On Liberty

“Liberty is by no means an invitation to indifference or to irresponsible power; nor is it the promise of unlimited well-being without a counterpart of toil and effort. It supposes application, perpetual effort, strict government of self, sacrifice in contingencies, civic and private virtues. It is therefore more difficult to live as a free man than to live as a slave, and that is why men so often renounce their freedom; for freedom is in its way an invitation to a life of courage, and sometimes of heroism, as the freedom of the Christian is an invitation to a life of Sainthood.”

Georges Lefebvre

The Coming of the French Revolution

This quote having been integrated into some of my lectures over the years impressed one of my students sufficiently that he had it beautifully reproduced and framed for me. For many years, his gift hung on the wall of my office. Now it has a similar place at home. Recently, a friend of many years wrote to see if I was still in possession of this quote as his copy had been misplaced. His request reminded me of the appropriateness of this topic given our expanded consideration of the eleventh Article of Faith. Sometimes, things happen this way.

The exercise of personal agency is very much bounded by the rules, customs, and biases of organized and unorganized societies. Liberty, as discussed here, pertains directly to the degree of protection and furtherance or, to the contrary, restraint organized societies place on the ability of their individual members to exercise their God-given right of personal choice.

The desire to protect the degree of personal liberty that had evolved in most of the American based British colonies from the growing encroachments of the Parliament was at the heart of the American revolutionary movement. Historians have argued and it was very likely the case that the American revolution was over before it began. At least in the minds of its leaders, the separation of the colonies from the Mother Country was a fait accompli before the first shot was fired in Massachusetts. The success of this revolution provided support and direction for others. The desire to expand and protect the basic notions of personal liberty was a powerful motivator in the coming of many subsequent revolutions in two hemispheres that successfully overthrew forms of monarchal government beginning in France.

Given the natural affinity between the true gospel of Jesus Christ and true forms of representative government regarding the necessity of providing and protecting substantive personal liberties for their citizens, our recent experience in the former communist area of Germany was an eye opener. The Marxian socialist value system that dominated the region for approximately fifty years had significantly curtailed its citizens’ ability to exercise independent behavior. On the other hand, it had provided a “social safety net” whereby its citizens were guaranteed such basic necessities as housing, employment, and medical care. This was the trade-off. Restricted personal liberty made possible the satisfying of certain basic human needs. When their system collapsed in 1989, their safety net was gone, and the former citizens of Eastern Germany found themselves largely responsible for providing for themselves in the absence of government guarantees. This was very unnerving to many of these individuals, and we as citizens of the United States were the brunt of verbal attacks by many as we mingled with them. The dissatisfied were generally displeased with the role our government had played in the fall of their communist system. Even more troubling were the confrontations we experienced on this subject from Church members. After experiencing political domination and restricted personal liberty for so many years, they had substantially lost their vision of the importance of exercising personal agency in all of its possible forms.

Marxian socialism overtook Eastern Europe so quickly that the populations of those lands were powerless to prevent themselves from being inundated. However, in the Americas, socialist thought, laws, and institutions are spreading at a more incremental pace, and in their wake the personal liberties of the impacted citizenry are slowly being eroded. How did Professor Lefebvre put it?

“Liberty is by no means an invitation to indifference or to irresponsible power; nor is it the promise of unlimited well-being without a counterpart of toil and effort. It supposes application, perpetual effort, strict government of self, sacrifice in contingencies, civic and private virtues. It is therefore more difficult to live as a free man than to live as a slave, and that is why men so often renounce their freedom; for freedom is in its way an invitation to a life of courage, and sometimes of heroism, as the freedom of the Christian is an invitation to a life of Sainthood” (Georges Lefebvre).