A World without Slavery
On Liberty and Tyranny
A World without Slavery
Imagine a world without slavery, a world where one individual or one group is not enslaved by another individual or group. How could such a world exist unless we work together to safeguard the freedoms of all from the enslaving practices of the few? Indeed, the same holds true for economic freedom. We all desire a world where we are economically free and not slaves to the market, but such a world can never exist unless we come together to protect the individual from the rapacious inclinations of market forces. Likewise, we all crave political sovereignty and self-determination, but if we are to have a world where we are politically free and not slaves subject to the tyrannical will of malevolent dictators then must we stand together to ensure that political ambition in malignant actors is restrained. Freedom is life itself but without an immune system to protect us from the destructive and chaotic forces of nature it cannot long survive.
Being a free born child of God, no individual or group has the right to enslave us. They might have the ambition, but they do not have the right. There is no compulsion on us that we should conform to the enslaving ways of the wicked, even if they have ensconced themselves behind political and economic power. This desire to make the whole world a prison and reduce humanity to abject slavery is indicative of the absence of the restraining bonds of love.
Love is the substance of liberty, while liberty is the form of love. The desire to control another is inversely proportional to the love in one’s life. As love wanes, the urge to control waxes. Conversely, as love waxes, the urge to control wanes and in its place comes the urge to Service. Service and Control stand on opposite sides of the scale, the scale being tipped one way or the other varying directly with the presence of love. The more you love, the more you crave to serve. Conversely, the more you fall victim to fear and hate the more you crave control.
In what must be the moral irony of all time, the self-seeking and wicked understand that love is the greatest power on earth, and because they know they cannot control it they endeavour to eliminate it as an influence or factor. They seek to thwart its power by constantly drawing people into hatred and fear. Love unifies but fear and hate divides. If you are in bondage to fear and hate you stand endanger being enslaved. If love is the substance of liberty and liberty is the form of love - then the substance of bondage is hate and fear, while bondage is the form of hate and fear. If you’ve ever witnessed someone in the grips of either of these then you know that such individuals are very far from free.
We must begin with the presumption that all men are free and recognise that while the majority of people are of good will and genuinely believe in fairness, there exists a malignant element that views others as merely a means to an end and not an end in themselves. They look upon their brethren as the farmer might a cow, they have zero qualms about slaughtering brother and sister and heartily resent that laws exist that might interfere or interrupt the execution of their wicked schemes, or worse – might even see them imprisoned and held to account. Hence, their ceaseless attacks on law and sovereignty and their endless attempts to normalise their corrupt practices. They seek to desensitise people, like slowly boiling frogs, so that they won’t be so alert to their malevolent machinations or that by the time they realise what is actually going on it will already be too late.
Our greatest protection against these wicked actors is the moral idealism promoted by the Master. The religion taught by the Master exalts morality & decency, fealty and service to faith, family, and fatherland. He taught, and most certainly lived, that there are worse things than dying, and even taught that dying is not to be feared. The traditions that have grown up around him exalt honour, loyalty, and selfless service, promote sanctification, chastity, temperance, and justice. They endeavour to replace fear with faith, hate with love, control with service. Such teachings and ideals can not only nullify the plans of the wicked, but can contribute mightily to establishing Heaven on Earth – which would be the total undoing of the plans of the wicked! This is why Christian Nationalists are being demonised, of all things. The spirit that helped build nations, and even empires, is very probably the only thing that can now save them from malevolent actors on the global stage. Understanding the threat inherent in the God knowing and man serving brotherhood the wicked castigate and vilify them, decrying them as ‘mad, bad, and dangerous to know.’
Against the God loving and Man serving family that is the Living Temple of Children of God not even the hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places can prosper. The wicked know that our unity is key to their undoing and so foment division, turning rich against poor, parent against child, brother against brother. They preach ‘Fear thy neighbour’, they relentlessly promulgate doom and crisis. While the children of God preach ‘Love your neighbour as yourself,’ and affirm the healing power of faith and stand in the saving light of a bright hope that can never be eclipsed.
The Lord has promised a day of reckoning, when the wicked will be vanquished finally and forever and the righteous will obtain the balance of power, forcing darkness into retreat forever. While we pray that day comes soon, it falls upon us to make a stand for liberty and justice today. We need not comply with the plans of the wicked. We need not support their organisations. We need not listen to their divisive rhetoric. We can promote unity, service, and shelter.
The Master said, ‘He that is of truth hears my voice,’ and said that his sheep, when they hear his voice follow after him. The voice of the Master, when you hear it, instils hope and courage and even joy. There are others that have no ear for truth, they are not of his fold, they follow the voice of another.
In the Master’s day the world was afflicted with virtue signallers. Back then, wealthy Pharisees would often blow a trumpet so that passers-by would take notice as they bestowed a coin on a beggar – virtue signalling. Virtue signallers, ironically, signal the absence of virtue. They are the ones that unthinkingly amplify “The Message”. In contrast with the children of God, and their sincere love for truth, the children of this world have no love for truth – in fact – it would be fair to say they might be ambivalent at best and at worst actively hostile to it. As truth is unsettling for these they are led to obfuscate, censor, or deride it, and its purveyors.
If the recognition of truth makes you free, then the promulgation of deception or wilful intention to hide truth is an attempt to keep people in bondage. If you fear truth, then you are already in bondage and your sin is worse compounded by endeavouring to drag others into darkness with you. Jesus was willing to affirm the truth of his divine sonship even if that declaration would cost him his life. He proclaimed that a life devoted to loving selfless service, lived with honour, honesty, and integrity, though it be short, is infinitely more preferable than a long life lived without these sacred values. Indeed, what does it profit you if you were to gain the whole world but lose your soul?
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