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Pondering the Pandemic: Freedom

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[ Photo by Joshua A. Bickel / Columbus Dispatch via USA TODAY NETWORK ]

As I process the COVID-19 protests that have been occurring all around the nation, I cannot help but reflect on the "rights" for which these protests are taking place.

I am convinced that there is a part of this nation that has come to treasure a certain pathology around individual rights--well, at least for certain people. And while that pathology stemmed from genuinely good ideas, over time, it became poisoned by other toxic aims and mutated into an obsessive, greedy, destructive individualism that cannot see or value interdependent community. It is why virtually any time we are forced to answer for the ways our personal behaviors impact that community, so many of us instinctively answer with fragility, anger, terror, and cries for "freedom!". And I know all of this because I come from that community. 

When you combine that pathology with a church that has, for over half a century, cozied up to power and influence, paid lip service to "community", lionized political martyrdom, intellectualized its faith practices beyond recognition, and anchored all of its hope in a heavenly afterlife, you end up with a society that consists of radically selfish individuals looking out for their own individual selves without any kind of trustworthy, prophetic bulwark.

As this pandemic continues, I believe that this pathos will continue to be exposed. Significant challenges will bring out the best in those who have carefully cultivated character over time; it will also bring out the worst in those of us who haven't. 

It is like the scriptures say: out of the overflow of the heart, our mouths speak.
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  1. oakMay 2, 2020 at 9:49 AM

    Thanks for writing this, Jacaranda! I continue to struggle with the church seeing individual salvation and being a part of community as mutually exclusive. I believe that the individualism you write about has since conflated freedom and selfishness; the Gospel with patriotism; our obsession with personal responsibility and colorblind ignorance.

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