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Freedom: A Universal Human Right versus A Value within a Particular (i.e., Christian) Tradition

The purpose of this brief essay is to offer a different basis for freedom than that given in post-Enlightenment, free societies of the West.  The argument presented is that freedom understood as a universal human right ends up with various conflicting views and fails in a variety of ways.  Christians often seek to establish freedom for their faith on the grounds of universal rights, but the position taken here is that they need to articulate their view of freedom from within their own religious tradition.

The Present State of the Argument

The defense of freedom in free societies seems to require defending not only good things but also bad things.  We defend free speech, but to do so we end up defending the free speech rights of hateful groups or the purveyors of pornography.  Freedom of religion is defended in such a way as to defend all belief systems: to defend one, one must defend the right of all.  This only makes sense to those who do not enquire too deeply into the beliefs and practices of some religions (e.g., Mayan human sacrifice?) or to those willing to live with the bad to get some good.  The problem we continually run into with absolute values is that they cannot function absolutely.  The dialogue in which we find ourselves in Western, liberal democracies has been the dialogue fit for the public square.  To defend our own space, we need to defend every other space.  So the argument goes.

Another way to put this—and the way we have come to accept—is that freedom is a ‘right’.  The language of ‘rights’ locates moral discourse in absolute values, disconnected to the narratives that give them meaning, and the potency of this way of thinking in the West can be seen in the fact that this is still accepted in a post-modern society that denies absolutes.  (This inconsistency is being recognized in left-wing groups, where free speech is increasingly under attack.  Yet opposition to free speech has not yet become a dominant position—and this attack on free speech is a real and present danger to the freedom of religion, too.)

This way of discussing freedom makes sense in an Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment world.  Matters of faith are held to be personal and private and, as such, worth being given their free space.  Does it matter what someone believes if those beliefs do not press into public spaces?  Yet, where they do, such a society tries to limit them: the artist decorating cakes for weddings, for example, who refuses to promote through his art the celebration of same-sex marriage on account of his own beliefs is censored and fined.  The counter-argument, still based on a concept of absolute values, is that the defense of freedom in a free society will defend the baker’s personal beliefs.

An Alternative

So, is there an alternative?  If we set aside the goal of defending freedom as a value of the public square and see it as a value of a particular faith, we end up with a rather different understanding of freedom.  What is a Christian basis for freedom?

While this will sound odd to Western ears, I would suggest that a Christian basis for freedom is not in absolute rights but in faith, in believing.  Christians understand salvation to be by God’s grace and through our faith in His provision of salvation, not in our righteous works.  Faith is the key to freedom.  Faith is not something that can be coerced (contrast the lawsuit against the Christian baker, e.g.).  Consequently, freedom rises from faith.  One cannot have faith without the freedom to believe.

This sort of freedom, a Christian freedom, leads further to an argument for witnessing to faith.  The notion of freedom in liberal society, as already noted, moves in the direction of private beliefs, not public witness.  Private beliefs might be protected, but public witness is censored.  A recent incident outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in London makes the point.  The liberal ministers of the Cathedral—having lost a Christian perspective and adopted that of Western culture—recently insisted that someone reading Scripture aloud in the area outside the cathedral should desist.  They have bought into the understanding of freedom that requires freedom of religion to be private instead of freedom as arising from faith that leads to public witness.  On the former view, the baker refusing to use his artistic abilities to support something he disagrees with is forcing his views on others, which is seen as an attack on the private freedom of others (in this case, same-sex marriage).  On the latter view, the baker is publicly witnessing to his faith—he is advocating freedom through his witness, which affirms a person’s right to believe.  He is expressing freedom, not attacking it.

A Christian view of freedom does not defend the right of people to believe whatever they want to believe.  Rather, it insists that, for belief to be genuine, it must not be coerced.  Thus, space is given to wrong beliefs in the hope that others will come to the right belief, not because all beliefs are equal.  Freedom is a value that arises from Christian belief, not a value independent from belief and located in human rights.

 A generic defense of the freedom of religion, moreover, runs aground in its defense of religions that have practices that should be condemned.  Christians should not defend their faith by defending freedom for all faiths—if they did so, they would be caught in the irony of defending the freedom of some religion that is repressive and demands submission (a freedom to oppress).  It is rather the unique understanding of freedom within the Christian faith that will keep Christians from that contradictory and self-defeating understanding of freedom.

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