{"id":18973,"date":"2020-06-17T09:06:35","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T13:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18973"},"modified":"2020-06-17T09:06:35","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T13:06:35","slug":"emancipation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18973","title":{"rendered":"Emancipation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Inner and Outer Freedom<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Emancipation<\/strong><br> Wednesday, \u202fJune 17, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Z6BuXRTk5D4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>For\nthe kinds of freedom and liberation that are needed today, I am going to use\nthe word \u201cemancipation.\u201d Instead of focusing on the mere personal freedoms\nenjoyed by individual people,<em>\nemancipation<\/em> directs our attention to a systemic level of freedom.\nWith the exception of those who are fully emancipated (which are very few\nindeed), we each live inside of our own smaller security systems of culture,\nera, political opinion, and even some quiet, subtle agreements of which we may\nnot even be aware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the United\nStates, we rightly revel in the fact that we enjoy certain rights and freedoms\nfrom restraints (free markets, free speech, the freedom to be secure and to\ndefend ourselves). However, we pay little attention to the fact that these\nliberties can ultimately only offer us as much freedom as we ourselves have\nearned from the inside. If we haven\u2019t achieved the inner freedom to love, we\nare totally dependent on the outer systems which, paradoxically, can never\nfully guarantee or deliver the very freedoms they promise. Our inability to\nrecognize this has made our so-called freedoms very selective, class-based,\noften dishonest, and open to bias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, are\nwe really free to imagine that there could be better alternatives to our\nfree-market system? We are likely to be called dangerous or un-American if we\ndare broach the topic. We believe in free speech, but we know better than to\nclaim that money actually controls our elections, rather than \u201cone person, one\nvote.\u201d Does our freedom to protect ourselves with gun rights and limitless\nmilitary spending give us the freedom to use the vast majority of the economic\nresources of our country for our protection? Even if it means not providing\nfood, healthcare, or education for the same people we say we are securing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When we place\nall of our identity in our one country, security system, religion, or ethnic\ngroup, we are unable to imagine another way of thinking. Only citizenship in a\nmuch larger \u201cRealm of God\u201d can emancipate us from the confinement of certain\nwell-hidden, yet agreed-upon, boxes we have labeled \u201cFreedom.\u201d In fact, because\nthese are foundational and necessary cultural agreements, we do not even\nrecognize them as boxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To be fair, such\nboxes are good, helpful, and even necessary sometimes! These silent agreements\nallow cultures to function and people to work together. But my job, and the job\nof Christian wisdom, is to tell you that \u201cWe are fellow citizens with the\nsaints and part of God\u2019s household\u201d (Ephesians 2:19), and thus \u201cOur citizenship\nis in heaven\u201d (Philippians 3:20). We have been called to live in the biggest\nbox of all, while still working and living <em>practically<\/em>\ninside of the smaller boxes of society. That is a necessarily creative and\ndifficult tension, yet it is really the only way we can enjoy all levels of\nfreedom. \u201cIn the world, but not of the world\u201d was the historic phrase commonly\nused by many Christians<em>,\nwhereas today most of us tend to be in the system, of the system, and for the\nsystem\u2014without even realizing it! <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, let\u2019s use\nthe word emancipation to describe a deeper, bigger, and scarier level of\nfreedom: inner, outer, personal, economic, structural, and spiritual. Surely\nthis is the task of our entire lifetime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inner and Outer Freedom Emancipation Wednesday, \u202fJune 17, 2020 For the kinds of freedom and liberation that are needed today, I am going to use the word \u201cemancipation.\u201d Instead of focusing on the mere personal freedoms enjoyed by individual people, emancipation directs our attention to a systemic level of freedom. With the exception of those [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18973"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18973"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18974,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18973\/revisions\/18974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}