c. 2003 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C.)

(UNDATED) My decision comes down to this: Should I try to light a fire under a nonperforming vendor and stick with my original plan, or abandon this project and look elsewhere?

Over two weekends, I explore other possibilities. Some work, some don’t. A few look every bit as appealing as the project I have launched. Two actually look better. Light doesn’t immediately dawn, but as my wife comments afterward, “We have options.”

That, as much as anything, will lead to clarity. Feeling trapped, as I had been feeling, leads to blindness. Knowing we have options, we can examine pluses and minuses and make an informed decision.

In this instance, Yes could work, and No could work. What won’t work is treading water. It is time to act.

Freedom starts in knowing we are free. A free people is defined not just by casting ballots for officeholders, but by freedom of movement, freedom to enter contracts, freedom to seek redress under law, freedom to dream and to try new things, freedom to speak ones mind, freedom to look elsewhere.

The heavy-handed try to take away those freedoms, or to make us think we never really had them. Politicians portray wars as inevitable, not a steady parade of choices. Pollsters try to call elections before they occur. Bureaucrats hide behind procedures and boundaries that deny creativity. Government snoops invade homes, e-mail accounts, bank records and phone conversations.

Oppressive employers remind staff in a thousand little ways that someone else has the upper hand. Self-important physicians treat patients as objects incapable of understanding their own health. Educators treat students as empty vessels waiting to be filled and tested, rather than as unique individuals whose questions and capabilities would soar beyond standard curricula. Abusive spouses ground their aggression in assertions of the victim’s unworthiness and well-deserved bondage.

Religion, sad to say, is perhaps the most heavy-handed of all. Not only do churches try to impose restrictive moral codes on their constituents, proclaiming papal or episcopal or synod decisions as the “will of God,” but they cast doubt on the very idea of free will. They say God has a “plan,” and we are helpless in the face of it. All things, they say, are preordained. Our only choice is to accept the plan _ as defined by God’s answer-laden agents _ or to fry in Hell.

To support this heavy-handed view, God is portrayed as bound in chains. God never changes, religionists say, despite considerable biblical evidence to the contrary. They say God hates today as fervently as God hated yesterday. They say God wants today _ in a congested, pluralistic age, where even paupers have destructive capacity once reserved for kings _ exactly what God wanted yesterday, namely, as in the time of Joshua, plunder of Jericho’s silver and gold and “destruction by the edge of the sword.”

In such ways does freedom evaporate. What was intended for all humanity becomes a privilege of wealth. And even then, it is largely an artificial freedom marked by options in consumption and investment vehicles, but no real freedom to shape one’s life. An honest liberation theology, after all, speaks as fervently to the masters as to the downtrodden.

Jesus, says John, “decided to go to Galilee.” He decided to go from one place to another. There he invited a stranger to follow him. Philip chose to follow and invited another. Jesus spoke freely, and encouraged the people around him to speak freely.

At no point were the disciples of Jesus bound in chains, or canon laws, or hierarchies of power, or employment contracts requiring subservience. Those are inventions of the heavy-handed. Like Jesus, the disciples were free to come and go, to believe or not to believe, to serve or not to serve, to accept the world’s abuse or to hide from it. Jesus offered words conferring freedom, not demands imposing bondage.

Instead of promoting conformity and consistency, legalism and ritualism, believers ought to be reminding each other, “Jesus decided, Philip decided, they were free, and so are we.”

Bondage of any kind _ especially that bondage which claims to be “holy” and ordained of God _ is anathema to God.

DEA END EHRICH