The Meaning of Freedom

There has been a lot of talk about ‘freedom’ in recent weeks, but in the words of Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” I found it quite pertinent that the Orthodox scholar Alexander Schmemann, in his book Of Water & the Spirit, has some insights worth sharing on this subject. I came across these paragraphs today as I read this book as part of my studies in the Doctor of Worship Studies program at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies. Here are a few gems from Schmemann:

In a section on renunciation of evil and Satan in the Orthodox baptismal rite:

The terrible truth is that the overwhelming majority of Christians simply do not see the presence and action of Satan in the world and, therefore, feel no need to renounce “his works and his service.”… They are blind to the fact that the “demonic” consists primarily in falsification and counterfeit, in deviating even positive values from their true meaning, in presenting black as white and vice verse, in a subtle and vicious lie and confusion. They do not understand that such seemingly positive and even Christian notions as “freedom’ and “liberation,” “love,” “happiness,” “success,” “achievement,” “growth,” “self-fulfillment” – notions which truly shape… modern society, motivations and their ideologies – can in fact be deviated from their real significance and become vehicles of the “demonic.” 

In a section on confessing and reverencing Christ in the Orthodox baptismal rite:

We are taught today that the dignity and freedom of [a person] consists precisely in not bowing down before anyone or anything, in [a person’s] constant affirmation of [themselves] as their sole master. But how miserable, how petty is this “dignity” and this “freedom”!... How truly noble, truly human and genuinely free are those who still know what it means to bow before the High and the Holy, the True and the Beautiful; who know what reverence and respect are; who know that bowing down before God is the true condition of freedom and dignity.

As I read those words I was struck by the paradoxical truth that freedom for us comes not from doing what we want but from freely turning to God, living our lives in obedience to Christ and his commands, by the power of God’s Spirit. This kind of freedom is a rarity in our society these days.