Freedoms and Responsibilities

The Fourth of July gives us the opportunity to celebrate our freedoms, but the other side of the coin are the responsibilities that go with freedoms. Paul White of Appreciation at Work addressed these freedoms in a recent blog:

The freedom to live where we want.
The freedom to choose our vocation.
The freedom to speak our minds freely.
The freedom to gather in groups publicly.
The freedom to choose our religious beliefs.

Although we could get into a great discussion about how absolute these freedoms are and how they are limited by socioeconomic circumstances, I want to respond to this question that White asks: “What responsibilities go with the freedoms and rights that we have?”

I would suggest first is the responsibility of citizenship. This involves obeying the laws, paying our taxes, accepting civic responsibilities (voting and serving on juries), and serving our community as volunteers and in military service. Again, these are not absolute, as I will note below.

A second responsibility is to be informed about what is happening in our community and nation. When we speak, we should know something about the issue we are addressing. This requires us to know history, to seek credible sources of information, and to avoid accepting superficial or biased reporting without careful consideration.

A third responsibility is to hold our government and its leaders accountable. Sometimes this requires questioning the law through public demonstration or taking legal action in court. It certainly includes voting for those whom we believe will govern best and to be willing to stand for office as appropriate.

A fourth responsibility is to pursue our religious beliefs in a way that guarantees the free exercise of faith or lack of faith for all people. This means that when our beliefs differ from those of others, we seek to understand as well as to be understood. This also means that when a person chooses not to believe as we do, we allow God to work in their lives as God will, rather that shaming, intimidating, or coercing them to follow our beliefs.

This is hard work because there is no real freedom without responsibility. The founders of the United States of America struggled with that tension. They did not always get it right, but they took the first tentative steps. We follow along that same tenuous track.

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