What does it mean to be free and independent?

Independence Day is a celebration of collective, that is, national independence. It is not a celebration of some imagined individual independence. As John Donne noted long ago, "No Man Is an Island." Human beings are unavoidably interdependent. Even a person of "independent means," a phrase that usually refers to someone ho has plenty of money and not having to work (anymore) to earn it, is dependent on others. What else is the money for except to pay others for their wants and needs? This, of course, is predicated on the idea that others provide what is needed and wanted.

4 July is the day people in the United States of America celebrate the issuance of our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. The British colonies declared independence from the rule of King George III due to the insistence of colonial leaders that taxation without representation was oppressive. They felt independence was necessary for the "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" of people in the colonies.

"Happiness," as set forth in the Declaration of Independence, is more akin to Aristotle's concept of eudaimonia than it is to contemporary notions of happiness, which rather tend toward the hedonistic.

Hedonism is perhaps the highest form of individualism. According to the hedonist, the greatest good is one's own pleasure. Hence, everything, including other people, become but means used to achieve selfish ends.

Living in a time of extreme polarization so extreme that it might well spell the end of our constitutional republic, it seems to me that people on the polar extremes have something fundamental in common. What they have in common isn't just individualism but what I can only describe as hyper-individualism.

Those on what counts as the far left in this country seek an ever more atomistic kind of individualism, one that seeks to make extreme forms human subjectivity somehow objective- like squaring a circle. While those on the far right, which is not to be mistaken for conservatism, operating according to the principle that might makes right, try to assert individual freedoms that "free" the individual from concerns about the common good. To explain it graphically, rather than conceiving these ideological poles being on a linear spectrum, they bend around and connect. By contrast, genuine socialism and genuine conservatism, in their shared concern for the common good, have a similar tangent.

Despite its weaknesses, such as its legitimation of slavery and the reduction of the humanity of slaves to that of 3/5ths of a person (this remains the United States' original sin), to name just one defect, our constitution was set forth "in order to form a more perfect union." Attempting to enhance our union, we have amended our constitution numerous times. Many of these amendments are the result of battles hardwon from the Civil War, to Women's Suffrage, to the campaign for Civil Rights.

Working together to form an ever more perfect union is just another way of saying we should constantly seek the common good. In turn, what the common good seeks is to create the conditions for human flourishing. Especially for Christians, responsible citizenship is about seeking the common good and not necessarily one's own narrow interests. In fact, truly seeking the common good may well require you to sacrifice for the good, the flourishing, of someone else.

On a Christian understanding, freedom is not essentially freedom from, it is freedom for. I can think of no better explanation of this than one Saint Paul gives in his Letter to the Galatians: "For you were called for freedom, brothers [and sisters]. But do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh; rather, serve one another through love" (Galatians 5:13- for more on this passage see Paul's take on the opposition between "spirit" & "flesh"). Freedom for service to others. What a concept!

I realize these are high and lofty concepts. Especially now, I think we need to revisit these ideals, seek to put them into practice, and inculcate them in others. As Christians, we should do this in the recognition that in the flow of time nations rise and fall. The United States is not an exception to this. As to claims of the U.S. being a Christian country, it very much comes down to praxis. In other words, depends on how much we're truly committed to the common good.

Formally, the United States, as opposed to Great Britain, the country we declared ourselves independent from, deliberately established no religion. This is not to say that our country was conceived with any hostility toward religion. But our founders were, for the most part, quite hostile to the idea of established religion.

For another important dimension to a Christian approach to the Fourth of July, I refer you to "America’s True Freedom Is Getting to Sing About God, Not Country."