The Right to be Free

Freedom. Pro-Choice. Equal rights.
These are the terms our society embraces. Clearly we have freedom living in a democratic-republic. Still, freedom comes with responsibility and exceptions. One might say that person has free speech, but that freedom ceases when it jeopardizes the safety and well being of others in the pursuit of their own rights. For example, when someone exercises their free speech in a crowded theater by yelling fire when there is no fire; at that point, the person is criminally responsible for the panic and injuries resulting from the stampede.
Our freedoms do have limitations. I often wonder why abortion isn’t treated the same way as the illustration above. It is already considered—legally—double-homicide when an unborn baby is killed as a result of murder against the pregnant mother, and most scientists acknowledge the humanity of the unborn, despite arguments of viability, cognition, and such. It would seem that we have a moral double standard here. Hmmm!
My point in this blog is actually not to argue against abortion, or any other issue I might bring up, based on a legal or constitutional platform. Rather, I want to beg a rather important question: Are some of the freedoms our culture espouses to actually right? Regardless of having these freedoms (real or perceived), are they correct?
With all the rhetoric of freedom and equality and tolerance out there right now, the practitioners of what might be seen as morally questionable behavior by Christianity and other faiths or worldviews, seem to be preoccupied with the securing a place at the table over and above considering if such views are actually moral.
In a postmodern and often relativistic society, moral correctness has become an individual choice, subject only to the whims and notions of a person’s worldview, regardless of how that worldview is informed. I suspect that much of this subjectivism is fed by hedonism: Does it feel right or good?
Ah! Feelings… Perhaps emotion plays a bigger role in the issue than anything else. For example, homosexuality is a hot button issue. There are some who claim a bio-chemical cause to homosexuality, and maybe there is. It still doesn’t answer whether it’s right or not. The claimants might argue that it feels fight, or that they’ve always felt different & attracted to the opposite sex; therefore, it must by natural or as God designed it. This reasoning is based mostly on emotion and not on Scripture (though there are those who attempt to translate Scripture to support their views on homosexuality and other sins) or science.
So, we have a culture that promotes freedom based on emotional decision making and not the deeper truths of correctness. What would happen if people’s questioning and investigations led them to ask not what feels good, sounds good, or makes sense subjectively, and started asking “what is right?”.
Now, I must confess that my goal is not to target the big ticket sins that many Christians often do, like homosexuality and abortion, but these are perhaps the two biggest and best examples for my point. Rather, my goal is declare that the question of moral correctness is also relevant to each one of us on a personal scale as well. Look at me for example… I love food and am made fat for it. I am a confessed glutton. I have abused a good and natural gift of God and an essential freedom. I am just as culpable for my sin as anyone else, despite the media notoriety.
Sin is rooted in pride and self-autonomy to begin with, so it’s actually not surprising that people would substantiate their sins by leaning on emotion, feelings, or limited information. My goal is not to target the well known or the little sins of any one person or group. Rather, I simply hope to encourage everyone to consider not the freedom you have to do or choose things, but whether those things are objectively right, regardless of what it is. Blessings.
-Pastor Paddy