Christianity and the History of Freedom

July 2, 2008

Christianity and the History of Freedom

For Americans the Fourth of July marks national independence, but the holiday has become symbolic of a more universal cause: human liberty. The development of human freedom, in theory and in practice, is in large measure the story of Christianity.

How we understand the past influences how we live in the present, which is why debates about history can be so rancorous. Whether Christianity is a vehicle of oppression or a force for liberation is a question whose answer has remained contentious for two millennia.

For many, Christianity is oppressive. For them, the Christian religion is associated with the Crusades, the Inquisition, and Puritanical moralism. It conjures images of witch hunts, the scarlet letter, and “Hitler’s pope.”

Contemporary Christians cannot ignore these associations. What truth they contain must be acknowledged. But the critics of Christianity cannot have it both ways. If evil done in the name of Christ is to be highlighted, then so must the good. Antislavery crusades, orphanages and hospitals, protection of the weak and innocent—these too have marked the historical record of Christianity.

Christianity’s impact on civilization has occupied some of history’s greatest minds, who have both reflected and influenced their respective zeitgeists. Augustine defended the followers of Christ against the accusation that they were to blame for the decline of the Roman Empire; fourteen centuries later British historian Edward Gibbon revived the charge, giving voice to his age’s skepticism toward revealed religion.

Another and better informed English historian, Lord Acton, addressed the problem in the late nineteenth century. The result, The History of Freedom in Christianity, was a masterpiece of historical summary, distilling almost two thousand years into a single story of the gradual unfolding of human liberty. Acton reversed the Enlightenment narrative that he had inherited. The rise of Christianity did not smother the flame of liberty burning brightly in Greece and Rome only to be rekindled as medieval superstition gave way to the benevolent reason of Voltaire, Hume, and Kant. Instead, Christianity took the embers of freedom, flickering dimly in an ancient world characterized by the domination of the weak by the strong, and—slowly and haltingly—fanned it into a blaze that emancipated humanity from its bonds, internal and external.

Christianity’s confrontation with culture was not a matter of the truth about God and man transported whole into civilization via religion. Beginning in sources prior to Christianity—Judaism and classical Greece—and continuing in secular political, economic, and social movements, Christianity interacted with the world and honed its own understanding of human nature and God’s will for mankind on this earth.

Christianity’s signal achievement, as Acton recognized, was the creation of space for human freedom vis-à-vis the institution that has, in fact, been the gravest threat to liberty throughout history: the state. The story is admittedly complicated by Church officials’ sometime collaboration with state oppression. Yet a fair reading of history must credit the ideas as well as the institutions of the Christian faith with the leading role in curtailing the totalitarian tendency—government’s inclination to usurp ever greater power over an ever larger swath of human existence.

In our own day, we find the Church again serving in this capacity. It is the foremost voice defending those whose rights are threatened by neglect or direct attack: religious minorities, vulnerable women and children trapped in slavery, the infirm and the unborn. In education, health care, and family life, religious individuals and organizations resist the tyranny of state aggrandizement.

The twenty-first century’s version of Enlightenment distortion has manifested itself in the tendentious arguments of the New Atheist movement, whose avatars Harris, Hitchens, and Dawkins have declared Christianity to be, among other things, the enemy of human liberty. As is too often the case, these purported champions of freedom are the opposite of what they claim. Harris, for one, says religious beliefs of certain kinds should be capital crimes: “Some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them” (The End of Faith). Harris’s focus is on belief that promotes violence, but his concept of justice is itself dangerous, neglecting the conventional distinction between thought and act (the latter being punishable). It is not altogether clear, moreover, that in Harris’s reading of history and theology, orthodox Christianity does not qualify as “dangerous.”

New challenges to an accurate understanding of faith and freedom require new rejoinders. The Acton Institute’s striking film, The Birth of Freedom, is such a response. Like Lord Acton, it sweeps through history, revealing the contours of humanity’s struggle for freedom. “Christian Europe got rid of slavery,” says one of the documentary’s featured commentators, sociologist Rodney Stark. “That’s a story that’s seldom told, and it’s a shame.”

Christ came to set captives free, the scriptures say. The work is not yet complete, but the record of accomplishment is impressive.

Comments

Rev. Dr. Tommy Davis: tdavis76@rochester.rr.com

Impressive article!

David: stuff@liveoffshore.com

Here are some of my incomplete thoughts and observations:

Spiritual slavery is the natural state into which all men are born. All men are born into sin and are born slaves of Satan. Christ's salvation principally sets mankind free from the bondage of sin and eternal death. We are set free to be the slaves of Christ. And recall that Christ said, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."

I don't see anywhere in history where spiritual slavery to Satan has ever resulted in anything but the political and economic slavery of mankind.

Sometimes obeying Christ means disobeying the very civil rulers to whom Christians are also commanded to obey. Christ disobeyed the authority of Rome when He broke the Roman seal on His tomb. Hebrew midwives feared God and saved the male children from death in Egypt. Early Christians refused to burn incense to Caesar. Early Christians rescued children left to die of exposure. Christians have preached the gospel when commanded not to. More recently some American Christians protected unborn children by blocking the doors to abortion clinics.

There is a tension between the Kingship of Christ and the state. But God promises that all rulers will submit and "kiss the son". (Psalm 2).

I think biblical Christianity, as it works itself out in time and history, does result in political and economic liberty for people and cultures. It may take time and take quite a circuitous route. When God is honored and worshiped, Christians are free to serve God and love their neighbor as themselves. And this confronts the state. Is God God? Or is the state God?

Jon Rowe: rowjonathan@aol.com

David,

Rousseau understood that there is much in the history of Christendom that belies exactly what you say. For one, Romans 13. Paul does indeed teach that everything, including earthly rulers, are accountable to God. However, throughout the majority of Christendom, the buck was understood to stop with rulers. Paul told believers to submit to even pagan tyrants because they were accountable to God not men. If they abused their authority, let God deal with it, not the people. This is one reason why Rousseau thought Christians to be natural slaves. And indeed, America's Founders restored the "pagan unity" of the state with their "civil religion" where they replaced the Biblical God with a more man-centered Supreme Being, exactly as Rousseau admonished.

I'm not saying that America's Founders were fans of Rousseau; from what I've read -- and I've looked at the Founders and their thoughts on religion & political philosophy from cover to cover -- they weren't. Rather that his powerful ideas were absorbed in America through osmosis.

Further let me note that I am not a "Rousseauian" and don't agree with his attacks on Christianity. Rather, I want us to seriously think whether traditional biblical Christianity and liberation from tyranny really do go hand in hand. That is a debatable proposition.

David: stuff@liveoffshore.com

Political and economic liberty worked as well as it did in the West because of Christianity. Christianity recognized that Jesus Christ is the ultimate authority. No human authority, especially political authority, is ultimate. All people, kings, rulers, and authorities are accountable to Christ.

This is an affront to the coercive state that seeks divination.

Christianity broke the unity of the pagan state.

Liberty wanes in the West because people once again believe, however foolishly, that "the state will emancipate you from responsibility to all non-coercive human institutions like the family, church, and business, if only you submit yourself to the coercion of the state. Modern man has been willing to trade away responsibility to the family and church and business for subjugation to an increasingly coercive and violent political order. We are returning to the classical, pagan world in which the coercive state is the unifying principle for all of life."

Jon Rowe: rowjonathan@aol.com

"Christ came to set captives free, the scriptures say."

Arguably your contextual use of this scripture distorts its meaning pretty significantly. This has nothing to do with political liberty or abolishing chattel slavery; rather it means freedom from sin or sin's consequences (however you want to put it). One can be both a chattel slave and "free" in Christ at the same time. Conservative Catholic political scientist Robert Kraynak of Colgate understands this when he writes:

"Thus, when St. Paul spoke of Christian freedom, he meant inner freedom, not the external freedom from the state protected by natural rights. Thus, Paul could say (without contradicting himself) 'for freedom Christ has set us free … do not submit to the yoke of slavery' (Gal. 5:1) and 'slaves, obey … your earthly masters' (Col. 3:22). Paul is not endorsing slavery in his admonitions to obedience; but he is saying something that is hard for modern Christians to understand: Inner freedom from sin is more important than external freedom from oppression, making spiritual freedom a higher priority than claiming one’s rights."

http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WT04C02

I'm one of those people who argues that the Constitution and Declaration are not for the most part based on "Christian principles" and it is indeed the case that not all of the Founders were Christians and the God they invoked arguably was not the Biblical God. As you can see, I'm pretty skeptical of the "Christian America" claim and have done a pretty thorough job (after, of course, more distinguished scholars) debunking Protestant fundamentalists who make this claim and am interested in engaging Catholic scholars as well.

I attended the premiere of the Acton Institute's "A Birth of Freedom" in DC and was one of the first question askers (I noted how the American and French Revolutions were thought of at the time as parallel ideological events).

I've also written (believe it or not) for First Things on this very issue. Scroll down to "The Founders on Religion."

http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=5405

I write all of this because I've got a new group blog devoted entirely to debating the issue of religion and the American Founding called "American Creation." This blog is trying to get as many different perspectives (secular left, religious right, in between and all over) to engage one another and we are currently looking for a Catholic/natural law scholarly perspective ala Rodney Stark, Brian Tierney, and First Things.

We invite the Acton Institute to recommend a blogger, of their perspective, who is interested in joining the conversation. We've got among others, two Mormons, an evangelical Protestant minister, one PhD in history and a number of graduate history students one of whom is a PhD candidate at Harvard. Check us out:

http://americancreation.blogspot.com

James P. Healy: jph-pac@sbcglobal.net

Hello, Kevin - I'm glad to see that you and Rodney Stark are "on the same page," though, of course, not at all surprised at this!

I do an occasional CHSHR project for Anthony Pienta, and otherwise serve as the Acton Outreach Coordinator for the Chicago area, which I interpret to mean coast to coast and border to border...

And, I hope all goes well for you and your family.

Jim Healy

Mark:

I highly recommend some related reading on this topic--Ratzinger's Faith, The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI by Tracey Rowland recently published by Oxford University Press

Franco Agosti: fagosti@alice.it

Italy and Milan are in Europe. I am born in Milan 1937. So I believe I know well if we are almost Muslim or perhaps we are a bit too prisoners of southern mafia and satellites.
It should be easy discover the amount of danger. Till the 1950 it was easy for all citizien in the San Donato Milanese (south-east outskirt of Milan) to know the name, the data, and where was born, the Mayor of San Donato Milanese. He was Angelo Moro, born in San Donato in that time there was freedom and transparency, so we can know all we where (now s. Donato is the powerfull oil and gas industry department, officies ENI).
From that time 1950 till now in Italy (not only Milan) it is become nearly impossible read the same was so easy after 2° War.
Nobody can read any info of VIP where are they born? Any VIP man or big politic from the Mayor till the last employe here are absolutely secret.
Why? I fell the same danger You feel about Muslim But now ... to walk for freedom and transparency the road is very dificult, not asy ...
Thanks Sir

aaron:

the guy who wrote the book "religion of peace" said that America at this point in time is afraid to defend its roots. I debate with people and many just dont want to admit that Americas founding fathers based the constitution and democracy on Christian laws. Many people will argue "not all the founding fathers were CHristians." or "well they'rer not talking just about the God of the bible". America really needs a history lesson. This apathy is why Europe is almost all Muslim now.

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