Editor’s note: Ian Hodge is a regular columnist for Business Reform Magazine, the leading Christian business magazine with over 100,000 readers. Each issue of Business Reform features practical advice on operating successfully in business while glorifying God.
In a world that is struggling with terrorism, one of the casualties of war has been freedom itself. The death of civilians in war is called collateral damage. The loss of freedom might thus be viewed in the same light.
If we followed Western civilization from the time of Rome, we would see that society has been governed at different times by two opposing ideals. One is called freedom, while the other might be referred to as absolutism, or in the words of one historian, “enlightened absolutism.”
There are various indicators of the absolutist idea. On the top of the list is the idea that the political order has no limitations to its jurisdiction. This principle is at work in overtime mode at the moment as governments around the world use 9/11 and disputed threats of terror as the excuse to improve their powers of search, hold, and interrogation.
Right at the moment one of the debates is over the privacy of conversations between the alleged villain and his counsel. In some quarters, these conversations are no longer private, and are to be recorded by the authorities.
Another example is the proposed tax changes in Alabama, which the governor of the state is arguing is a Christian imperative. It has long been the dream of some that the Bible somehow supports the idea of redistribution of wealth from rich to poor by government rather than by people working their way up the social ladder. Strangely, it is not the reputable theologians telling us this, but politicians who use the religion of Christianity to support the oldest false religion of all, statism.
In this absolutist world it is easy to forget that at one time in our history, perhaps a short period relative to the history of mankind, the political state was held in check by another organization?the Church. Claiming at least equal authority with the political powers, the Church has been the source of freedom in the Western world. Freedom without the Church is like tennis without John McEnroe?unthinkable. And freedom, most of all, meant freedom from the coercive powers of the political state. This meant freedom from taxation, freedom from confiscation of property, free speech, and freedom to move around the country or the world without permission.
Today, it is not fashionable to think about Christianity opposing the ideas of absolutism, but Christianity, as a belief system, needs to be put into action and carried at the human level by organized Christianity?the Church. That we no longer have an organized Church to oppose the organized state is a major hurdle for Christians to overcome.
What we do have are organized Churches (plural) who refuse to cooperate on the major issues facing our world. And the refusal to cooperate is compounded by the inability to agree on the agenda.
Thus it is the Church that needs to be reformed, not the state. And when we get things in their right order, perhaps we will see the return to freedom, an idea we are so fond of talking about. And this might just occur in the future as it did in the past when a Church that alone held to the ideals of freedom and liberty for the individual held the absolutists and despots in check.
Ian Hodge and Business Reform are able to offer a range of services that will educate business owners in all aspects of management, services that include our very own do-it-at-home (or at the office) study material. The first series of lessons on finance is now available. For further information, send an email to [email protected]. Learn to develop and maintain management practices that will give your business every chance of success.
