The Supreme Court decided its most important religious-freedom case in decades: Hosanna-Tabor Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC concerned whether religious groups should be free from government interference when choosing their religious leaders. The freedom of religious groups was upheld 9-0 in the USA by the highest court in the land.
One of the gems of
western culture has always been the emphasis on individual freedom. It’s thus not
surprising this decision is considered a victory. And what’s more, freedom is
valued especially in the ambit of religion. Warning signals thus go off when any
government barges in and tries to crash the party.
But here’s the danger: whereas
freedom makes one stand up and fight, and although freedom is achieved, does
there not remain—possibly—the smug idea that freedom is absolute?
Because—also recently—in the NAME
of freedom, the Obama Administration decided, within a year, to force religious
groups to offer “services” such as sterilization, abortifacients and
contraception.
One win, one loss! All in the
name of freedom.
When a soccer league wins, in the
name of freedom, against local officials who try to force teams to allow anyone to play on their teams—including handicapped,
90+ grandmas, the one-legged and the blind—soccer fans cheer on the greater
good of freedom. When however the very next week, those same teams are forced
by the same officials, once again in the name of FREEDOM (this time of the
players), to offer “services” to all players who are desirous of gouging out
their eyes, or chopping off one of their legs….
It’s very simple, we begin to ask
ourselves that one essential question: “What guides freedom?”
Martin Luther King Jr. had it right. He knew that
freedom from slavery would one day arrive, but he also knew whom we would be
thanking for it. One that day, he preached, together we would be saying: “Thank
God Almighty, we are free at last.”
By John Yep
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