then we would live in a society of
anarchy.
I was a young high school
teacher trying to deal with the
aftermath of September 11. The
next morning I remember pray-
ing, "Lord, what am I going to say
to these students?" I wanted to
give them an opportunity to talk
about the images they had seen
the day before. The conversation
very quickly turned to freedom be-
ing under attack. I wanted to make
sure they understood what free-
dom was and so I asked them to
define it. Some students said that
freedom is getting to do whatever
you want. I simply asked, "Do you
think that's true? Because if you
do, then we just justified what 18
terrorists did yesterday."
.......................
Q:
Protecting and serving others
increases a person's burdens. How
does that give us freedom?
A:
Freedom comes at a great cost.
When my wife and I decided to
start a family, children definitely
increased our sense of burden.
Freedom isn't isolating oneself
from everyone. We were designed
by a loving Creator to be in rela-
tionship with our families and our
communities.
There's a great quote on Wil-
liam Bradford's tomb, "What our
forefathers with so much difficulty
secured, do not basely relinquish."
There are some who wish to en-
croach upon freedoms, and others
have to stand in the gap and pro-
tect them. God gives a family a fa-
ther and a mother for the purpose
of protecting those who are too in-
nocent to protect themselves.
We have to protect the way we
10
The War Cry | JULY 2013
define freedom. What is freedom
and how does it relate to family
or even marriage? Some people
want to undermine the institution
that God has set in place. I believe
that casual sex is responsible for
the mutation of marriage, the ex-
ploitation of women and children
and the termination of the unborn.
Individuals need to stand in the
gap and fight for those who cannot
speak for themselves.
.......................
Q:
Can you give a biblical example
of freedom?
A:
Potiphar's wife attempted to
seduce Joseph. He refused because
he understood something about
freedom that she did not: the abil-
ity to make the right choices.
Joseph could have made a choice
that would have left him enslaved,
in the same way that an individual
opts to indulge in something that
leads to addiction. A person has
the freedom to jeopardize his own
freedom, but once he does that, he
gives away his freedom. In prison,
Joseph still honored God and even
though limited by cinder block and
bars, his conscience was clean. God
eventually raised him to a platform
of responsibility that not even he
could have possibly imagined.
.......................
Q:
What is the state of freedom in
the USA today?
A:
Hostility toward religions, spe-
cifically Christianity in this coun-
try, results in less freedom. If you
go back to the founding of our
country, you'll find statements by
many different people that specifi-
cally mention Christianity. Samuel
Adams, for example, said, "The
rights of the colonists as Chris-
tians ... may be best understood by
reading and carefully studying the
institutes of the Great Law Giver
and Head of the Christian Church,
which are to be found clearly writ-
ten and promulgated in the New
Testament." The more we encroach
upon religious liberties and specifi-
cally Christianity, the less free we
become as a people.
A society's barometer of free-
dom can be found in the ease or
difficulty of sharing the gospel. In
our country we still have religious
freedom, although there have been
tremendous limitations placed on
what we can do.
The Supreme Court rulings in
1962 and 1963 basically expelled
Bible reading and prayer from
public schools. All those acts en-
croached upon the First Amend-
ment. The more those freedoms are
encroached upon the less free we
will be as a society.
.......................
Q:
How does spiritual freedom
relate to national freedom?
A:
There is a direct link between
spiritual freedom and national
freedom. Paul Johnson says in his
book, The History of the American
People
, that it would have been
hard to find a cabin in New Eng-
land without a Bible. Families
talked about the Bible over dinner
and attended church regularly.
The spiritual unity of families
spread to the community, to the
state and ultimately to the nation.
There was a foundation, a presup-
position among most Americans
that Jesus Christ is and was the
Savior of the world, and the Bible
was accurately recorded and con-
veyed down through the centuries
to us. Spiritual unity contributes
greatly to national unity.
1 Remember the past
2 Embrace the truth
3 Respect humanity
4 Restrain oneself (self-control)
5 Protect and serve others
A Conversation
............
Copyright � 2010 by Scott Hyland. Published
by God and Country Press, an imprint of
AMG Publishers, Chattanooga, Tennessee.
AVAILABLE ONLINE and at your local bookstore
.
R
R
Re
Re
Re
Re
Re
Re
me
me
e
me
me
me
b
mb
mb
mb
mb
mb
mb
er
er
er
er
er
er
t
t
t
t
t
t
t
h
h
h
he
he
he
he
he
p
p
p
p
p
as
as
as
s
as
t
t
t
LIBERTY
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
4
1
1
FIVE PILLARS OF
02-10_WCJuly Final.indd 10
6/13/13 3:55 PM