Slavery in Security

When Israel was delivered from Egypt, they experienced freedom. Yet, they did not encounter freedom for "freedom's" sake. (Paul Pace) Donald Bloesch writes it best.

“Freedom is not the antithesis of obedience, but the means by which we realize obedience. We become free as we decide to obey, and in obedience we discover our freedom. Bultmann upheld not a freedom from authority, as in the Resaissance conception, but a freedom under authority- that which is realized in obedience. Bultmann insisted that genuine freedom involves responsible decision. It “is always freedom gained in responsibility and decision, and therefore it is freedom in insecurity. To be a free person means to let out self-contrived sercurities and cling only to the promise of the divine mercy that is apprehended solely by faith. To be free is to be ourselves- to be true to the destiny appointed to us by God.”

Israel was freed from slavery in order that they might be free to be slaves to Yahweh.

With this in mind, I have been reflecting upon American slavery today. In the land of "freedom", where is our liberty oppressed? Many angles could be taken upon this question, but one has recently stood out to me.

Security.

More than a trillion dollars are spent in the world every year on security and you guessed it, the United States is leading the way. Americans spend more on security that any other country in the history of humankind. In fact, if countries number 2 through 25 on security spending are all added together, they still don't add up to what America spends on securing our nation every year.

What does this mean?

Outside of the fact that ten percent of what the United States spends on security could meet all of the world’s needs, or 100 million dollars a day is spent in the USA keeping bombs ready to blow, I think that Martin Luther King was on to something with this quote.

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”

With all of the money that we spend on securing our freedom, are we actually enslaving ourselves to the ideal of being safe?

Is our obsession with safety a clue that we are ultimately driven by fear?

Can a drive from fear lead to Good?

Who are the scary ones? An interesting question to ask humanity outside of the United States. (Or to those living in cave systems in Afghanistan.)

Why are Americans driven by such a fear?

Psa. 20:7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

Jeremiah 34:15-17(a) Recently you repented and did what is right in my sight: Each of you proclaimed freedom to your own people. You even made a covenant before me in the house that bears my Name. But now you have turned around and profaned my name; each of you has taken back the male and female slaves you had set free to go where they wished. You have forced them to become your slaves again. “Therefore, this is what the LORD says: You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom to your own people. So I now proclaim ‘freedom’ for you, declares the LORD—‘freedom’ to fall by the sword, plague and famine.

Gal. 5:13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful natured; rather, serve one another humbly in love.”

James 1:25 But those who look intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continue in it—not forgetting what they have heard but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

1Pet. 2:16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover–up for evil; live as God’s slaves.

We are destined to be free people. Fully ourselves. Fully in the grasp of our Creator. In our individualistic sense of American freedom, we, as a country, have become slaves to "self serving security". We are sleeping with an idol, and the inward preserving nature of this idol is harming us and others throughout the world.

Ultimately, we become what we follow. What might a reshaping of out policies on safety mean for us? Mean for the world? Mean for the Kingdom of God?