Process Theology and
​the Statue of Liberty
​

​Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

With these words inscribed inside the pedestal, the Statue of Liberty has welcomed immigrants to America since 1903. But the statue itself is older than that, and with another meaning, and is in itself an immigrant. Born and raised in Paris, it was shipped across the Atlantic in 214 separate crates, a present to the American people from the French. The Monumental Woman is a token of transatlantic friendship forged in the fire of twin revolutions, and expressed in the shared language of liberty.

- Melvyn Bragg, In Our Time, BBC

The short note below is in appreciation of a sermon given by Reverend Nathan Kilbourne of First United Methodist Church in Conway, Arkansas, on July 2, 2023. His topic was the difference between Christian freedom (living from God's spirit) and libertarian freedom (doing whatever you want to do, acting on preferences). As Independence Day approached two days later, I found myself thinking again and again about his distinction. I wanted to know what to celebrate on Independence Day. During this time, I also listened to an excellent BBC podcast on the Statue of Liberty. I found myself thinking about some of my more conservative friends, for whom patriotism is important, and about the Statue of Liberty, which offers a symbol of what we Americans might be patriotic about. I think we can be patriotic about civic freedom and Christian freedom, while skeptical of libertarian freedom. My hope is that my own remarks might encourage some of my conservative friends, and my liberal friends as well, to learn from Reverend Kilbourne and the Statue of Liberty.

​- Jay McDaniel

Process Theology and
the Statue of Liberty:
​
​Civic Freedom and Christian Freedom

The Statue of Liberty represents two important ideas: welcoming immigrants to America and political freedom from monarchy. As a Christian, I see these ideas as two kinds of liberty: Christian liberty and republican liberty.

Republican liberty, in this context, does not refer to a political party. Instead, it refers to a political ideology or form of government that emphasizes the idea of a republic where power resides with the people or their elected representatives, rather than with a monarch or ruling elite. Republicans and Democrats alike can and do cherish this kind of republicanism. So did the French when they gave the United States the Statue of Liberty. The French viewed republican liberty as a rejection of greed and despotism, standing in contrast to monarchy, which they saw as decadent and self-centered. For them and for the Americans, republican liberty involved active citizenship, with a written constitution, a separation of powers, and regular elections. It was community-minded citizenship in service to the common good.

Christian liberty is different from, but compatible with, republican liberty. It views liberty as an individual's freedom from selfishness, greed, privilege, and self-centeredness, and freedom to serve others with humility, compassion, and love - as empowered by the living spirit of God. Christian liberty is found in the spirit of hospitality symbolized by the Statue of Liberty. Christian liberty is welcoming the stranger, reaching out to the vulnerable, taking in the weak, the needy, the homeless, and tempest-tossed.

Both of these forms of liberty are different from a kind of freedom emphasized by many Americans today: libertinism. Libertinism is doing what you want to do without constraint, or following your preferences. Sometimes this kind of libertinism is healthy, sometimes unhealthy, but it is different from republican liberty and Christian liberty: the liberty of citizenship and the liberty of service.

While citizenship and service can complement each other, tensions and contradictions can arise if republican freedom is misunderstood as licentiousness, ambition, and greed. If republican freedom becomes solely focused on accumulating wealth and enjoying privileges, rather than serving the common good, it contradicts the welcoming and selfless spirit associated with Christian freedom. It lapses into a money-centered form of libertinism where the reigning god is greed.

On the other hand, when republican freedom is associated with citizenship, civic participation, and working for the common good, it aligns with Christian freedom. Indeed Christian freedom, the impulse to serve and welcome the stranger in a hospitable way, is itself in service to republican freedom. It offers a moral basis for civil society. For the Christian, this moral basis is not grounded in a sense of obligation or self-sacrifice, but in a sense of being guided and loved, unconditionally, by a healing and holy spirit, by God. In Christian freedom, God is sovereign, but it is a sovereignty of love, not a sovereignty of control.

The United States faces two tragedies today. Some misinterpret republican freedom as selfish freedom. For the privileged, this means amassing wealth and enjoying privileges others cannot share. For the marginalized, it means freedom from governmental influence for the sake of individual freedom, sometimes rooted in resentment. In both cases, the essence of Christian freedom, which has a certain humility and joy in its inner ethos, is lost.

Another tragedy is the misunderstanding of Christian freedom, where some redefine it as selfish freedom under the guise of freedom of opportunity and meritocracy. It is, for example, the freedom to own guns and/or get rich. Here Christian freedom is misunderstood as libertinism: doing what you want to do. This misinterpretation has given Christianity a very bad reputation. It has caused generous-minded Christians to hesitate in identifying themselves as Christian, fearing association with right-wing ideologies.

As a process theologian, I support republican freedom (active participation in civic affairs) and Christian freedom. I recognize that many conservatives share these values, emphasizing compassion, local community, and citizen participation. If this is what conservative means, I am conservative too.

Indeed, along with other conservatives and liberals too, I believe there are additional values in genuine Christianity that all Christians should follow, especially honesty and repentance. We must acknowledge and repent for past failings, including slavery, imperialism, institutional racism, obscene gaps between rich and poor, and an overemphasis on capitalism. We must reject the sin of American exceptionalism, with its history of imperialism and arrogance. We Americans do not need to be #1. We need to be partners with other nations, emphasizing cooperation not competition. Abroad we need to work with nations that are like us and with nations different from us, treating them as equals and friends. This is especially important in our relations with China.
At home, we need to work towards building just and sustainable communities that are creative, compassionate, inclusive, diverse, humane to animals, and good for the earth - with no one left behind. These are beloved communities, with ecology added.

Can we conservatives reclaim the wisdom of repentance too? Can we celebrate what is good in America (including the two liberties named above) but acknowledge and repent from the more destructive legacies of the past? Can we move forward in love? Have we political leaders with the wisdom to guide us into freedom and repentance, all for the common good. I hope so.

What is needed in our time is a new American dream that builds upon the ideals of the Statue of Liberty, emphasizing citizen participation, compassion, and a focus on the vulnerable.

Those of us in the process community - Christian process theologians - seek to create just and sustainable communities that are diverse, inclusive, and good for all beings and the environment. We reject greed and self-centered meritocracy where climbing a ladder of material "success" is the measure of life. We are working toward a certain kind of compassionate community that is more like a circle of love than a ladder of upward mobility. We add that, today, a vulnerable earth likewise needs our support, and that the kinds of communities needed are healthy eco-communities as well as loving communities. We believe that God is a lure within each and every heart to help build these kinds of communities, and that God needs our cooperation.

This is what makes us process Christians. We recognize that God cannot and does not act alone or unilaterally to help create a more loving world, that we ourselves are God's hands and feet. This does not mean that we willfully engineer a future of human design. It means that we willingly surrender our lives to a deeper and more joyful hope that can empower us to receive the homeless and tempest-tossed: the very ones whom Jesus received. It is time to start walking.

As I write this, I am fully aware that the United States is a multi-religious nation with people who travel other paths and with people who have no religious affiliations at all. Some among the latter are agnostic and some atheist. My appeal in this note is for fellow Christians, but I recognize and trust that the spirit of Christian freedom, much less republican or citizen freedom, is not limited to Christians. The spirit blows where it will, and it blows in the lives of people of other faiths and no faith. The good news, in my view, is that Christian freedom is not limited to Christianity, just as the living spirit of Christ is not reducible to Christianity. I have many friends of other faiths who better respond to that spirit than I and call it by other names. America is as pluralist as they come. Might we all work together, inspired by the twin ideals of the Statue of Liberty? I think we can.


Jay McDaniel