Here
is an Independence Day editorial by Edwin Hayden from 1960 . . . 94 years after
the founding of our magazine and 184 years after the founding of our nation.
_
_ _
Which
Kind of Freedom?
An Editorial
July 2, 1960; p. 2
About
to talk to a group of school children on the subject of freedom, the preacher
asked his young hearers to define the word free. First offered was this:
“Like getting into the show without paying.”
Free—“without
cost”—has been lifted from an obscure and incidental place among the
definitions of freedom so that it becomes a serious competitor to the basic free—“without
constraint.” Giveaways and handouts are perennially popular. Wishful thinking
keeps the fiction of something-for-nothing alive in the face of facts to the
contrary, and the advocates of “security” reign as though pensions and price
supports came out of thin air.
People
learn slowly, if at all, that neither kind of freedom—relief from cost or
relief from constraint—is ever absolute, and that the two make war against each
other.
Complete
security—the state of having all things provided by someone else—is available
only to infants, slaves, and prisoners. Since men cannot be babes forever, they
approach one of the other conditions as they seek to avoid their portion of the
world’s toil, and hardship, and thinking, and sacrifice, and suffering. He who
would enjoy the fullest measure of manly and Christian self-determination must
be prepared to sacrifice much of social and economic comfort and security, but
having done so, he will testify . . . that it was abundantly worth the cost.
July
4 memorializes a day when an infant nation chose the kind of freedom it would
have. The men who put their names to the Declaration of Independence were not
expecting freedom from want or freedom from fear. Their land was yielding its
riches reluctantly, and they saw the shadow of the gallows on the document they
signed. Dignity and humanity, not comfort and security, was their goal. They
chose well, as history has testified.
“Choose
you this day whom ye will serve!” Joshua’s challenge to Israel (Joshua 24:15)
describes the pattern of human liberty. To be without a master is impossible,
and the very attempt to throw off all controls will bring one into the most
abject slavery to self and the whims of any given moment. One can and must,
however, choose his master, and when that choice is made because of love, and
when service rendered springs from affectionate devotion, the servant is then
most truly free. The Christian will join with Joshua in his vow: “As for me and
my house, we will serve the Lord!”
—
— —
Now,
a quick note that might be of some interest: The July 1, 1876, edition of Christian
Standard carried nothing about our nation’s independence and/or freedom,
though July 4 that year was our nation’s 100th birthday. Folks who
were around in 1976 for our nation’s year-long bicentennial celebration will no
doubt find that hard to believe.
—Jim Nieman, managing
editor, Christian Standard
Contact us at cs@christianstandardmedia.com
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