Voluntary servitute

The Great Revealing - Part 2

Self-imposed slavery
In his book, “The Great Evangelical Disaster,” Francis Schaeffer writes this:

“The freedom that once was founded on a biblical consensus and a Christian ethos has now become an autonomous freedom, cut loose from all restraints. Here we have the world spirit of our age – autonomous man setting himself up as God, in defiance of the knowledge and the moral and spiritual truth which God has given… The titanic freedoms which we once enjoyed have been cut loose from their Christian restraints and are becoming a force of destruction leading to chaos… All morality becomes relative, law becomes arbitrary, and society moves toward disintegration. In personal and social life, compassion is swallowed up by self-interest. When the memory of the Christian consensus which gave us freedom within the biblical form is increasingly forgotten, a manipulating authoritarianism will tend to fill the vacuum… An elite, an authoritarianism as such, will gradually force form on society so that it will not go into chaos – and most people would accept it” (emphasis added).

Even though people cry out against the evils of oppression, slavery, and anything that would impose itself upon the self-governing will of the human being, every single person is not only mastered by something/someone else, they also desire to be so mastered. This is simple and observable human nature. The COVID-19 virus situation, including individual and government responses to it, has made this truth plainly evident.

Since the onset of this virus, with its earliest models and projections, people were presented with something that was going to devastate populations. We were told we would see death counts and mortality rates similar to that of the Spanish Flu, which was killed 50 million people worldwide. When presented with this possibility, what was the quick and willing response of the general population toward the governing and health officials? “Do whatever you have to do to keep me and my family safe.” “Put any and all measures in place to prevent the spread of this virus that will most certainly ravage our populations if left uncontrolled.”


New masters
In a rather bizarre set of circumstances, many people were willing to endure, and perhaps even want, actions that would have seemed preposterous prior to March 2020. Where we went, what we did, with whom we spent time, what we wore on our faces, how often we washed and sanitized our hands, whether or not we could work, how we enjoyed our leisure time; for a large number of people, these things were commanded by their “master.” Given the alternative, certain and sudden suffering and death, these requirements were met with joyful submission and obedience.

But who is the master? To whom have people enslaved themselves? The truth is, there isn’t just one, and in our current cultural settings, these multiple masters often overlap. For some the master is the government, and people obey their master in order to live and thrive. For others the master is personal safety and security, and everything will be done to win this master’s favour. Still, others have as their master the acceptance of others, because no one wants to be that person, whom everyone labels an “anti-government conspiracy theorist.” You can see how these masters fold into one another as a result of COVID-19 and the responses of many.

Slaves of Christ
For those of us who profess allegiance to Christ, who submit to Him as Lord and Master, how should we respond to so many people willingly enslaving themselves to people and things other than Christ? The answers are nothing new; they are not innovative. In fact, the answers are very old, and very Biblical.

First of all, followers of Jesus have been set free from everything and everyone to which they were enslaved while they were still dead in their sins. We are no longer enslaved to sin, with Satan as our master. We are no longer enslaved to doing good works, with the Law as our master. This means that fear, lust, control, and even comfort are no longer chains that weigh down our souls. We are slaves to righteousness, and Christ is our Lord and Master. He alone directs the course of our lives. We must not allow anything or anyone else to place a yoke around our necks and demand full submission.

Second, we must both proclaim the Good News of the salvation and freedom found in Christ AND expose the false idols and masters in the lives of nonbelievers, in order that they might turn to Christ and be truly free. We should not be surprised that pagans have enslaved themselves to safety, fear, the government, or even their own sin during the COVID pandemic. What they need, in order to be truly free from all of those chains, is to trust in the work of Christ and experience the freedom He died to make a reality in the lives of His people.

Last, and this might be the most difficult to navigate, we must exhort other believers, primarily within the context of our local church, to walk in the freedom Christ has purchased for them and stop putting those chains back around their necks. If we fellowship with people who profess allegiance to Christ, and they persist in enslaving themselves to any of the false masters that have become evident during the COVID era, we must gently, but strongly, show them the chains and remind them of their blood-bought freedom. Love requires we show them that they have let fear and worry grip their throats, and rather than standing on the sure foundation of Christ, they have opted to crumble before the feet of any other master they believed would keep them safe. Maybe they need help taking off those shackles, and we can’t be afraid to help them. It will be painful, uncomfortable, and might create relational disharmony, but real Christian love demands helping those close to us walk in freedom. After all, that freedom was acquired through the death of our Saviour, and it is not a freedom that is to be squandered on fear and worry.