Independence Day (United States)
Richard Rohr teaches that a deeper understanding of freedom and liberation are needed today:
I would use the word “emancipation” to describe the kinds of freedom and liberation that are needed today. Instead of focusing on personal freedoms only, emancipation directs our attention to a systemic level of freedom. With the exception of a very few who are fully emancipated, we each live inside our own smaller security systems of culture, era, political opinion, and even some quiet, subtle agreements of which we may not even be aware.
Political and economic liberties such as free speech, free markets, and the freedom to be secure and defend ourselves can only offer us as much freedom as we ourselves have earned from the inside. If we haven’t achieved the inner freedom to love, we are totally dependent on outer systems which, paradoxically, can never fully deliver the very freedoms they promise. Our inability to recognize this has made our so-called freedoms very selective, class-based, often dishonest, and open to bias.
For example, are we really free to imagine that there could be better alternatives to our free-market system? We’re likely to be called dangerous or un-American if we dare broach the topic. We believe in free speech, but many are becoming afraid to speak freely. Does our freedom to protect ourselves with gun rights and limitless military spending give us the right and freedom to use the vast majority of the economic resources of our country for our protection? Even if it means not providing food, healthcare, or education for the same people we say we are securing?
When we place all our identity in our one country, security system, religion, or ethnic group, we are unable to imagine another way of thinking. Only citizenship in a much larger “Realm of God” can emancipate us from the confinement of certain well-hidden, yet agreed-upon, boxes we have labeled “freedom.” In fact, because these are foundational cultural agreements, we hardly even recognize them as boxes.
Such boxes are good, helpful, and even necessary sometimes, but my job, and the job of Christian wisdom, is to remind us that “We are fellow citizens with the saints and part of God’s household” (Ephesians 2:19). We have been called to live in the biggest box of all, while still working and living practically inside the smaller boxes of society. That is a necessarily creative and difficult tension, yet it is really the only way we can enjoy all levels of freedom. “In the world, but not of the world” was the historic phrase commonly used by many Christians, whereas today most of us tend to be in the system, of the system, and for the system—without even realizing it!
So, let’s use the word emancipation to describe a deeper, bigger, and scarier level of freedom: inner, outer, personal, economic, structural, and spiritual. Surely this is the task of our entire lifetime.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Introduction,” ONEING 3, no. 1, Emancipation (2015): 11–12. Available in print and PDF download.
Image credit and inspiration: Sushil Nash, untitled (detail), 2020, photo, United Kingdom, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. The fist is a simple but mighty symbol of resistance, solidarity, and unity in the face of oppression and injustice. An innate desire for the liberation of the oppressed also results in the unexpected liberation of the oppressor.
Story from Our Community:
As a young woman, I was a sworn atheist, in my 30s an agnostic, and now at 50, I find myself falling more and more in love with Christ and the Divine Mother. I’m now thinking—how did that happen? I’ve been reading these Daily Meditations for several years now, and they’ve had a profound impact on my life. For me, one of the most essential aspects of Daily Meditations is the translation of Christ’s message into real, tangible, and loving Truth. I know it has helped me and others unravel the toxic stories of the church and Christian religious history. As a result, I’ve found a kind of spiritual liberation. I am so grateful.
—Em S.
