The other day I found myself behind a car with a few different bumper stickers plastered to it’s backside. One of them read ‘My FREEDOM is more important than your FAITH.’ I felt a visceral punch to my abdominal region as I processed this jarring statement (and we hit a few lights together so I had plenty of time to think it over). I don’t know the driver of the car. Based on his other bumper stickers, I have a few clues about him but other than that I’m left to speculate. I think I might’ve liked to have had a conversation with him though, and this is what I would’ve asked:
1-Can there be any sort of real freedom without faith? Where does a freedom governed only by human nature lead a society of people who have increasingly less value for themselves, let alone each other?
2-If you don’t use faith to appeal to your better and nobler self, what do you use?
3-I’ve been grappling with a sensitivity to humanity and her struggles and a respect for principles I hold dear and all this time I have worked to fight this mental battle on compassionate ground. Are you willing to offer me the same space to be and do as I will according to my faith that I am trying to grant to you either with or without your own?
I wonder what he would’ve said.