Fish tanks and freedom

This is my magazine article for March:

The Christian season of Lent starts on Ash Wednesday which this year falls on 1^st March (for Welsh readers, St David's day is transferred this year to 28^th February - see http://hybaldsrector.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/where-has-st-david-gone.html). Lent is a time of self-examination and repentance and is often associated with the practice of giving things up. This has recently been joined by, and increasingly replaced by, a call to take up spiritual or charitable practices. Now of course these are worthy and admirable things to do, but I suspect that our preference for 'taking up' rather than 'giving up' has less to do with our spiritual and moral health and more to do with our contemporary dislike of self-denial.

For over half a century now our culture has shifted away from attitudes of respect for and obedience to authority, and has moved towards an attitude of self-assertion and self-centredness. This shift is not totally a bad thing, but it is reaching its logical conclusion in the present attitude that I should be able to have what I want and it is wrong to deny me it. This is usually dressed up in the language of being 'free' or having a 'right' to have or do something. The progression has been from “I do what I am told” to “I do what I like as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else” to “I can do what I like whatever effect it has on others (or myself)”.

Jesus, by his death, has set us free the guilt of our sins. But as Paul reminds us “My friends, you were chosen to be free. So don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do anything you want. Use it as an opportunity to serve each other with love” (Galatians 5:13 Contemporary English Version) and Peter says “You are free, but still you are God’s servants, and you must not use your freedom as an excuse for doing wrong” (1 Peter 2:16 CEV). But in a world where 'freedom' is the battle-cry, the suggestion that we should try to live according to God's laws is not popular.

So how can we be free if we still have to live as God wants us to live? Well, we do not free a fish by taking it out of a fish tank, we only kill it. Similarly, we are only truly free if we live in the way we are intended to live, and the one who tells us what that way is is the one who created us, God. Freedom from God's rules is not freedom to live, it is only freedom to die.

The odd thing is that we know that freedom from constraint is not really freedom because we see it all around us. Unrestrained eating is unhealthy, excessive consumption of alcohol has a detrimental effect on health and society. However, the most shocking example is the 'freedom' of the sexual revolution that has led to increases in STIs, abortions, broken relationships, pornography, sexualisation of children and psychological trauma.

The promises to bring freedom and happiness cannot be fulfilled by a culture that puts personal interests above everything else. Jesus said, “I came so that everyone would have life, and have it in its fullest” (John 10:10 CEV). This Lent why not test whether Jesus' promise is true?