“Freedom in Christ”
What do Christians mean when they appeal to “freedom in Christ”? Where does this phrase come from? How is it understood differently by different kinds of Christians? And why does it seem confusing or hypocritical to so many? Dan tackles these and other issues in this episode.
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Hello and welcome to the series, It's in the Code, a series It's in the Code, a series of the podcast Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Dan Miller.
I am professor of religion and social thought at Landmark College.
Pleased to be with you as always.
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And with that, I want to dive right into today's theme, this episode's theme, which is freedom in Christ.
And if you grew up in an American church, especially maybe certain kinds of churches, you've certainly heard this phrase.
If you have Christians in your life, you've probably heard this phrase when somebody talks about their freedom in Christ.
And this could be a really complex phrase, as so many of them are, because once we get into sort of cracking the code, it can take a lot of different shapes.
But this one really caught my attention because I've gotten a lot of people reaching out about it.
I've got people who have sent great images appealing to the freedom in Christ.
But this is also one that I encounter on really, let's say, the sort of Negative side in my coaching practice.
I'm a practitioner with the Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery, working with folks who are dealing with overcoming religious trauma.
Check out CTRR if that is something that sounds like, you know, it might be you.
And this phrase, this issue, the notion of freedom and freedom in Christ comes up a lot in that context in kind of a negative way.
And that's something that I'm going to really spend some time on today.
So let's start, as we often do, with really the basic background of this.
The idea of having freedom in Christ or having been set free by Christ, it's really a fundamental part of the language and expression of Christianity For lots of different kinds of Christians, right?
What struck me, as I say, a lot of people reached out to me, but what really struck me in prepping for this was an image that somebody sent me of a giant sign with a cross, the image of a cross, the image of an equal sign, and the word freedom, right?
Christ equals freedom.
Freedom in Christ.
I bring that up because it illustrates for certainly whatever religious individual or community put up that sign, just how central this idea is for them.
And the reason that it's so prominent for Christians is that it figures prominently in the New Testament, right?
And this is not a podcast about the Bible.
I'm not going to go through the Bible.
I'm not going to list every reference in the Bible that might have something to do with this notion of freedom in Christ.
But just to highlight a couple, and again, if you grew up in church, this will probably be familiar to you.
If you have people in your life who are Christians, this might be familiar to you.
If you've talked with folks, if you've left the church, if you've read your Bible, there's all different kinds of reasons why this might be familiar to you.
But just a couple examples.
One is from the Gospel of John, and the notion of freedom figures prominently in that gospel.
It says, Jesus does in that gospel, "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." And says elsewhere, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free." That's probably a passage that lots of people have heard or at least heard allusions to, even if you maybe didn't know it was in the Bible.
But I think that, so, you know, in the gospel of John, Jesus uses this kind of language.
But I think the reason why the idea figures so prominently is that it's a key notion in the theology of the Apostle Paul.
And for lots of Christians, probably for most Christians, most of Christian theology really comes from Paul, right?
Christians talk about Jesus a lot, but Jesus didn't write anything down.
We do have these sort of collected sayings of Jesus, but they're texts that were created by early Christian communities and so forth.
It's this figure of Paul, who authored somewhere in the neighborhood of half of the New Testament, is really a fundamental source of Christian theology, right?
And in the book of Galatians, he talks a lot about this theme of freedom.
And he says in one place, "For freedom, Christ has set us free.
Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." Or again, a few verses later, he says, "You, brothers and sisters, were called to freedom." Right?
So this notion of freedom.
And so I think for most Christians, these affirmations from Paul are probably the driving force behind appeals to freedom in Christ.
I think that when most people, if they use that language of freedom in Christ, if you were to say to them, what are you talking about?
Or where does that come from?
Or why do you talk that way?
Or why is that part of your faith?
Paul is the one that they would point to, okay?
And just a little bit of background, a little bit more, and I promise we'll, you know, get away from the Bible talk if that's not what you're into.
The most immediate sort of theological context for Paul, and probably for John too, if we think about the nature of his gospel and the community for whom it was produced and so forth, Their most immediate context has to do with what they view as freedom from, again in their view, the kind of legalism of Jewish law and practice within First Temple Judaism, right?
That's their real focus.
They're both Jewish authors and they are articulating sort of a counter to what they see as religious legalism.
That's the immediate context, but the idea has obviously taken on a very different life for Christians over time.
Most Christians now, they often will talk about freedom in Christ as freedom from a kind of legalism, but they're not talking about Judaism.
They're not talking about First Temple, or excuse me, First Century, First Temple Jewish practices and so forth.
They're talking about something else, and this is really evident in the experience of contemporary Christians.
How do contemporary Christians talk about this?
How have they talked about it?
What does it mean when different kinds of Christians talk about freedom in Christ?
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