Let Freedom Reign
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

You've all heard the one about the older gentleman who was complaining to the younger gentleman. "You're generation is just no good. You've got nothing but ignorance and apathy." The young man responds, "I don't know what ignorance and apathy are, and I don't care." But it is not just young folk who have the dual problems of ignorance and apathy when it comes to giving freedom the reverence it is due. It seems that no one knows what freedom is, and no one really cares about it.

Freedom has through history gone through a number of changes in how it was understood. In the Middle Ages a country was deemed to be "free" if they were not ruled by an outside power. Thus Scotland under the tyranny of Edward the Longshanks was not free, while England, under the tyranny of Edward the Longshanks was free. While I am all for self-rule, true freedom is better than home grown despotry.

With the enlightenment came a different understanding. Those people were deemed free who had the greatest latitude in their own decision making, who kept the fruit of their labor, and could expect to have dealings with the government only when a genuine crime had been committed. It was this fundamental vision that gave rise to the glories of freedom which we once enjoyed in these United States.

And now we have sunk down into the lowest form of "freedom," brought to us by Franklin Roosevelt. During the Great Depression he laid down a conception of freedom which is raw slavery. He promised freedom from want, freedom from fear, things which could be provided only by destroying real freedom. And we bought such freedom at the cost of freedom. He would tell us what to do, how to spend our money, and everything would be all right.

In our day such a vision still stands, buttressed by the allure of so called "democracy,' that vague western notion that we're supposed to be so excited about. What it has come to mean is the right to vote, the right to 500 channels on television, the right to have it your way at Burger King, the right to kill our children. We'll fight for these things, well, if we're not too busy.

Freedom is not a good to be pursued in itself. Rather it serves the higher good of leaving room for the service of the Great King. That service, as we argued in the Vision column, is more than being allowed to go to the zoning board approved building a few times a week. It encompasses all of our work, all of our play, all of our lives. Confiscatory taxes are wicked not first because money is taken from me, but because it is taken from God's kingdom, for all that we have, not ten percent, is God's. When the state forbids me to plow my land for fear of disturbing a snail darter, or harvest my trees for fear of harassing the spotted owl, it is in the Way of kingdom building.

But there is another good that freedom serves, the building of character. When we are free to fear, free to want, free to fail, then we are truly free to exercise our God-given responsibilities. When the state is busy handing out bread, we find that we are not so diligent in our labors. When the state is giving security to children and the elderly, I find it that much easier not to practice true religion by caring for the orphan and the widow. When the state offers to teach my children, having stolen from me in the first place to pay for it, I find it that much easier to hand my children over to Moloch. When the state provides a safety net for my children and the wife of my youth, I find that I don't need to, and so am "free" to seek out greener pastures.

The reason that freedom is so precious then is that it is so difficult to get it back when we have lost it. We become men without chests, and such cannot overturn tyranny. Instead we vote Republican and negotiate with it. And this is why we must revere freedom. We must love and honor our freedom, and love and honor our ancestors who gave it to our later ancestors, who failed to honor it, and put us in this mess. This is why we must begin to instill a sense of what we have lost to our children. Such is what I try to do here in this column. Some of you may think my rhetoric a bit extreme. Some of you have said so. And I respond that you do not know what freedom is, and you do not care. I do not rage against the government because I hate the government. I rage against the government because I love freedom.

Ask my children what Sprouls are and they will tell you, "Sprouls are free." We are not free as we would pray to be, but we are free enough to know that we are not free. We are free enough to know what freedom is, and what it costs. We are free enough to know that we live in the land of the cowed, and the home of the cowardly. We are free enough to dream of being free, and to work to get there. We are free enough to do our duty to freedom, and to love it.

When we take the gifts of God lightly, we are sure to lose them. When we are not diligent stewards the talents are taken from us. And those of us on the watch tower, wondering when our freedom will be taken from us, wondering when we will do something bad enough to make God mad and judge us, are looking in the wrong direction. It is gone, as distant as centuries past. Then there were men who loved freedom, who revered it as a gift from God. And we by comparison are but pygmies in chains.