Returns are coming in, and my husband has taken up his chair to settle in with Brit Hume and Fox News for the duration. I am in the other room, hoping that the candidate for whom I voted wins.
There are many things about this election I have not liked. I have not liked the duration. When did these guys announce that they were running for president? Was it 2004? I have not liked the rancor and insinuations. I have not liked the way age/gender/race played into how people viewed the candidates. May the most qualified be elected--I don't care if you're a purple female or a green male--the constitution does state you have to be over 35, but I can live with that age issue.
The economy became a huge issue as of late. I still don't see that trumping things like national security and right to life. I've said it before; a government that does not care about life does not honestly care about its people.
This is where it is difficult to have dual citizenship. I know that no matter what happens today, God knows what will happen to His people, and He will work all things together for our good, as St. Paul says in Romans 8. It is still human to be concerned with what happens in America with a presidential change. It is becoming increasingly difficult to be a Christian in America. No, we don't have to worship underground or risk imprisonment for praying; yet, it is becoming harder to stand for truth, justice, and mercy in a society which creates its own truth, defines justice as finding the right loophole, and mercy is for those who want it, not those who need it. (Since when did pity trump empathy?)
Well, until they haul us all off to jail or the looney bin (because they've re-defined lunacy as someone who disagrees with them), I guess what we have to do is live our vocation and be salt and light and stand for the truth and pray for our leaders. They've got a tough job ahead of them, no matter who they are. And Christ died for them too--that we dare not forget. . .

False Freedom and True Liberation

There are two types of liberation. One is a false liberation, one is true freedom. One restrains, one releases. Certain movements which promise freedom often have this false freedom. It is not a freedom from what truly constrains; but freedom from imagined constraint, which becomes more restraining than that from which one was seeking freedom. Take, for example, a person wishing freedom from a spouse who seeks liberation in divorce. They find only constraint, much heavier restraint, in terms of alimony, child support, starting over, and the baggage of a "previous marriage." Such is false liberation.
Those seeking freedom from the earthly existence we bear called humanness must have true freedom in Christ. Any other type is the false liberty. Substances carry the burden of dependency, legalism carries the burden of inadequacy, every other type of seeking after the wind carries with it the false hope of freedom which becomes a weight heavier than those described as his own by Jacob Marley in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
Only true freedom comes from Christ. In our human state we are shackled--bound in sin. Christ's redeeming work on the cross has released us from our bondage and reconciled us to God. This is the only true liberation. He has done it all for us; our chains have been removed.
His forgiveness breaks down the prison walls, releases those enslaved, and seals our adoption as sons of the Father, brother of our Savior.