A Scandalous Freedom

Brown, Steve. A Scandalous Freedom. Howard Books, 2004. 250 pages. ISBN: 9781582293929

It often happens to the born again Christian and it isn’t good. He comes to Christ, is filled with His grace and truth, and knows for the first time in his life the gift of true freedom. He no longer runs from God – only to Him in love. He no longer fears man, only God. He no longer condemns man – only his own sins to the death of Christ. This freedom is the most precious thing in his life. With it, he laughs and dances and sings in the presence of His God and Savior. But then something happens -- his freedom is stolen from him. And the result is that this Christian becomes gloomy and judgmental.

Steve Brown is mad about all this and you will be too as he convinces you of it. We shouldn’t accept this theft as part of a natural part of the Christian life. When did it become okay for us to take our eyes off Jesus and put them onto far lesser things? Once we thought mostly about Him and now we think about our doctrine or our vote or the imagined consequences of being real with people.

So, how does this happen? How does our freedom in Christ die? Well, there must be freedom killers out there who take our freedom… or we give it away.

Steve would have us be free from others, so he warns us to flee from those freedom killers that hide with their shackles in the shadows. Some ensnare you behind a mask where you will hide your true self; others hold before you the image of a hero to worship; some bind you together with others (of one ideology) in battle array against others (of a different ideology).

And Steve would have us free ourselves from self-confining tendencies. He calls us to break with courage and boldness the chains of excessive niceness; to stop avoiding pain at all cost; and to allow God’s blessing to redefine us -- as failures no longer.

In the Church, my role as pastor is to defend His sheep from freedom killers. Yes, I have the privilege of feeding His sheep and laboring in the Word and in prayer for them. But the thing this book brings to the fore is the fact that they are Christ’s sheep, no one else’s – not mine, not the denomination’s, not the religious right wing’s, not the congregation’s. My work is not as much imparting my knowledge or positions, as it is to support folks in the knowledge and persons that they already know and are (1 John 2:20-21). As Christ’s sheep, we must be protected against the manipulation of others and the self-imprisoning tendencies that we lock ourselves up into. Steve Brown has reached in and given the church a key. Lets take it and use it.