Catholics and the Dance of Salvation, Part II

Salvation Through Baptism

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit ... baptism now saves you--not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience -through the resurrection of Jesus Christ... I Peter 3: 18-21

For the Catholic, at baptism you are born-again. "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Christ is recorded as saying in John 3:5. Catholics have always understood this water as baptism. And along with baptism you receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit with oil.

[D]o you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.  Romans 6:3-10

Baptism is the act of faith by which we are truly born again. 

[I]n Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. Colossians 2: 11-13

Some Protestants teach that Christians are born-again in a spiritual experience. They do not take this water as being literal but as symbolic. Protestants often have an altar-call which follows a person receives Jesus into the person’s heart. It is a private internal revelatory experience usually accompanied by an emotion.  The idea of a conversion experience didn’t come into the picture until the 19th century. No Christian before that deemed an emotional or spiritual experience necessary. Baptism was the act of faith in which you were born-again. 

Most Catholics were baptized as babies and never had an “experience” that Protestants require. Catholics don’t require an emotional conversion experience. If you are baptized you are a child of God, you have become a new person and are given the Holy Spirit. Spiritual experiences happen to bring you closer to God, but they are not the method, the material method, by which the Word tells us to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Why an act with water? Why not just a private, internal belief?

We are material, not fully spiritual. We need to feel hugs and hear words and taste bread and drink water. Material things are good and God gave us material things in order that we might feel His presence on earth not only in a spiritual/ feelings way but also in a tangible material way. Baptism was given to us as an actual material and physical entrance into eternity and the Kingdom of God.

Catholic Baptism and the Covenant of Grace

We are adopted through baptism and enter the Kingdom of God as an organized, real church. The adoption as a child of God is not simply a legal agreement, but a family one. The Body of Christ is a family. The covenant is a family covenant. 

When you are brought up within the covenant, baptized as a baby, you retain your freewill to leave. God allows us to leave the sheepfold and reject the family. But that in no way means you are no longer His child. God remains faithful, even if we don’t. 

Think of this: The Catholic Church is so non-works oriented that they baptize babies into the covenant because of the faith of their parents and/or community. (See Matt. 9:2; also note Luke 5: 20 records, “Seeing their faith, He said, “Friend your sins are forgiven you.” Jesus saved many on the faith of parents or friends. See also Matthew 9: 18-26, 15:22-28, John 4: 48-54)

Baptizing babies into the covenant? Having born-again babies who cannot in any way do something to save themselves? Now that’s unmerited grace! That is a non-works based religion. You are saved as a baby by the faith of your parents! Doesn’t get less works-oriented than that.

Born-Again and Saved from Sin 

After we are born-again into the Kingdom, we then start the process of being saved from sin. (Basically, what Protestants say happens before we get to heaven magically at our death, Catholics say happens after we enter heaven. We just say heaven is now, Protestants say it is in the future.)

Catholics teach that Christians are imputed with Christ’s righteousness at baptism, but after becoming Children of God, we actually begin being infused with righteousness. This process of sanctification isn’t about working our way to heaven, for we are already inside the kingdom of God. 

To Catholicism the kingdom of heaven is now. While judgement does happens after death, those in the kingdom are either going to purgatory for some clean-up or directly to heaven. No one who is living in the kingdom at death have any fear of hell. The judgement is about rewards and punishment... not about heaven or hell. (Those outside the kingdom who choose hell will throw themselves in. So living inside the kingdom on earth is a guarantee of the Beatific Vision or seeing God face to face.)

Think about the Hebrew priests who did not do anything to become an Israelite. They were priests because they were from the tribe of Aaron. Catholics see salvation as a family covenant. The covenant begins at baptism just like the Hebrew covenant began with circumcision. You’re family. You are now part of God’s family. There is no fear, there is utter confidence and security.

Catholics nor Protestants (at least mainstream protestants) believe we can earn our way to heaven with good deeds. However, all of us believe there is no sin in heaven and we will be perfect when we see God.

Protestants just see perfection as a process that happens miraculously to born-again Christians at or after death. Catholics believe it is a process that begins miraculously to born-again Christians while we are here on earth.

Do Catholics believe in the Once Saved Always Saved doctrine like Calvinists? 

We believe that once we are inside the kingdom we retain our freewill. It is technically possible, but highly improbably that once inside we would choose to leave. One rarely leaves that kind of love. However, if sins become more important to us than Christ, we can with full intention and will, with a full understanding of what we are doing we can walk out on God, like Satan and the angels. However, we cannot accidentally be lost. That is impossible. We cannot be deceived out of the kingdom. Jesus will leave the flock and come to find us, for nothing can snatch us out of His hand. The only possible way we can leave the kingdom is if we, with full understanding, leave and stay out purposefully until death because we choose sin over Christ. It is an act of the will and cannot be a fall to temptation or because of a misunderstanding or an addiction.

Is Sanctification Works-Righteousness?

From what I understand from talking with both sides, the crux of this works-righteousness comes down to timing. If we are working towards perfection before we enter the kingdom, we earn Heaven. If we are working towards perfection after we enter the Kingdom, we are going through sanctification. So understanding when the Kingdom happens is crucial.

In the Protestant worldview, we look forward to the promise of salvation when Christ comes. Therefore anything we do before that time will come across as working our way to heaven, as if we can lose our salvation by what we do rather than what Christ did. This worldview bring a continual misunderstanding of the New Testament. It pits works against faith. It creates huge dances around certain texts in scripture that tell us we must now become holy and perfect and stop sinning. As if we have to do that before the Kingdom of heaven comes.

For the Catholic, at baptism, we enter the kingdom. 

This is the difference between works-righteousness and real Catholicism--when sanctification happens. If you are doing good works in order to appease an angry judge or you are married to the judge and do good works out of love. I know that Adventists say the same thing about Sabbath, “you keep sabbath because you are saved and not to be saved.” But remember when Adventists place our judgement. Our eternal salvation happens in the future at the Second Coming and we are judged by our keeping of the law then we get into heaven.

Non-Catholic Salvation

We are often criticized for teaching that there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church. To a Catholic the church is Christ’s Body. It is the New Covenant and the family of God. It is the Kingdom. Salvation is found inside Christ... for there is no name outside of which we can be saved.

Just like Protestants will claim there is no salvation outside Jesus Christ, we say the exact same thing. That’s what the statement means to us. It’s not like we are saying... Hey come to our church because we are the only way of salvation. We are saying come to Jesus, He is the only way of salvation. If you believe the church IS Christ’s Body, it makes sense. It’s hard to grasp, but we are not saying you cannot be saved if you are not a Catholic. It is a statement about Jesus and His salvation, not about the Catholic Church.

The pope who said it was not telling the world that the Catholic Church was the one among many churches that was the true one. It wasn’t an either or situation. At that time you could either be pagan or Christian. There wasn’t a bunch of denominations out there competing for the title of God’s church. The Church was how you learned about Jesus, it was where the scriptures were read and where you learned the gospel.

Today non-Catholic Christians (those baptized into the Trinity) are considered by our church as saved and as part of those who are within the New Covenant. And even those who have the baptism of desire... those who accept the baptism of the Holy Spirit within them and cannot for some reason be baptized by water are saved. However, water baptism into the Kingdom is the primary way salvation was set up. It is the best method by which we can unify with Christ.

Protestants and others who have accepted the Holy Spirit into their hearts are our “Separated Brethren” or  as Jesus called them “other sheep” outside the sheepfold. Though we fully accept them as Christians, we realize without the sheepfold they are more vulnerable, unprotected as independent individuals and can more easily fall prey to wolves.

The Sacraments and Salvation

This is another area easily misunderstood. Many Protestants reject Catholicism because they see the rituals of the sacraments as works of salvation. 

The Sacraments do not get us into heaven. The sacraments are what God uses for His Bride to help her become perfect for the wedding ceremony and the Wedding supper when He comes back. There is no fear she won’t become perfect. His perfection covers her all the while she is actually changing into perfection. 

The church is made up of individuals, but the church is not individualistic. The sacraments are material ways in which we enter the spiritual and receive God’s grace truly and actually. Grace is not a feeling, grace is not an experience. (It is not a high-five or an feeling of encouragement from the Lord) Grace is a power transmitted to us through a material act... it is like a powerbar that gives us real energy to go on and turn from sin.

The sacraments are material ways in which God is with us now. The Eucharist is Christ with us through bread and wine. The sacrament of reconciliation is a material way in which God gives us forgiveness and the grace empowering us to turn from sin and battle temptation. Baptism, marriage, Last Rights, these are all God coming to us through material/ physical means to show us grace.

These things are not necessary for salvation any more than prayer and bible reading are necessary for salvation. But these things keep the Kingdom of God always present for us... It is our physical reminder that God is with us as we live in the Kingdom.

Catholicism is about Unity

The Kingdom, its sacraments, its rituals, its laws are all about drawing Christ’s arms around us in unity.

Protestants separate the Church’s history... as if it was all about individual independent congregations. At Pentecost Christ established his church and sealed it forever. It is not like Pentecost came and everyone went out and established an independent little church. They all taught what Christ taught them and as they progressed they intercommunicated through the bishops so that the truth would remain pure, uncorrupted. 

Unity is prime reason for the church. All things of God are trying to fully reconcile us with Him. Drawing us into unity... a family or better yet a marriage.

It is truly here in a church and this church is awaiting the consummation of all times at the second coming. 

Catholics and the Dance of Salvation, Part III

The Bride Analogy

The Catholic Church sees itself as the Bride and Christ the groom. And since the early church was begun with the Hebrews, their culture affected the beliefs of the church. So the Catholic Church retains the marriage traditions of those times for itself as the Bride.

You see, the Israelite male would make a covenant with a woman’s family and he would be betrothed to his bride. (This is not an engagement period as the covenant is the legal beginning--a real “forsaking all others.” ) After the betrothal, the groom would go off for a period of time and prepare a home for her. Then when the groom’s father approved of the son’s home, the father would tell his son to go get his bride. The woman would be surprised by her groom showing up and she is to be prepared. The wedding feast lasted for seven days and after that the groom brought his bride home and the consummation and they would then be “one flesh.” 

The Catholic Church, the Bride, was legally, formally and eternally wedded to Christ at the Cross. She is preparing herself to meet her Bridegroom at the second coming and then for the wedding supper and final consummation. This is not simply a legal contract but a covenant of love. 

Catholics see the Church as His Bride already. We each enter this same covenant of love which we all enter into the Catholic Church at baptism. We are part of the Bride signed sealed and forever. Because Christ said that what God has joined together let no man tear asunder...the Catholic Church believes God can never, ever forsake His Church and hence because of these words Catholic do not believe in divorce.  That eternal marriage covenant serves as a promise to the Bride that Christ will never leave her.  

We, as Catholics, await the Second Coming and we already have a hint of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb each week at mass as we partake of the Eucharist.   In one sense, we are already with our husband, in a grand dance awaiting the consummation.

The Protestant view is one of seeing the marriage covenant in the future. When they have a born-again experience they see it as a guarantee of being the future bride, more like a promise ring. When they see Catholics struggling to be pure and holy, a Bride preparing for her husband and the wedding, they only see a slave girl dancing to keep from being sold to a worse master.

Yet Catholics see themselves as the Bride in a sealed covenant of love. We are in His arms, following His lead, trying to learn to dance a perfect dance. We are watching His eyes and His movements trying to keep in perfect rhythm... the perfect dance. There is no fear that He will take off the ring if we falter. We will not be thrown out as His wife if we do not dance well. He is teaching us as we await the door of the Bridegroom’s chamber and becoming one flesh.

My challenge is to read the New Testament through with the Catholic worldview in mind. All of a sudden everything absolutely makes so much sense you will be shocked you didn’t see it before. 

Spiritual Freedom, Part V

I am not saying the idea of freedom is wrong. Please do not misunderstand. What I am saying is the freedom is only right when there is a knowable absolute truth. That is when we can have true freedom. 

And God is a God of clarity and freedom, not of chaos and confusion. 

So, where do we go from here? I tell you my idea of absolute truth and you tell me yours. I say that you misinterpret scripture and you rejoin with "the scripture doesn't need interpretation, it is simple and obvious to those with the Holy Spirit." And then you walk away believing I am deceived for clearly Calvin or Luther or Joseph Smith or Ellen White or you alone were given the infallible understanding of scripture and I walk away thinking you are deceived. 

This is the perpetual ending to these discussions.  

And yet, stirring in all of us who call ourselves Christian, we hear a distant calling to our souls. We hear the heavenly song of unity and truth and beauty somewhere, we just can't precisely place it, somewhere out there soft and full of hope. Its song competes with the blaring sirens and commercials and carnival barkers until it is almost completely obliterated.

For a moment think about this, suspend all defensive responses for a moment and let this glorious thought cascade over you like rainfall to a parched desert. 

What if God gave us a route to knowing absolute truth, but it wasn't through a direct line of the Bible, the Holy Spirit and me. (Which has made a true mess of Truth.) What if He gave us a Church that has survived the centuries of personal interpretation and human corruption. 

What if the Truth was entrusted to a tattered and torn, battle weary Body encrusted with grime from two thousand years of spiritual war with the Devil? What if there is absolute truth, a knowable absolute truth given not to a woman of polished steel with arm held high upholding a flame of liberty, but an old woman whom the Devil has so caked in blood and sweat and mud that this truth looks more like a woman in labor or a kingdom of wheats and tares, like a field hiding a pearl of great price or a mustard seed that grew into the biggest tree or a dragnet full of edible and inedible fish? 

What if infallible truth has been entrusted by God to a Body of fallible men? What if God sent the Holy Spirit to guide a church into all truth rather than separate individuals? What if God gave truth to one strong rock rather than billions of little grains of shifting sand? 

Most Americans don't like that idea. We prefer a personal error to a corporate truth--or at least the right to a personal error rather than a right to an absolute truth. For the right to freedom cannot give both to us. Either we have a right to freedom based on absolute truth or we have a right to believe what we want to believe based on the freedom of lies. What we cannot have is both no matter how much we demand it and how much we think it is unfair and unjust for God not to give us both our personal truth and personal freedom. 

And there in lies the dilemma of Truth and the dilemma of Freedom and the dilemma of America. 

Spiritual Freedom, Part IV

America claims in its Constitution that God gives us certain inalienable rights, that among them is liberty of religion. We have cast God as the Great Capitalist in the sky looking down with approval that His eternal truth is just one in a cafeteria line of things claiming to be truth and that somehow His Truths will eventually work their way out in the marketplace of ideas. 

This Free Market god is proud when we become rich suing a soup company that mislabels its food products but he is even prouder when we fight to the death to protect a crazed prophet whose visions tell us that God wants us to paint ourselves purple, eat only raw radishes and marry our first cousin.

Maybe that's America's Enlightenment god, but it doesn't seem to be the God who tells us that the truth will make us free. Seems we have it turned around to say that freedom will make truth. 

Whatever the good intensions of America's Founding Fathers, what we have today is a miserable chaos of religious equality where sheep pretend they're shepherds, black pretends it is grey, grape juice pretends it's wine and a soft drink pretends that it brings happiness.

All that claims to be true is not. And humans were never supposed to try on each lie to see if it fits. 

Only when there is a clear Truth can we be free to choose or reject truth. And that was God's plan. The Devil salivates when he sees truth blurred and watered down. Mormons are tasty. (Not to say Mitt Romney or Glenn Beck are going to hell, but that if they do, they'd taste a lot better to the Devil than a John Boehner or Harry Reid type.)

The Devil has so stirred the pot of truth and lies that America is unable to even admit there is an Absolute Truth and that we can know it. I hear those who are paying attention wistfully hope that "one day, in heaven, we will know truth" and those who aren't paying attention say that Christians actually agree on essential Bible truths.

In America, we have the right to disagree, indeed it is a noble thing, as if the disagreement about truth is more noble than the truth itself. So we all go around assuming we have freedom and we don't for the Devil has made a garbage dump of lies appear glorious. 

And all the time, sitting among the rubbish of lies is a truth sparkling. The diamond is almost unseen among all the shards of glinting glass because everyone is heroically dying for the glass to claim it is diamonds. And people are spending their lives and their fortunes maniacally clinging to their "precious" glass shard thinking it is the pearl of great price.

Is that why Christ died? 

Absolute Freedom, Part III

So here's what we know from parts one and two: 

Part One: Freedom must be based on absolute truth. (Choosing from unlabeled or mislabeled choices is not true freedom.)

Part Two: If freedom is a God-given right, we must have a God-given Absolute Truth. 

Up to this point we have been talking about basic everyday material freedom--such as the freedom to buy a can of corn and not open it up to find a can of beans or an ability to get on a cruise to Rome and not end up in the Bahamas--our everyday right to choose to purchase or do something. 

Assuming that I have made a convincing argument up to now, I will expand the argument from material freedom to freedom of ideas. Not any ideas, but specifically religious ideas.

Our country promises us that God's self-evident right of liberty is fundamental to humans.  U.S. law protects both our freedom of religion and speech. Therein lies the problem.

We can speak error and it is given the same legal dignity and honor and protection as the truth. Often people grasp their chest, looking upward and hearing the "His Truth is Marching On" sung by a choir in the background proclaim, "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Okay, that means that person will defend to the death another's right to say things that are not true (with the caveat that they are being sincere and what the person says does not put anyone in immanent danger.) People can sincerely say stupid, dangerous things and people will believe them. 

And ideas are more potent than swords, so what may seem like a asinine idea today, may be trending on twitter tomorrow and taught to our kids in school in a generation.

We think it a great and noble idea to legally defend ignorant and false ideas.  


However, protecting the freedom to speak lies also implodes the right of freedom of religion. America is fundamentally enslaved when we protect error on the same level as truth. 


Can religion survive a free-market system? 

Think of a carnival, where spiritual barkers are out there with  all religious opinions hawking their denomination--all claiming their truth is the right one. This is basically what we have in America today. And they all can't be right. One says God wants babies to be baptized and another says God doesn't. One says baptism is a necessity for salvation, another says not. One says you must believe in sola fide or you are not a Christian, others say you don't.  Some say you must believe in the Trinity, some say you don't. 

If all of these claims are true then none of them are true. You can't be pregnant and not pregnant at the same time. It is the law of non-contradiction. There is absolute truth about God, then there is an exact answer about whether He made certain things a sin and certain things not sins. He is Truth and He is not a lie. 

America has enshrined in her Constitution the Providential right for all religious lies to have the same protection as truth and then in the same document enshrining the right to liberty. Those two ideas are in a direct collision course with each other. 

The assumption is that we are all intelligent enough to be able to discern spiritual lies from spiritual truths as if spiritual truths were as trivial and obvious as the silliness of Diet Coke's recent slogans, "open happiness" or "life begins here." 

We can assume as Bible-believing Christians that:
1. Spirituality matters.
2. There is something called truth.
3. There is something called deception.

And if these things be true, then we can also assume that truth may not be simple and obvious to everyone reading the Bible. That is self-evident. 

And if God meant there to be no way to definitely understand truth, it is the exact same thing as telling us we have the freedom of choice and then place before us (like in the game show example in part one) blank doors to choose from without knowing what is behind them. 

God does not give us blank doors to choose truth. He gives us a real choice, a real freedom to choose between good and evil, between the Devil and Himself. The choice isn't a trick, it isn't vague, it isn't confusing. Confusion is the mark of Babylon, not the mark of Christianity. Truth was meant to be clear so that our freedom may be a real freedom.  

When someone is sincerely looking for truth, he is met with hundreds of books labelled "Bible" with translations that all teach different nuances of truth, if not within the wording itself, at the very least within the notes. And he is met with church after church, often on the same block, with the same crosses and the same claim that they use the Bible as their authority.  

Without an absolute Truth given by God, one is left with the most personal of biblical interpretive guesses, an ever-shifting understanding based on age, gender, education, spiritual maturity and culture. This is not freedom of religion, but thinly disguised shell game of the Devil.

America's freedom that everyone has the right to spiritually lie basically takes away our freedom to spiritually choose.

Absolute Freedom, Part II

"You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free! He who the Son sets free is free indeed!"

I can still hear the Oral Robert's singers on Sunday morning TV bursting through all my childhood ruckus with those words. 

But what exactly does this mean: The Truth shall make you free? 

Civic Freedom:
Yes, the U. S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights state that freedom is a self-evident gift of Providence. It even states that freedom is a right. The U. S. government law enforcement officers are supposed to step in and by law enforce my right to freedom--the freedom they declare is from God.

But the Constitution says nothing about truth? If the truth is what makes us free, then there is something missing in the Constitution. 

Someone might say, "Well, come on. The Constitution is a secular document."

I reply, "Except that, it goes to God for the sacred right of freedom. Why not also make a sacred right of truth since that same God told us that we cannot get to freedom except by truth. I mean, if we are going to bring God into it, then why not use God's method of getting to freedom."

Someone might then say, "Too much God. Freedom is enough. Don't bring truth into it."

But as a nation based on the Judeo/Christian idea of sacred liberty, who openly declares God gives us freedom, not the government, then why not openly declare that God gives us truth too. If freedom, by God's own definition, requires truth as a prerequisite, then better make truth a right so that afterwards freedom can be a right, right?

Let me start over: 

In part one of this post, I went through the process of showing that without truth, freedom implodes on itself. You can't freely choose something if you are not given information about the choice or limited information or outright fallacious information. You weren't really free to choose a fat-free yogurts from regular yogurt if they are mislabeled and those that claim to be fat-free are not truly fat-free. Your choice is being wrongly manipulated by lies. 

So before I can access my right to freedom, I must have the absolute truth. Right? Because giving me the right to freedom without giving me the right to truth first.... is like giving Americans the right to free healthcare when there are no doctors or nurses or medical facilities. (Or when people are free to call themselves doctors or nurses without when they have had no schooling.) No true healthcare workers, no healthcare.

And you can't get to freedom under the circumstances of anything false can call itself true! 

Some of you are seeing the very scary place I am going with this.

We must have absolute truth. Freedom cannot survive with half-truths, sorta truths, and lies that call themselves truth.

If freedom is dependent upon truth, then what do we do with a nation that puts all error upon the same level as truth? We give error the right to call itself truth? 

Think of stupid little things: A soft drink claiming that "Coke adds Life" or a news station claiming "Truth Lives Here" or a coffee shop with the advertising on the door that reads, "The World's Best Coffee." All of these claims are most likely untrue. Does drinking a Coke really add life? Really? Maybe at best it adds a little stimulate to your body and momentary enjoyment to your tastebuds, but does it truly add life? Naw. It's a advertising gimmick and with advertising nothing has to be really, truly true. 

Advertising is in general a con-game we all accept in a capitalistic system. We all assume the advertising propaganda (lies) don't affect our freedom of choice. It's all a part of the western culture free-market game and is harmless. If the lies become too blatant or dangerous, then "foul" is called and a lawsuit is slapped on the manufacturer. It all works itself out in the free-market system. 

But can we really have a free market system with truth itself? Can freedom survive when truth become capitalistic and all ideas--true and false-- are given equal rights? 

If freedom itself is dependent upon truth, then truth better be plain. Lies should not get the same rights as truth? If it works that way in all other avenues why not also in spiritual truths? 

And that we will get into in part III.

Absolute Freedom Destroys Freedom

Truth and Freedom are inseparable, in fact, absolute truth gives us freedom and freedom demands absolute truth.  Without truth, freedom turns into chaos.

Let’s start with an easy analogy:

What if you were chosen from the audience to be a contestant for a gameshow called, “Freedom to Choose!” and were shown two blank white doors and told you were free to choose one of the doors.

You ask, “What’s behind them?”
The game show hosts replies, “You can’t know, it’s a surprise!”

You ask, “Is this really freedom when I don’t know what’s behind the doors?” So the gameshow hosts then adds three more blank doors. “Now you have REAL freedom! You can choose door number one, door number two or any other of the doors!”

“Well,” you ask, “how is adding more doors giving me more freedom when I don’t know what is behind any of them?”

The gameshow hosts is looking anxious at you and back into the camera. “More choices, more freedom, of course!”

You are not quite sure how that works, but you know something is wrong. Freedom isn’t about choosing from random unknowns. True freedom is choosing from things you do know.

“Well,” the gameshow hosts taps his ear receiver and smiles broadly to the audience, “my producer informs me that we can tell this contestant what is behind two of the doors. Behind door number one is a vacation to Las Vegas and behind door number two is a new washer and drier!”

“Oh! I really, really need a new washer and drier.” You jump for joy, “I choose door number two!”

“Our audience contestant has used her freedom of choice and has chosen door number two!” The gameshow host announces loudly. And the door opens up to find that behind it is a lifetime supply of Little Debbie Oatmeal Cookies. The audience goes wild with clapping and you are expected to be happy with the prize even if it wasn’t what you chose.

Again, something is wrong, but in front of the camera’s and audience you are not sure how to react. The cookies are a nice gift, but that isn’t what you picked out. That isn’t freedom when you don’t know your choices or you the choices have been lied about. The hosts sends you back to your seat with the shout, “Thanks for playing Freedom to Choose!”

So, what is wrong with this picture?

We often don’t stop to analyze what freedom truly is and how it is achieved. We don’t realize that the ability to have freedom is based on the idea that the choices we have been given are knowable and true.

You weren’t really given any freedom when you were given the choice of any of the doors when you didn’t know what was behind them, nor when you were given false information. 

Let’s say the “Freedom to Choose” gameshow has a guest after you that wins a cruise to any destination he wishes. So the person uses his freedom to choose a trip to Rome. When he gets onboard, the cruise to Rome instead ends up in the Bahamas. The ship advertisers and advertisements simply lied. They never were going to Rome, but were always going to the Bahamas. They used their freedom to lie to all the passengers saying that the Bahamas in their personal dictionary is called Rome. They just switched what the word meant and didn’t tell anyone. They all defended their position with the idea of personal freedom. After all, they used their freedom to choose what the word “Rome” meant.

Absolute, unrestricted freedom means that we all have the freedom to harm, do wrong, lie and cheat. But, that type of absolute freedom will eventually implode on itself like a black hole. Absolute freedom--or unrestricted, unconstrained freedom--cannot long exist as it brings anarchy and chaos. 

Imagine absolute freedom where a Campbell’s soup company can label something “Tomato Soup” and instead put in string beans. Or a map company using their freedom to add extra states and mislabel roads. Where words lose all meaning because we each have the freedom to make any definition to any word we please. What if we could make a new name for ourselves each day and sign our name differently on each contract? 

All consumers would lose their freedom to choose if we all had absolute freedom. For we could no longer choose to purchase anything because we couldn’t trust any labels or any person’s word! Their personal truths (and freedom to lie) would severely inhibit our ability to have freedom.

Every time we choose, we are choosing something based upon the idea that we have been given truth. We choose spouses and friends and careers and medical procedures and houses and cars and everything we buy at a store based upon the idea that what it or they say is true. If a pregnancy test doesn’t tell you the truth about whether you are pregnant.... or your boss promises that if you don’t quit he’ll give you a raise in a couple months, or if a politician tells you he won’t raise taxes or even if something is labelled “low fat” and isn’t... you can’t make a free choice. Lies have restricted your freedom to make a choice. 

The nature of true freedom can only be found within the confines of absolute truth. Freedom is lost when choices are not labelled or labelled incorrectly in some or all of its aspects.

Here is the great irony of Freedom. Freedom requires self-limiting of its own freedom to that which is true so that freedom can continue. For freedom will actually cease to exist without being founded upon absolute truth.

Isn’t that weird that absolute truth is the only thing that is absolute about true freedom? And I don’t mean true freedom in a spiritual sense, I mean it as a practical idea of us being able to think about what we want and then have the choice to be able to go out and do or get what we have chosen to do or get. 

Yes, we are all free to do wrong to lie and cheat. But that is a suicidal freedom. That freedom eventually enslaves you and others. Absolute truth is necessary to freedom. 

What Jesus Means to Me

What Jesus Means to Me

When I was a child in bed at night and all was dark and scary. I sang songs to Him and the angel He gave me and soon I was no longer scared. I asked him if I could marry Him. And I wondered when He would come and make all the bad things in life go away. I wanted Him to make mean people good. I wanted all my family to not have pain and go to heaven.

One night when I was in fifth grade my friend got shot in the stomach and he almost died and I determined to stay awake all night praying for him, I fell asleep on my knees and felt so guilty in the morning. But my friend lived and I realized that no matter how hard I tried to keep a promise to Jesus, I was going to fail but that Jesus wouldn’t.

When I was a teenager in the 1970’s my friends scared me. They started taking drugs and trying to be cool and listening to bad, harsh music. I was very lonely and felt so nerdy. I was mocked because I liked musicals and classical music and old movies. I was terrified of smoking and dating and rock stars that painted their faces and stuck out their tongues. I put on that I was better than them, but really I was just scared of things I knew to be sin and stupidity.

I told Jesus that He didn’t have to pay attention much to me. I saw all the problems in the world and knew He was too busy for my silly complaints. He had blessed me so much that I carefully kept from complaining to Him. I wanted to be one of those people that never caused Jesus to cry. And my parents had taught me that when people sin, it makes Jesus cry.

As a teenager I loved reading the Bible and craved to know all about Him. He was so good and so kind. I loved to see pictures of Him carrying a lamb on His shoulders. I loved teaching in Kindergarten Sabbath school and singing in choir. Sabbath for me was a very, very happy day. I loved every Sabbath. I felt close to Jesus on that day like He came and placed a special invisible arm of love around me. It was romantic and fun--a great family day. A day to be intimate with God and your fellow man.

Adventists didn’t talk much about their relationship to Jesus. I had never been around it. So I kept it to myself except at Sabbath School. Then it was usually discussions about theological points instead of a relationship with Jesus. I always thought it was because it was assumed everyone had a relationship with Jesus. We were all past the milk and needing the meat.

Jesus was in each bright, warm sunrise and at each cozy, mysterious bedtime. He was in my heart when I was happy and He was there when I was terrified. My faith was weak... my love was strong, but mostly my faith was weak. Lots of things didn’t make sense, but I knew he was there. He was my knight in shining armor, my invisible friend, my Mr. Rogers in my little Christian neighborhood.

Some years, He was so close I felt Him talking to me all day, smiling at me all day. I felt His close, loving presence.

Some years, He was a distant friend who seemed too busy to write or call, but I tried to understand. And I knew He loved me, even if He was busy.

My life hasn’t been easy, but it has been easier than most. I have experienced happiness that I doubt very many people have gotten to experience. I have seen much. And I have experienced sorrow that almost all of us have had to deal with--life tragedies that almost kill you.

But one thing, I have been blessed because I have been near Him my whole life.
Christians today have all these great stories of conversion... You know them. “I was a terrible sinner and then I got saved.” Well, my story is nothing like that. I wasn’t a terrible sinner and I never have felt overwhelming guilty about much. I guess it is because I have always tried so hard to be obedient to him. I never wanted Jesus to cry over what I had done. I sinned, but before the guilt could get strong I immediately repented. I sinned for sure... but nothing of note--nothing to make a good conversion story out of.

But what Jesus has been to me is a friend for my fears and my pain. I have desperately needed a savior from myself. Not because of my great sins, but because of my great terrors of life and death. My fear when I watched my sister getting into the car that she would be in a wreck and I would never see her again. Fear that someone I loved would not be saved. Fear that my mother would come down with cancer or my father would die in a plane crash or drowning. Fear that my wonderful blessed life would disappear with a poof.

I needed Christ to survive my life. He taught me that I would survive my fears and suffering even when He didn’t magically make them go away. He taught me to be brave during those times and that He would be with me.

One of the greatest things that has ever happened to me spiritually is the crucifix. When I have been my lowest, cowering alone with excruciating pain and agony, unable to swallow, vomiting with the trauma of life’s tragedies, I have been able to grab a crucifix and look at what Christ has gone through and know that He knows. He knows and He knows and He knows. That has given me strength to survive the pain.

I have spent much of my life feeling very isolated, misunderstood, dismissed. What made it all well is that moment I imagined seeing my Jesus face to face. That is all I needed of heaven and I all expect of heaven, that for one moment I may look into His eyes and our eyes will lock and I will see in His eyes that He knew how MUCH I tried not to make those eyes cry. And His eyes will say to me, “You never made me cry with pain.” And then I will cry with joy.

Jesus I love you.