Under God With Liberty

Imagine your first earthshaking-from-head-to-toe “religious” experience occurring not in church, but while attending public school!    

There you are, feeling a bit like a frog from another pond, trying to speed-learn a new language and culture, when suddenly, you find yourself being fast-tracked, roller-coaster style, through what St Teresa de Jesús called “the seven chambers of the inner castle.”  Further imagine that the trigger to this mystical, hyper-emotional experience comes in the precise moment when, midway through “the pledge of allegiance,” you come to the words “Under God, With liberty…”

Allow yourself one more imagining:  You have known in flesh and blood a perverse, seven-chamber descent into secular hell; going from UNDER GOD WITH LIBERTY, to UNDER ATHEISM WITH TYRANNY.

Did Jesus believe in religious liberty? An incident from the life of Jesus gives us a definite clue: “But they [the Samaritans] did not receive him, because his face was set for the journey to Jerusalem.  And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, ‘Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?’ But He turned and rebuked them, and said, ‘You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.  For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.’”  And they went to another village” (Luke 10: 53-55).

Yes, it was Jesus who introduced by precept and example, the idea of religious liberty.  He showed no appetite for establishing his kingdom on earth by force.  He said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world.  If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered… but my kingdom is not from here” (John 18: 36).

Before I left Cuba, my political-prisoner-dad sat me on his lap and said to me: “Son, you are going to a great country.  You’ll have to learn a new language and customs.  And, it must be said, not everyone will receive you with open arms. Pay no mind to that because, in this new land you will not have to bow the knee to anyone but God, and you will be given two things that are priceless: freedom and opportunity.  Take full advantage of them. They call this nation the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, well, my son, be brave, and be free!” 

Good counsel still, is it not?