liberty and individual sovereignty
The prior post (now un-published – sorry,) mentioned liberty and individual sovereignty. Those who are either not in the United States or who were educated after the 1960’s may not recognize why those terms were selected during that little flight of fancy about the power of being able to shut off communications.
The federal government of the United States was founded on a few basics; rights are inherent rather than granted, the government’s job is to protect the liberty and rights of the citizens, and the ultimate source of government power is in the individual rather than a king or other all powerful leader. As the World Wars raged, United States soldiers fought with the awareness that their lives were being put on the line to protect these foundational principles.
What does this mean to us as Christians? We need to be very careful about investing our hope in humans or human institutions, which really is idolatry. Our hope is in Jesus, not in a president, political party or government, no matter how good or promising any of these may seem.
Jesus said He is the one sent to bring us liberty, to set the captives free. (Check out Luke 4:17-21.) When we as Christians say, “Jesus is LORD”, we are recognizing that He is Sovereign. While I may be a United States citizen, the source of my liberty is Christ alone. While the US Government may once have recognized me as sovereign, I recognize only God as Sovereign.
Many of us know the line about Christians being “in the world but not of it.” This is not a verbatim verse of scripture, but a consolidation of many teachings pointing us to this truth. A good place to start is John 17:13-18.