Maybe it’s a story, right at the beginning of the Torah, that says: “the path to freedom begins by developing languages that the oppressors do not understand, so that only those with ears can hear.”

Tyranny triumphs when all the truthtellers are successfully silenced and the lies define reality.

Don’t be silent.

Liberalism, the rights of the individual over the State, dealt a crushing blow to the patriarchy.

The forces of oppression - greed, racial supremacy, religious fundamentalism, and patriarchy - had been exposed and were eroding, but they did not disappear.

Imagine for a moment, a Christmas Eve service; the people are singing Silent Night, one candle lights another until the room is filled with light.

“…heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!”

Then, with two verses remaining, someone starts blowing out candles. It’s not a child, it’s an adult, walking down the aisle, quietly extinguishing the lights.

The voices soften and begin to quiver, “…with the dawn of redeeming grace…”

I began this series talking about a different view of the peak of Western civilization, one from the much more distant past, when men were men and everyone knew their place in the order of things.

Two competing views: cooperation vs. order; peace through negotiation vs. peace through strength; democracy vs. autocracy; liberalism vs. authoritarianism.

I wonder if the nostalgia that people have for the 1950s and 60s is for liberalism. They picture it as a time when church attendance peaked (at 49%) as families went to their local mainline churches to learn the Golden Rule.

There was no authority on earth that could force the South to end its practice of slavery or become a true democracy, because the Bible did not compel them to do so.

Appeals to biblical authority are often used to abuse power and escape accountability.

Yet, again and again, the sword called to them.

The dual state does not exist accidentally. It is constructed through fear, codified, and protected by “tradition.”

The civil rights movement sought to dismantle the dual state.

Those who advocate for equality are often demonized as leftists, socialists or even communists. Demanding equal application of the Bill of Rights is neither; it is the liberalism on which the United States was founded.

It is also the way of Jesus.

I understand that this might sound a little too mystical, but I wanted to go through this exercise to remind us that Christianity is more than a ticket into heaven when we die.

I also want us to see how when Christians mature into stages 4 and 5, when they see those cracks, they become awakened to the suffering in this world and they try to do something about it.

The Constitution is the authority, not the Bible, nor the Church, nor any creed.

As concerned as they were about the abuse of power by a despot, these men did not extend the freedom and authority they took for themselves to all the people around them, but over the next two centuries, the distribution of power increased.

Not everyone likes that. Christian Nationalism seeks to return power to the few.

I have felt the pain of what happens when a handful of “well meaning” people forget professional ethics. When a necessary lie is followed by another and another; when self-protection becomes the mission; and when those who ask for transparency and accountability become the problem.

Today, we’re looking at he conjunctive stage (stage 5), I used to call this the “Blessed Assurance” stage, but I think “Amazing Grace” is more appropriate. 

Through many dangers, toils and snares

I have already come:

'tis grace has brought me safe thus far,

and grace will lead me home.

Those who persist through the wilderness of stage 4, will spend decades wrestling with God during the individuative-reflective stage and finally make peace with the mysteries of the universe and embrace the freedom of a faith unencumbered by certainty.

Small groups often have the effect of keeping us in a stage 3 faith. Instead of helping us grow and mature, they often promote conformity and reinforce the Sunday school content we got when we were 8.

People leave the Church for a lot of reasons, but a big reason is that the Church actively prevents the one thing they’re supposed to do.

Why are the bullies running the world? Because we allowed their abuse to become normal. We accepted it as the way things are on playgrounds, in families, in board rooms, in churches, and in politics.

We forgot who we are as Americans, that We The People are in charge and will not be ruled by tyrants.

We forgot who we are as Christians, that the way of Jesus is to speak truth to power, even when it costs us everything.

We forgot to take responsibility for the face of the world.

Today, we will explore the dark side of stage 3 faith (synthetic-conventional stage).

In Healthy Church Christianity (stage 3), people grow. They discover that something they once believed was incomplete and they take in new information, adapt their thinking, and turn and go in a new direction. If their old views caused harm, they make apologies.

This is repentance. This was the message of Jesus, and the Law and the Prophets before him. It is to live a life of mercy, humility, and justice. It is rooted in love.

Many faith traditions have a final rite of passage in the teenage years when young people fully accept the faith that has been passed down to them as their own.

This inherited faith comes fully constructed. Over the centuries or millennia, other people worked out what it means to be, in this case, Christian, so all we have to do is “accept” it.

The Synthetic-Conventional Stage (stage 3) is defined by conformity to the beliefs and rituals of the community. We trust and obey the Bible, the pastor, the Church, and authority in general.

The basic premise of Christianity is that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Word, the one who is authorized to speak on behalf of God. But then he left, so who’s in charge after Jesus?

Our relationship with the Bible and with our faith should be the same. We’re not supposed to leave these stories in our 8 year-old brains; they’re supposed to grow with us.

“Human rulers become beasts when they assign divinity to their power and economic security and demand allegiance to it.”  (The Bible Project)

I am not a fan of the book of Revelation. It’s weird and I had enough “spiritual warfare" teaching in my youth to make me afraid of overtly spiritual language, but I’ve come to make peace with it as a timeless warning to not give in to the Dark Side of the Force.

When we’re conditioned to obey, we become capable of the most horrible things imaginable; we become capable of endorsing cruelty and excusing murder. We will become the people who commit unimaginable horrors without even being told.

Christian authoritarians abuse Romans 13 and Ephesians 6 to convince their followers that obedience is the ultimate Christian virtue and that disobedience (sin) leads to death. That is slavery and it is the opposite of the Gospel.

Christianity proclaims that Jesus came to set the captives free.