Christmas and Liberty
By Mary Theroux • Thursday December 25, 2008 5:18 PM PDT • 3 Comments
In an era of increasing situational ethics of bailouts, foreign wars, and massive frauds public and private, we lovers of liberty would do well to stop and heed the call to put Christ back in Christmas, acknowledging and giving gratitude for the bedrock source of the principles we hold so dear. There’s no reason to let those who hypocritically call themselves “Christians” yet advocate government policies or act in a manner wholly anathema to Jesus’s actual teachings, dissuade us from honoring Him—any more than those calling themselves “libertarians” yet advocate war and expanded statism dissuade us from honoring Liberty, or economists calling themselves pro-market yet advocating state interference in markets dissuade us from honoring the Laws of Economics (see blog posting by Senior Fellow Robert Higgs, below).
When we look to the teachings of Jesus, we find the source of concepts unique to Christiandom, such as “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Slavery was eradicated in Europe as Christianity spread across the continent, and abolished in the British Empire by the devout William Wilberforce. Abolition was led in North America by Christians, and although those ideals were badly undermined by the prosecution of the Civil War, they continued to drive many of the more principled efforts for the rights of women. (Indeed, renowned sociologist Rodney Stark has well documented how much of the rapid rise of the early church in the Roman Empire was attributable to the great status accorded to women by Christianity vs. paganism.) And it was these ideas that led the Reverend Martin Luther King to dream of a world promised in Jesus’s message, where “justice [is] a reality for all of God’s children.”
It was similarly devout Christians, whose belief in a Divine legislator led them to seek to discover the laws underlying His creation, by establishing the university as well as the disciplines of science, including economics.
We thus celebrate today the coming to earth and to man* of the liberating message taught and demonstrated by Jesus. And we honor this message in our study of and adherence to Natural Law as found in these teachings.
*Noun: A member of the species Homo sapiens, regardless of gender.
Tags: American History, Charity, Civil Liberties, Constitution, Economics, Education, Europe, Law, Natural Law, Personal Liberty, Politics, Property Rights, Religion, Science, War 
Mary
That was a perfect message to bring us back to where we need to be, in our every thought, in our dedication and perseverance, with love and comfort leading the way. Thank you for that profound reminder. Love, Julie
Julie Sheppard | Dec 26, 2008 | Reply
It was Christians who committed the Crusades atrocities... It is Christians that continue to teach that prophylactics are a sin and thus contribute to overcrowding and misery... It is Christians that teach a culture of intolerance for other religions and atheism, thus stirring other groups to similar cultures of intolerance which ends in “us vs them” violence...
Christianity like all religion has no place in a caring, compassionate world because irrationality is incompatible with caring and compassion. And it certainly has no place in a presumably rational thinktank.
Are you kidding me? | Jan 2, 2009 | Reply
Please re-read my posting, which specified: “There’s no reason to let those who hypocritically call themselves ‘Christians’ yet advocate government policies or act in a manner wholly anathema to Jesus’s actual teachings, dissuade us from honoring Him...” Nothing you cite is a reflection of or logical outgrowth from the actual words and deeds of Jesus. His better adherents have in fact achieved some rather remarkable victories for reason and rationality, such as founding the university, and science, including economics; ending slavery; and their studies are the basis for the principles of freedom and human rights. None of these disciplines or principles arose in other than Christiandom.
While killing, injustice, and/or stupidity cannot and should not be compared on a quantitative or qualitative basis, it is factual that the perpetrators of the greatest atrocities in history have been atheists—Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao—and those with the moral courage to resist and speak out against such tyranny have tended to be Christians or have taken their arguments from Christian thinkers. Please take some time to read actual history—there are links in my post as a starting point. Not a lot of caring and compassion in paganism or atheism to be found. Then take a look at the actual providers of caring and compassion today: see, for example, Arthur Brooks’s book, Who Really Cares, showing that the religious disproportionately support and participate in charity; The Salvation Army, a Christian church and one of the largest providers of social aid and disaster relief services nationally and internationally (including against human trafficking); examples such as Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., etc. But, again, there has been only one true Christian, Jesus, and all others pale in comparison—from somewhat, to greatly.
My post says: look to the bedrock source material. Good stuff worth studying and trying to adhere to.
Mary Theroux | Jan 2, 2009 | Reply