Three Phases of Freedom
When the first edition of John Stott’s Christian Mission in the Modern World came out in the mid-1970s (re-issued this year with a delightfully retro cover), the liberation theologians of Latin America were gaining a lot of attention, and one of the things they became known for was a sort of redefinition of the term “salvation.”
Unlike the traditional Christian view that salvation as presented in the New Testament has to do with a person or community being forgiven of sin and thereby reconciled with God, some liberation theologians took it to be more or less synonymous with political and social liberation—drawing heavily on the biblical story of the Exodus, in which actual oppressed people were literally set free from truly bad earthly rulers.
To be sure, social and political liberation is indeed one facet of what various Old Testament writers had in mind when they used the multidimensional term “salvation,” as Chris Wright shows so well in his helpful book Salvation Belongs to our God. But in light of Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension, “salvation” is used in the New Testament with a decidedly new emphasis—or, perhaps more accurately, emphases (as we’ll see in a moment).
In Christian Mission’s chapter on the theme of salvation, Stott writes that while he can certainly find some common ground with liberation theologians in their identifying of urgent social problems and in yearning for true freedom for the poor and oppressed, many liberation theologians nonetheless had a tendency to take the Exodus parallels a little too far. He writes:
Material poverty, physical blindness and unjust imprisonment are all conditions which in different degrees dehumanize human beings. They should provoke our Christian concern and stimulate us to action for the relief of those who suffer in these ways. My point, however, is that deliverance from these things is not the salvation which Christ died and rose to secure for [people].
Framing salvation both in terms of “freedom from” and “freedom for,” Stott goes on to describe what he considers the three phases, or tenses, of salvation presented in the New Testament:
1. Freedom from judgment, for sonship
2. Freedom from self, for service
3. Freedom from decay, for glory
I discern in this three-part framework pointed (yet gracious) challenges to Christians of different kinds. Let’s consider two. First, it challenges pietists not to be so wrapped up in pursuit of personal holiness that they fail to take seriously their responsibility to serve the world around them—even in the messy realms of politics and economics.
Meanwhile, it challenges those sympathetic to liberation theologies to acknowledge the vast difference—in both ends and means—between the kind of freedom attainable through hard-fought revolution (or even nonviolently through blood, sweat, and tears) and the kind of freedom Christ brings to his people when they are reconciled to God through faith.
The relevant theological categories may be different today—indeed, liberation theologians don’t dominate church discussions much anymore, at least in the circles I’m familiar with, including Roman Catholic ones—but it seems to me the framework presented here remains just as timely as ever.
As a new generation of evangelicals emphasizes the theme of cultural renewal—in everything from hipster-run farmers markets to neighborhood block parties to social media movements dedicated to ending human trafficking—I’m not sure very many of us have sufficient theological tools to articulate how exactly all of these good things relate to the fullness of what God is doing in the world and in people’s lives, and therefore how they relate to what we are called to do as his ambassadors.
I think that Stott’s framework here, like so much of his writing in Christian Mission and elsewhere, gives us some really helpful clues. Do farmers markets and block parties matter to God? No doubt about it. Do sincere efforts to defend the dignity and freedom of trafficking victims honor him? I absolutely believe they do. But are these all he cares about? Do these constitute the fullness of the new life Jesus brings? Not even close.