The Spirit and Liberty
W. Carl Ketcherside
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The spirit of man can expand and grow only in the atmosphere of freedom. It was never created to be dominated, brutalized or made subservient to men. Our fleshly parents gave us our physical bodies, and they may chastise them for our social good, but they did not give us our spirits, and those spirits are not subject to them. "We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" (Heb. 12:9). Our fathers may set forth principles of religion which they deem to be worthy, and while we are young they may take our bodies to the place where they worship, but in the final analysis we shall be judged, not by what they thought God meant, but by what He said. And here we must reason with God as individuals, for we shall be judged in that manner.
A man and a maid decide to form a union, and in marriage they create a social unit called a home, or family. Over this unit the husband and father is the head. But this gives him no rights or prerogatives in the spiritual realm. "He shall cleave to his wife and they shall be one flesh." "But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17). "The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband; and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife" (1 Cor. 7:4). To which it may be added that neither one has any jurisdiction over the spirit of the other. "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth" (Rom. 14:4).
This should be a source of comfort to all of us. Many are exercised in conscience, because, as they grow older, they find their thought pattern differing from that of their parents. They suffer inner pangs of chastisement because they are torn between loyalty to the belief of the parents and fidelity toward God. But no parent can formulate a code of spiritual conviction for his offspring. He can teach what commends itself to him to be truth, he can exemplify his teaching by his conduct, but he cannot tyrannize the minds and hearts of his children. Wise parents will teach their children to love truth for truth's sake; they will encourage them as they develop, to seek and search for truth as the chief aim in life. They will make such amendments and adjustments in their own thinking as are necessary to conform to newly discovered truth, and freely admit their past errors to their children. Thus will be produced emotionally mature children who will not hesitate to adopt truth, regardless of the cost.
It is the truth that makes men free. But for truth to accomplish this, it must be free, and not shackled by human dogmatism or political pressure. A veil upon the heart in approaching God's revelation
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Those who are in the Christ have been called unto freedom (Gal. 5:13). They are exhorted to be free men (1 Peter 2:16). Even a slave, whose body was purchased by an earthly master was still free. "For a Christian, if he was a slave when called, is the Lord's freed man" (1 Cor. 7:22). His body still belonged to a master, but his spirit was made free in the Christ. "You have all been redeemed at infinite cost: do not become slaves to men. Where each one stood when he was called, there, brethren, let him still stand--close to God" (1 Cor. 7:24). There is the big problem of the ages! Men are not content to let him stand where he stood when he was called. They must mould, shape and alter him to fit their pattern. If he does not do so, they conclude he does not belong to God, because he will not bow to them. After he is called they will work him over, and make him conform to their pattern Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran - or - dare I say it? What is the answer to all of this? It is in the words "Do not become slaves to men--stand close to God."
Ever since the day Christ set men free, there has been a constant struggle to maintain that freedom. In a less enlightened era, the rope, stake, fagots, cross, rack, and whip, were employed to torture the bodies of men to bring their consciences and opinions into line with the orthodox religious views which prevailed. In these days men employ more exquisite means of torture, such as ridicule, malignant whispering, misrepresentation, lying and boycott. The same spirit which lighted the fires of Smithfield, and prompted the Spanish Inquisition, motivated the "powers that be" at Freed-Hardeman College to arrest Leroy Garrett and cast him into a filthy jail cell, because he would not "conform." He was treated as all dissenters are treated when they cannot be answered. Freed-Hardeman College forfeited its right to the respect of every honest lover of truth when its president moved away from the Christ and joined with the pope in this flagrant attempt to tyrannize thought. "The Church of Christ" in Tennessee is motivated by the same spirit which caused John Wesley to sign the death warrant of Michael Servetus. It is merely another sect, employing the sectarian method of threat, boycott, brain-washing and arrest. Do not be so foolish as to try and palliate the crime by divorcing Freed-Hardeman College from "The Church of Christ" in Tennessee.
We cannot bring the hearts of men into subjection by force or tyranny. Even atheistic communism learned that lesson in Hungary! We are limited in our attempts to change the minds of men, by the very nature of Christianity, to reason and persuasion. Charity and sincerity are characteristics of true religion, and it must utterly disown bitterness and hypocrisy. These are the weapons in the arsenal of false and vain religion, which must deceive where it cannot persuade, and force where it cannot deceive. Of what good are abuse, ranting, cavilling and misrepresentation? Can we adjust the hearts of men with a wrench as we would tighten a resistant lug or bolt?
Is not an error in thinking a species of intellectual lameness? Will such lameness in another hurt me any more than if he had a crooked leg or a deformed arm? Will a wild opinion do me any more injury than a wild look out of his eye? Why should I become enraged or provoked at his internal defects any more than his external ones? Shall I try to force every cripple whom I meet to walk as I do, by twisting his deformed leg, or shall I not rather lead him to the physician and surgeon of my acquaintance who can straighten the twisted member? And how
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I must maintain the dignity of every man's spirit. I cannot force another to grovel and kneel before me without first losing my own dignity. I must defend his right to think, reason and act for himself, or establish the principle by which I will lose my own right to do so. If I fail to see in my enemy the image of God, though defiled and shattered, I shall fail to restore myself to that image. One who is egotistic, proud, arrogant, conceited and boastful, and who feels that God belongs exclusively to him, reveals he does not yet belong to God.