Some nations, especially those using the English language as the standard for education and practice in making laws, education and daily life have found the greatest freedom context in what is called democracy. Democracy in simple perception is the election of government leaders through the ballots of the citizens of the identified country. In the third millennium Americans are discovering that process has produced messy government and social conduct, with a decline in the respect for government. That decline is not only the fault of politicizing government, but also the decline in the education to provide a government dedicated to freedom, justice and the pursuit of happiness. Some problems relate to freedom confusion.
One of the departments of all this is the acknowledgment of a primary freedom – the freedom of religion. This last is likely the human recognition that no matter how important and powerful a nation may be that if there is God the nation is perforce secondary to the power and will of God. Even if there is no god, the freedom of a religion friendly to the state is not a threat to the nation. Christianity fits the affirmatives of background perceptions even though the freedom of religion was touted in the United States because of the conflicts about religion that attended Europe and the colonies at the time of the incorporation of the States into one nation. Mankind is, and likely always will be, conflicted about religion, even within any particular religion of the majority of citizens. The differences were sometimes treated in one context of Christianity (Catholic), against another (Protestantism). Even these major movements have formidable differences within them. Scripture illustrates the points of favor and disfavor between the government and religion in the work and lives of Joseph in Egypt, Moses and Aaron in Egypt and the Wilderness, in the lives of their successors to the Judges and Chieftains, to Saul, David, Solomon, and the breakdown of the kingdom into two entities after Solomon, and ultimately back into captivity so to start again at the point found by Moses. The thrusts and fallbacks have reoccurred through the centuries. Some historians follow the pattern in verbalizing their perception of historical events. There is some concern on the part of those who hold to freedom and faith as inseparable factors for the management of nations that there is a widening of a breach between the factors so to complicate both government and faith. Faith needs freedom to win the individual and to hold that individual to the faith for personal evaluation by God. Mankind by whatever means it chooses may shift the responsibility to institutions (in this case government) in belief that the institution has primary responsibility to God. Primary responsibility lies with the individual – to God. God declares it so in Scripture, and no institution will be able to take that on – so faith freedom is a must.
However, the secular nation that follows the values given of God will tend to flourish in the natural context as it respects guarantees of human freedom. This is some blessing of God awarded even to secular nations following values/rights (righteousness) available to nations. Our problem, it seems to me, can at least be addressed to some degree by better education for democracy to freedom. Every high school ought to offer a national course (civics) or two on civic freedom and responsibility for social duty and peace related to the understanding of both civil (individual) and social (communities of individuals) freedoms and duties. This can only be achieved by a better understanding of order (accepted values) and respect (rights of all). That respect which has its seat in the image of God in every person is first proved in the conduct of enlightened persons to the service of others in the world. In the ideal the giving person, sometimes in his or her own self-imposed restraint, is returned to that person from other giving persons. The return may or may not exceed what the person gives. Fairness is hoped for but not guaranteed, and does not determine the acts of giving, of yielding, of modeling what ought to be. Such a course would address the need to be informed, to challenge persons to affirmative life serving the good of others, for acceptance of differences in interpersonal life, for learning something of love and peace contexts in private and public life, for effective laws and their enforcement, for truth in the care of children and nature, for the understanding of cerebral conduct over emotional but taken together with the enjoyment of emotions. This is the road to government secular freedom, and the route of personal freedom to a faith context. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020