Isn't Christianity a straight-jacket for personal freedom?
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There is a popular idea that to believe in absolute truth is the enemy of freedom. It’s attractive to think that we are all free to create our own meaning and purpose in life, which can cause us to think that Christianity is a restricting straightjacket. In particular, the idea of allowing God to have control and authority in our personal life goes against the grain of what we see as our freedom to be ourselves. But the objection is based on mistaken ideas of truth, of Christianity, and of freedom itself.
Is truth simply something that is invented, imposed upon people in order to have power and control over them? That can certainly happen. But does that mean that there is no truth to be found? The problem with being sceptical about everything is that we end up not able to see anything. In C.S.Lewis’s final Chronicle of Narnia (The Last Battle), there is a chapter, “How the dwarfs refused to be taken in”. Insisting that they wouldn’t take sides and that “the dwarfs are for the dwarfs” they missed out on the new world at hand and the good food turned to straw in their mouths.
Similarly the objection that Christianity is limiting because it requires particular beliefs in order to be a member of its community is also a misrepresentation. In fact, the same is true of all communities. “Every human community holds in common some beliefs that necessarily create boundaries, including some people and excluding others from its circle.” (Keller) That’s not because any of them are ‘narrow’, it’s simply because they are defined by the standards they have for their members. The test of whether a community is open and caring is not what it believes but whether its beliefs lead it to treat other communities with love and respect, kindness and humility.
A related objection is that Christianity is culturally rigid, imposing its own culture on others. But in fact of all the world religions Christianity has proved to be the most culturally adaptable, spreading to all parts of the world, adapting significantly and positively to the surrounding culture without compromising its central beliefs. It is secularism, with its anti-supernaturalism and individualism, which is more destructive to local cultures in many parts of the world.
Freedom is more complicated than it seems. It is not simply the absence of constraint, and in fact constraint is often a means to liberation. The freedom to play a musical instrument well is only found by the constraint of disciplined practice, a limitation on freedom. The same is true for spiritual and moral freedom too. Love is the most liberating and fulfilling freedom of all, but it also brings with it the most significant loss of freedom. Whether it be romantic love, family love or loving friendship, a love relationship will always limit our personal choice, as we give ourselves to doing what pleases the ones we love.
In a healthy love relationship, there is always a mutual loss of independence, a serving of the other at personal cost. Christianity says that out of love for us, God, in Christ, limited his own freedom, by becoming human with all its limitations, including suffering and death. In response to that, we gladly let go of our own independence – as the apostle Paul says, “the love of Christ constrains (or compels) us” (2 Corinthians 5:14).
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