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The death of the king marked year one in the French Revolution, the beginning of the republic and a new era—an era, of course, of freedom.
As in America, the goal of the revolution was liberation from ancient regimes and the foundation of a new society, a new sort of people—a people gathered in liberty, equality, and fraternity: a society comprised of individuals created equal, endowed each by the Creator. These were societies designed for the pursuit of happiness, that primeval human good. At least, that was the plan, the original intent of the society which is ours today—a society which apparently is either in upheaval, reform, or just merely crumbling.[1]
But, of course, whatever one makes of it, whatever one thinks is really happening (and, I don’t know), it helps to understand, as simply as possible, what’s underneath it all—our history and our politics, our society—and that’s this search for freedom, this argument to understand even what freedom means. The question of the revolutions of France and America, this, really, is still the question festering just under the surface of so much of our conflict today—the question of freedom, what it is and what it looks like. It is, very simply, the human question and quest underneath all our collective angst, and the question which must be answered if we’re to enjoy ever again anything like social peace.
An ancient question, over the centuries what freedom is has been answered differently. The Stoics, for example, thought freedom was being resigned to fate; the Skeptics thought freedom was being liberated from illusion, a sort of relativism; Epicureans thought freedom could only be achieved by retiring from society into to a small circle of friends, what sociologists today would call a “lifestyle enclave.”[2] In our age, at least in the West for the last few centuries, freedom has been described merely as the unrestrained freedom of will; whereas in the premodern past freedom was thought to be the human capacity to choose well, today freedom is thought to be merely the freedom to choose—a difference which, of course, subtle though it be, is profound. Whereas in the past it was thought that if a person chose poorly, something that wasn’t good or natural, then such a person couldn’t be free, but was instead the prisoner of bad desires or immoral power, today we think a person free only if he or she chooses something supposedly on his or her own, without the burdens of things like law or tradition or community. Which, of course, is an illusion. This is why ours is an age of advertising and influence, litigation and political coercion and why questions of sexuality take up so much cultural oxygen. Because these are the areas in which we play out our modern idea of freedom, a political idea that we can still be a society comprised only of countless individuals with countless individual moralities—an idea, of course, not yet proven to be true.
Now, my apologies for all this philosophy. What I’m trying to do, you see, is get us to think about one of the more fundamental concepts we in our society assume we understand—the concept of freedom. The point I’m trying to make (a point not originally mine at all) is that it seems we misunderstand freedom when we think it means merely the freedom to choose whatever one wants to choose, regardless of whether what one chooses is something good or not good. That is, we make a mistake when we think we can be free without also choosing the good, without thinking at all what the good might be.[3] Which is exactly what we don’t think about anymore—what is good—because to do that would impose morality or even religion upon an individual, which, of course, in modern thinking is taboo. Remember that when the French killed their king, they counted it as year one of a new era—an era free from old moralities and the Church; which became an era of violence and the guillotine, of course, because no one, all these liberated individuals, could agree anymore on what was good, having killed the king and destroyed the Church, corrupt though they were. Because freedom no longer wanted to be told what to do.
Which raises the question for those who call themselves Christians, especially today on this feast of Christ the King. Whatever the state of the argument in society, what do we Christians think freedom means? Do we as Christians believe that freedom is something we can achieve only after we have killed the king, so to speak; that is, do we think freedom is simply freedom to do whatever we want regardless of whether it’s morally or naturally good? Is it possible for Christians to believe in this sort of freedom? Undoubtedly many Christians do, but whether it’s actually Christian is another question. Or, must we Christians believe that to be free we must also understand what is good? And, must we accept that to know what is good, we must discover what is good outside ourselves, that we can’t define for ourselves what the good is? That is, is it possible that Christian teaching is correct: that to be free we must know the truth, that we must be obedient to the truth, that it is the perfect law of liberty which leads to happiness, the law of the Lord which refreshes the soul in freedom and not simply choosing whatever we want to choose for ourselves?[4] That is, the question we Christians should ask is whether it’s possible to be free without also being subject to Christ the King, whether we think we need to listen to his law and his truth or whether we think we can be Christians without actually heeding what the King says, because, of course, we know better, and because we’ve declared independence.
Now, as you can tell, I have not spoken about any of those moral hot topics which are so controversial and divisive today—as some of you want me to do, and as others of you don’t want me to do. Some want me to speak plainly, tell it like it is; others want me to keep to nice spiritual and unchallenging topics which will make you feel good about yourself. It is a difficult place to be as a preacher, not as easy as many confident non-preachers think it is. But the reason I speak in these general, plainly philosophical, terms is because this is what’s wrong with all of us: whatever the issue, too often our problem is that we don’t want fully to listen to Christ the King; we don’t want to be obedient to the law of God, only selectively so. “[I]n the womb I knew you,” God said; what do you think that means?[5] “You shall not…oppress an alien…You shall not wrong any widow or orphan,” God said; what do you think that means?[6]
There’s a perfectly good reason why on this feast of Christ the King our gospel passage is of the crucifixion: because that is so often what we think of our king, so many of us, even we good Christian folk. We mock him with jeering false praises and dress him up in the costume of a king. This is what we do when we do not obey him, when we do not even try to listen to him. Have you read the Bible lately? Does Catholic teaching play in your moral reckoning at all, or do you belittle it along with the rest of the world? This is why the Church asks us to contemplate the crucifixion today. Because we have killed the king and think ourselves free, when, really, we’ve just imprisoned ourselves. An imprisonment, of course, which we need not suffer. If only we’d seek the truth again: he in whom the only real freedom is really found. Amen.
[1] Hannah Arendt, On Revolution, 29
[2] Michael Allen Gillespie, The Theological Origins of Modernity, 140; Cf. Habits of the Heart, 72
[3] Emile Perreau-Saussine, Catholicism and Democracy, 135
[4] John 8:32; James 1:25; Psalm 19:8
[5] Jeremiah 1:4
[6] Exodus 22:20-22
© 2019 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield
