Wednesday Wonder

As we approach Independence Day, it is important to remember what is just exactly meant by the ambiguous word, “freedom,” and the meanings we assign to it. When one says, “We are protecting our freedom,” what exactly is meant by that? Does that mean protection against incursions into our national territory, harm done to our citizens, maintaining our interests, whatever or wherever they might be? Is that protecting our freedom? Does it require defending, intervening, safeguarding or building?

For instance, not every war is the same. If one considers just war theory, a social ethic developed by early Greek philosophers and then later adopted by Christian theologians such as Augustine and Aquinas, as one way to determine when armed action is justified, many things are weighed: Is damage inflicted by an aggressor grave and certain? Have all other means of resolving the conflict been attempted first? Is there a serious prospect of success, or just protracted conflict? Does the use of arms create a greater evil than the evil to be eliminated? Is there reciprocity to the action, not a greater degree of destruction than is necessary?

There are other ways to determine whether armed conflict is justified, but this one ethical theory reminds us that not all use of force is equal; it is motivated differently and justified either more or less by those motivations. Some wars are clearly defensive. Others are more clearly elective and have the protection of interests as their guiding motivation.

Does protecting our freedom mean that we can exploit anyone in order to secure anything we desire? What are the limits of the exercise of our freedom? Where is the boundary drawn between doing harm and doing good?

In terms of religion and our new American republic our original founders were clear and that clarity came out of their own experience of the lack of freedom and abuse of freedom. They were fed up with two things:

·         The establishment of one church or religion by the state. A state established church defined all else as either heretical or deserving of less favor. Persecutions were legitimated because of it.

·         The lack of religious freedom whereby persons of religious conscience could not practice their faith because they were seen as nonconformists.

These two things, a misuse of freedom and lack of it, showed up specifically in the first amendment to our constitution. We call them the non-establishment clause and the free exercise clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion … or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

They had it right, our founders did. A democracy that insures freedom provides for religious practice without determining which form is the exclusive, dominant or authorized one. True freedom.