Independence
I was present when, at Fordham University, students were trying to explain to a new professor of medieval history, who hailed from Germany and was new to our shores, the U.S. way of moving holidays to Mondays. She was having none of it. Finally she burst out: “Americans are such wimps!” We don’t want to commemorate certain days, she implied, we just want three-day weekends.
Well. In this respect also, it is a good thing that we now celebrate June 19, on the day, as the end of slavery in the U.S.: the day the news was promulgated in Texas. It falls just 15 days before Independence Day, July 4, the day that (officially) the Declaration of Independence was signed. In 1776 it was proclaimed that we were justified to declare our independence from an oppressive, distant government; the argumentation began with self-evident truths, the first of which being that all men are created by God equal. In 1865 it was proclaimed, in effect, that a fundamental implication of that principle was now the law of the entire country: there could be no slaves here.
It is encouraging that we want to remember these events by date to such an extent that we do not move them to Mondays. They are 15 days apart, as historically it was 15 days shy of 89 years between the two momentous events.
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Independence means freedom, but only in a proper context. In 1776, independence meant independence of the United States, not independence of individuals. It means, fundamentally, the freedom to practice self-government. We are free in this country because we govern ourselves and are not governed by others. Despite our contemporary political troubles, still we choose those who represent us, those who stand in our place in the chambers of government. We need a lot more virtue than we have, but (on the other hand) it remains the case that we have elections, and moreover they are vigorously contested (unlike, say, in Putin’s Russia).
We are also free to govern ourselves individually, to choose many things about our lives: whom to marry, for instance, and where to work, and what to do with our church or community. Personal freedom begins with not being a slave to another man; it means being able to improve oneself, to learn, to risk, to join with others in community causes. Personal freedom is quite different from freedom “to do whatever I want”; it is freedom to do whatever I want that is consistent with human dignity and flourishing. I am not, for instance, free to enslave another person. Nor am I free in any significant sense if I am a loner; freedom entails working with others in common projects for common goods. We might say a man is free to be a drunk, but a drunk has little personal freedom; he can carry out only a fraction of what he might do sober.
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These are some of the paradoxes of freedom. I thank God for our independence from foreign oppression, and also for our interdependence with one another as self-governing people, an interdependence that was signally advanced on June 19. Let us govern ourselves wisely, so that we flourish in true freedom for generations still. Happy Independence Day. Or even, since it is a major feast in the Episcopal Church, let me wish you a blessed Independence Day.
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Out & About: Sunday, July 21, I am preaching at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas; the eucharists there are at 9 and 11:15 a.m.
The next Good Books & Good Talk seminar will be Sunday, September 22, on Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. After that, in October, we’ll discuss Russell Kirk’s Old House of Fear and finally, in November, Marly Youman’s Charis in the World of Wonders.
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On the Web: File this under “Frontiers of evangelism”: Emma Camp in America magazine makes “the case for showing up to church even if you don’t believe in God.” She was the object of a social media meltdown. She felt a need for God even though she didn’t believe. She went to an Anglo-Catholic church for the smells but stayed for the community. https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/06/11/church-community-nones-247904