Freedom Bible Study

I grew up in the 60’s. If there was one quest we all had back then, it was a quest for freedom. We wanted to be free, and we looked for heroes. The problem was that we didn’t really have a clue where to look, because we were in bondage to sin. Everyone we looked to only deepened our death sentence. I looked to Abbie Hoffman, the leading radical of the 60’s. I was fascinated when he caused a riot in the New York Stock Exchange by throwing hundreds of one-dollar bills into the air. I was entranced when he led the student demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. But I was finally hooked when he changed his name to “Free.” Then the years passed. I was converted and grew into a strong believer in Jesus Christ… And Free…

He died. This man-of-many-names, who once led the nation’s youth in its quest for freedom, could not escape the shackles of death. Abbie Hoffman lies imprisoned in the grave. He could call himself “Free,” but the grave finally constrained him. He was a symbol of the Sixties and a general of that generation. “With one hand waving free, silhouetted by the sea,”1 he rode that wild wave of liberty as if it would never hit the shore. But it did.

What was that wave? Even those who were carried along by it did not understand its turbulence or exuberance. How could such a profound revolution begin in such a simple fashion? “Hair! Hair! Hair! Hair! Shoulder length or longer!” I remember the day I joined the rebellion. For years Scotch Tape and Dippety-Doo had held my curls down, but then I raised the flag of my revolt against the establishment: I let my hair spring free! Why? As our poets sang to us,

Almost cut my hair

It happened just the other day

It was gettin’ kinda long

I coulda’ said it was in my way

But I didn’t and I wonder why

I feel like lettin’ my FREAK FLAG FLY . . .2

Raising that flag was just the beginning. The fight for freedom (in what Hoffman termed a “revolution for the hell of it”) meant challenging every standard and crossing every boundary. “Do it!” was the yippie war cry. The removal of all restraints (both internal and external) was the goal. Even the biochemical structure of one’s own mind became a barrier to be broken. Normal perception became a constraint to the exploration of inner space. The doors of perception were unlocked. “Expand your mind” was the new slogan. “Do you remember what the door-mouse said? Feed your head!”3 Drugs fuelled the flights over the borders of reality. Yes, reality itself was viewed as an arbitrary imposition and restriction. As our prophets sang to us, “Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about . . . strawberry fields forever.”4 But strawberry fields were not at the end of that fast lane free-way, and the ancient prophets who warned of disaster were ignored. “There is a way which seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death” (Prov. 14:12).

Once before in history, a man named himself Free. It was Martin Luther. The name Luther means “Free,” and he understood it literally because Jesus Christ had set him free from the bonds of sin and death. Abbie Hoffman and Martin Luther had opposing views of freedom. While neither was willing to be in bondage to any man or any human institution, freedom for Free Hoffman meant breaking every boundary; for Free Luther it meant discovering, understanding, and submitting to the boundaries created by God. For Hoffman, being free meant to defy all authority; for Luther, it meant to submit to Almighty God, the One who had legitimate and ultimate authority . . . even over life and death. Hoffman’s final act of defiance was to take his own life, thereby affirming that he was autonomous, free to determine his own death. For Luther, defiance itself had to die so that he could live. Freedom was not achieved; it was granted. Luther stumbled upon a strange paradox: When he bowed his knees and surrendered his life to the LORD, there was freedom! His signature on a “declaration of dependence” meant liberty for him, forever! In losing his life, he had gained it. Jesus Himself said, “So if the son sets you free, you will be FREE INDEED“J (ohn 8:36).

God alone (not the most compelling revolutionary) can give this benediction to His people: YOU SHALL BE FREE.

Richard Ganz, Free Indeed: Escaping Bondage and Brokenness for Freedom in Christ (Wapwallopen, PA: Shepherd Press, 2002).