"Nevertheless, all notions of freedom invoke, implicitly or explicitly, subsidiary notions of freedom from and freedom to or for. The democratic tradition in the West has fostered a great deal of freedom from Scripture, God, tradition, and assorted moral constraints; it encourages freedom toward doing your own thing, hedonism, self-centeredness, and consumerism. By contrast, the Bible encourages freedom from self-centeredness, idolatry, greed, and all sin and freedom toward living our lives as those who bear God's image and who have been transformed by his grace, such that our greatest joy becomes doing his will.... The grand paradox inhererent in such commitments falls right out of the Bible's story line: that means our greatest freedom is to become slaves of Christ."
--D. A. Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited, 138-139 (emphesis original).
On a related note, I cannot recomend Carson's book highly enough for those thinking about culture from a Christian perspective. It doesn't just tackle a theological or theoretical problem, but sets out to refraim the whole discussion of Christ and Culture. Carson makes many fine distinctions worthy of one's attention.
No comments:
Post a Comment