(Understanding Our Responsibility Towards Others)

“Take heed by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to them that are weak,” 1 Corinthians 8:9.

“My brothers and sisters, God called you to be free, but do not use your freedom as an excuse to do what pleases your sinful self. Serve each other with love,” Galatians 5:13 (New Century Version).

Freedom is costlier than bondage; it takes more to gain and remain free than it will ever cost to be bond. In the fight for freedom for his people, President Nelson Mandela (1918–2013), a South African black nationalist spent 27 years in prison for fighting against the country’s discriminatory apartheid system — racial segregation. His negotiations in the early 1990s with the then South African President, Frederik Willem de Klerk, helped bring an end to apartheid and ushered in a peaceful transition to majority rule. Mandela served as president (1994–1999) of the country’s first multi-ethnic government. In his experience for the fight for freedom, he said: “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

Everyone has rights to certain civil and social privileges. We all advocate for the right to expression, and freedom of worship. We have rights to what to eat, what to wear, the kind of business to venture into; who and where to marry, groups to associate with and many more. In the exercise of this freedom, one must be careful not to enslave others while exercising the said freedom.

One may struggle to give a true and satisfactory definition of freedom. The psychologist in responding to freedom may encourage you to satisfy your pleasures, but does such satisfaction enslave others morally and take away their social sanity and sanctity? Ponder on this!

The idea of freedom to many people could mean to choose a job, religion, a woman, go to where they want, wear what they want or possibly go naked if they wish or say whatever they want and how they want it said. To some persons freedom is about expressing oneself and to do whatsoever they want. This could also mean that someone in exercising freedom can even take a bomb and throw it in the middle of a business area, killing hundreds and thousands of people in the name of democracy.

Wikipedia defined freedom to mean: “the power or right to act, speak, and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of “giving oneself one’s own laws.” Someone who chooses to do whatever he or she wants even though it negates peace, harmony, sanctity, sanity, goodliness, pureness and honesty could that person be said to be free?

Paul in writing to the Galatians and by extension to all human race said: ““My brothers and sisters, God called you to be free, but do not use your freedom as an excuse to do what pleases your sinful self. Serve each other with love.” The Holy Bible gave a proper guideline to the exercise of freedom. The exercising of freedom is not supposed to offer mere pleasure, but should involve the total being of the individual. If the exercise of freedom will make one loose mental and emotional peace, if freedom brings an entire community or even a nation into chaos, how real is such freedom?

Doing what you want without anyone or any law standing on your way can only result to a state of lawlessness and anarchy. How does freedom strive in such state?
What does “freedom” mean? Doing what one wants without any form of restrain does it actually mean to be free? Let us ponder on this again.

Someone puts it this way: Are you freer if you bang on piano keys randomly or if you follow an instructor whose discipline guides you? The answer is obvious. The instructor helps you restrain your actions so you can use a piano as it is meant to be used. Discipline and restraint are necessary for producing beautiful music. Freedom comes from submitting to the right restraint, not from resisting restraint. This is why boundaries are necessary for true freedom.

People have right to what they should eat, right to what they should wear, right to the kind of knowledge they should acquire, right to the kind of person they should associate with, right to the kind of place they should travel to; these rights are indeed endless. That people eat all sorts of things today, even to the detriment of their health making those around them to loose peace, others wear whatever they deem fit in the name of fashion or even go nude without any sense of modesty, and sanity. People choose to marry same-sex even when the Bible refer to it as ‘against nature.’ Do all these make the situations right freedom; these situations could better be referred to as ‘insanity.’ In the name of freedom people are creating a chaotic system for existence. How sane, true and real are these expressions of freedom? There’s a famous German folk song called, ‘Thoughts Are Free.’ If you can think what you want, aren’t you free? Conversely, how can you be free without choosing your thoughts and choosing the right thought?

In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, (1 Corinthians 8) it seems Paul was answering some questions that had been written to him. At that time, the best meat available in the city market had been sold to butchers by pagan priests.

• Ven. Stephen Wolemonwu is the Rector Ibru Ecumenical Centre, Agbarha-Otor, Delta State (08035413812)