Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
A Worthy Definition of Freedom
A Worthy Definition of Freedom
Oct 5, 2024 11:25 AM

Here’s a definition of freedom worth noting:

The Word of God teaches that the Christian is a free man and should “stand in the freedom which Christ has made him free.” What is meant by Christian freedom? What is freedom in general? We answer: it is not the right and the ability to do as one pleases, but the ability to move without constraint in the sphere for which God made us. Freedom therefore is not inconsistent with limitation and law. The bird is free only when it can move in the air unhindered. A worm is free when it is not prevented from moving in the ground–in a sphere which would mean bondage and death for many other creatures. A otive is not free unless its motion is confined to the two rails on which it was made to run. Man was made in the image of God to be like Him and to reflect his holiness. Consequently he is free only when he moves without constraint in the sphere of holiness and obedience to God’s law.

–“Christian Liberty,” in “Report of the Committee on Worldly Amusements,” Agenda: Synod of the Christian Reformed Church, To convene June 13, 1928 at Holland, Mich., p. 22.

The biblical text cited above is Galatians 5:1.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Baxter, How to Do Good to Many, Part 2
Readings in Social Ethics: Richard Baxter, How to Do Good to Many (London, 1682; repr. 1830), part 2 of 3. References below are to page numbers. On Motives: Human works are God’s appointed means of grace: “It is God’s great mercy to mankind, that he will use us all in doing good to one another; and it is a great part of his wise government of the world, that in societies men should be tied to it by the sense...
Global Warming Consensus Alert: Flaming, Earth-Crushing Death!
Remember the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka? I distinctly remember people making jokes about how they’d find a way to blame the whole catastrophe on global warming. Note to self: climate change hype is beyond parody: Unlike most apparently intractable problems, which have a tendency to go away when examined closely and analytically, the climate change predicament just seems to get bigger and scarier the more we learn about it. Now we discover that not only are the...
Book Review Roundup
Here are some book reviews of note from recent weeks that you may find to be of interest: Charles H. Parker. The Reformation of Community: Social Welfare and Calvinist Charity in Holland, 1572-1620. Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. xv + 221 pp. Illustrations, map, tables, notes, sources cited, index. $37.99 (paper), ISBN 0-521-02540-0. Reviewed by Victoria Christman, Department of History, Luther College.Gertrude Himmelfarb. The Moral Imagination: From Edmund Burke to Lionel Trilling. Chicago: Ivan...
Baxter, How to Do Good to Many, Part 3
Readings in Social Ethics: Richard Baxter, How to Do Good to Many (London, 1682; repr. 1830), part 3 of 3. References below are to page numbers. Concluding Consectaries: These consectaries are aimed at Baxter’s audience, wealthy Christian merchants. Baxter examines in some particular detail suggestions for the right use of their charitable funds and efforts: “Might not somewhat more be done than yet is, to further the gospel in your factories, and in our plantations?” (329)Concerning Christians abroad who are...
Keep Cool with Coolidge
A new film titled “Things of the Spirit,” takes a fresh look at the life and presidency of Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge, understandably, received renewed interest during the Reagan era of American politics. Coolidge is perhaps best known for his laissez-faire economic policies and the famed moniker, “Silent Cal.” What makes “Things of the Spirit” different is that it’s produced by a self avowed “liberal filmmaker,” John Karol. Karol penned a piece last week for the New York Sun titled, “The...
In Service with and for Others
While I was in seminary in Kentucky, students were required plete a relatively extensive service project that assisted and helped the poor and marginalized in munity. My group volunteered at a teen pregnancy center, others at nursing homes, or with organizations like Habitat for Humanity. At the pregnancy center we led job training, financial classes, and other practical skills for work and the home. A different group went another direction, they passed out petitions that called upon the federal government...
Global Warming Consensus Alert: The Science is Settled!
Remember – there’s really no dispute over the evidence that catastrophic anthropogenic climate change is underway. All the models predict it; the science is solid; the consensus is broad and unshakable. Oh, and pay no attention that significant downward revisions have had to be made in recent US temperature data: Climate scientist Michael Mann (famous for the hockey stick chart) once made the statement that the 1990’s were the warmest decade in a millennia and that “there is a 95...
‘Capitalist Calling’
The Washington Times reviews Acton’s Call of the Entrepreneur today in an article titled “Capitalist Calling”: The Acton Institute hopes the documentary will crush the popular myth of business as a “zero-sum game.” Jay Richards, the director of Acton Media, told an audience at a Heritage Foundation screening that the “point is that human beings create wealth; it’s not a zero-sum game.” The film addresses the critics of capitalism while acknowledging that capitalism’s defenders are sometimes too theoretical. “The Call...
The New Martyrs
People light candles below a wooden cross at a site south of Moscow where at the height of Josef Stalin’s political purges 70 years ago firing squads executed thousands of people perceived as enemies munism. (AP) “Martyrdom means a great deal to Orthodox people,” writes historian James Billington in “The Orthodox Frontier of Faith,” an essay collected in “Orthodoxy and Western Culture,” a volume of essays published in honor of Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005). The 20th Century’s...
T.S. Eliot & Ritualistic Nihilism
Lately, I’ve heard one too many emo kids misread T.S. Eliot as being one of their own. In Russell Kirk’s words, it is easy for the “rootless and aimless” of the new generation to over-identify with Eliot, seeing him as a spokesman “for the futility and fatuity of the modern era, all whimper and no bang — a kind of Anglo-American ritualistic nihilism.” And whining, pining, Anglo-American ritualistic nihilism is the cultural trend of the day, whether you look at...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2024 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved