THE SUPPRESSION OF FREEDOM

I've just finished listening to this weeks God Journey Podcast and for myself it was a perfect fit with my previous post HOPE IN OUR BROKENNESS. It brought to mind some thoughts from another brother, Jacques Ellul, and the many things he has shared in many of his writings. The Ethics of Freedom being one of the most profound. Here is a quote that came to mind as I listened to today's podcast.

"We are wrong to speak only of the ambition and pride of popes and prelates, of their ardent self-interest in trying to control temporal matters. There was here a genuine concern for the world. There was a conviction that they had the key to wisdom and justice for the world. They thought that they could give the world just and good institutions in which men could live both as Christians and as true men. In this regard the medieval churches mounted a positive operation except for one thing: it demanded suppression of freedom.

Everything else was catered for. Everything was foreseen and calculated in advance for better truth and fuller justice. But the manifestation of freedom was out of the question. This is the one dimension that has been missing in the church from the very first. But this is the decisive dimension without which the Christian life is without significance for the world. In the absence of freedom the forms of the church's actions have all become legalistic. Here is the real betrayal."

It can be so tiring at times when in conversations that miss this important point of allowing freedom. We are surrounded by this kind of conversation that just leaves us divided and battling with each other. That is unless something happens to change the dynamics. How do we get to a place that we could see this situation we are stuck in change? Don't be fooled, this effects all of our relationships...all of them.

Some of the changes in my thinking that has happened over the past few years has led me to believe that Jacques Ellul's statement really does get to the heart of the problem when it comes to the suppression of freedom by the Christian religious system and how it shapes everyone that is trained by an ideology that uses, all at the same time, a mixture of the language of freedom and law and in it's practices, a fear based system of conformity. No wonder so many people are left frustrated and no wonder we are left with human political power running the show...all the while the liberating message of Jesus remains locked up, out of reach to those going through the motions of a religious practice that leads them to believe that this is the way it is suppose to be.

"If, however, Christianity and the church are in fact reactionary and static, it is becasue they have lost the basic meaning of the Christian life, which is freedom. They have transformed revelation into a religion. Religion is indeed a conservative, retarding, and restrictive force. In this transformation, fellowship with Christ is lost, and with it the purity for which everything is pure and everything is possible. This is why it seems to me that the most urgent and decisive task for Christianity today, on the basis of fellowship with Christ, is to recover the full meaningof freedom." Jacques Ellul

"Here's today's God Journey Podcast The Pathway To Real Freedom