Who Owns Your Life?

If you find yourself having around 8-10 minutes to spare, by all means set aside some time to watch this video. I was first exposed to it last night, and I find that it eloquently, and succinctly, says everything that I've believed about liberty ever since I was old enough to begin thinking about such things.

As I watched this video, in my mind I could hear the objections of my fellow Christians loudly and clearly, beginning at :23, where the video posits that "[to deny ownership of one's self] is to imply that another person has a higher claim on your life than you do." Many Christians, upon examining this claim, will say: "But there is another person who has a higher claim on my life than I do!"

For Christians, this is absolutely true: there is one who has a higher claim on our lives than we ourselves do. That person is Jesus Christ. As Christians, we accept that Jesus Christ is the Lord of our lives, and we strive to be like Him. Paul drives this point home, comparing us to slaves who have been bought, by saying "...you are not your own. You were bought at a price." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, NIV Therefore, we not only allow one person to have a claim over our lives; we are made free by making Jesus our Lord.

The problem arises when Christians behave as if Jesus' lordship over ourselves extends to others, whether they seek it or not. If you are a true Christian, you are a Christian because you entered into this covenant with Jesus Christ voluntarily. Had you entered into the covenant under threat of coercive force, would it be the same covenant? If you obeyed Christ's law only as far as it's written on paper (again under threat of coercive force), but denied Christ in every other way, would it be the same covenant? The answer is, of course, no.

Therefore, as Christians, we have no right to ask the government to use force to "make" people behave like Christians, whether they want to or not. To use government to try to inject Christian teaching into a public school curriculum is to claim that you have a claim over the education of someone else's children. To use government to outlaw things that you find offensive (be it birth control or drug paraphernalia or objects you consider obscene) is to make an ownership claim against someone else's life. To use government to force the community to limit what others can or cannot do on Sunday is to claim an ownership interest in what others do in their free time. These are all ownership claims that you would deny to someone else, were they to make such a claim against you.

I do not shy away from loudly and firmly stating that I am a Christian, and that I expect standards from myself that may not appeal to others. But my standards are mine, and your standards are yours, and someone else's standards are theirs; even if, and especially if, those standards are not Christ's standards. We do not want other individuals, or groups of individuals, making claim to any aspect of our lives. It's only fair that we extend the same courtesy.