The Cherished Freedom

W. Carl Ketcherside

[Page 77]

     Liberty of opinion! No other right accruing to citizens of the kingdom of light by virtue of their citizenship should be more cherished. No other should be more stoutly defended. Forfeiture of this right means that we cease to be servants of one Lord and become slaves to men. The truth of heaven belongs not to a special caste. It is not the private domain of a hierarchy, to be dispensed at a fee to lesser mortals. It is as universal as the atmosphere, and like the air, it must be breathed by each one for himself.

     No man should seek to be free from Christ but all should strive to remain free in Christ. This entails the right of each man to go to the fountain of revelation and drink from it directly, rather than from the mental dipper of another who has filtered it for safety and convenience. There are no keepers of the springs! The right to read and meditate personally entails the corollary privilege of forming conclusions and making deductions for oneself. Abrogation of the right of private interpretation makes a farce of the right of personal investigation. One is not real without the other.

     Involved in this fundamental right is another--the right to cherish and hold an opinion as a member of the one body. Fellowship in that body is based upon acceptance of Jesus as Christ and Lord and not upon acquiescence in the opinions of one another. It is founded upon faith in the Son of God and not upon the mental deductions of the other sons of God. Otherwise, we have more than one Lord over conscience. Those who would not have men lord it over them, must not lord it over other men. Free men must remain free.

     In practical application to our own messed up situation this means that I dare not enquire of another his opinion about the validity of instrumental music, the support of Herald of Truth, the millennium, the present-day work of the Holy Spirit, or the use of Bible Classes, as a basis for our fellowship. I can discuss with him at length the views at which he has arrived on these matters, and share with him my own views which run counter to his. I can tell him the route by which I arrived at my conviction and listen just as eagerly to the grounds which he advances for arrival at his opinion.

     But I must receive him first as a brother, because he is in Christ, and then we must converse together as equals in the Lord. We were raised up together and made to sit together in heavenly places. Neither of us can assume an arrogant stance because both of us arrived at our present place, not by our own goodness or works, but by the wonder of divine grace. And that grace, in order to receive us, had to be extremely longsuffering and tolerant toward our many wrong opinions. It was faith which gained access to the grace wherein we stand and not doctrinal correctness. And it is by faith we continue in that grace while we strive to grow in knowledge of truth and alter our opinions.

     But do the elders not have a right to forbid certain opinions to be held by the constituents of a congregation? Certainly they do, if they are the front men for a human sect. Any human party has a right to devise a creed consisting of a bill of particulars to which men must subscribe to be recognized as being in good standing with the party. But no group of men on earth can prescribe the orthodox opinions to which men must pay lipservice to be in Christ Jesus. The divine-human relationship is conditioned upon recognition of the Lordship of Jesus, and elders are specifically forbidden to lord it over the lot or portion which has been assigned to them.

     In the kingdom of heaven the shepherds are also sheep, and they are not infallible. Moreover, no one can divest himself of an honest opinion at the command or behest of another, as witness the case of Galileo. The only way you can force men to form opinions slanted toward any propaganda norm, political or religious, is by the cruel and uncharitable art of brainwashing. The organizational mind is only possible when men surrender their mentality to the organizational structure. When this happens liberty flies out of the nearest stained-glass window and leaves only an assembly of automatons and a round-up of robots. The blood of Jesus was not shed to purchase zombies!

     We all need to respect the revelation handed down from above to the church, but the same regard cannot always be given to those opinions handed down from above in the church. There is a difference between divine directives and dogmatic dictatorship. No one has a right to intrude upon the sacred precincts of the human heart and throw out opinions any more than he has the right to invade his neighbor's home and throw out his furniture. We must be always on the alert that our faith stands upon the power of God and not upon the wisdom of men. The divine injunction is to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. It is my intention to do that and to also defend your right to do it!

     Voltaire, the skeptic, wrote in his Philosophic Dictionary (1764): "The individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion is a monster."