Let me tell you about so-called "Christian freedom" because this shit makes me so mad.
Okay so I have a degree in Catholic theology. I went to a Catholic university that shall remain nameless and took a bunch of classes taught by professors who were, for the most part, genuinely kind, smart, lovely people. Catholicism has a rich intellectual tradition, and the tenured theology professor is uniquely positioned to push the boundaries on Catholic thinking...to a point, anyway. In my experience, the problem isn't that you aren't taught to think critically, it's that you're trained to carve out certain exceptions, to ignore the contradictions and call them a "mystery," to ground all of your thinking in your faith in the Catholic God, and that belief is expected to be absolutely sacred, firm and unassailable.
This leads to a lot of scholarship that I would generously describe as "chickenshit."
Case in point: "Christian freedom."
The problem is this. The Bible and other church traditions have a lot to say about how faith in God will set you free. How Christianity is the only true freedom, how nonbelievers are as but slaves to sin and death, how God rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and remains the great breaker of chains. However. It's pretty clear to anyone with half a brain, looking at the real world, that Christians—and particularly Catholics—have to follow a lot of rules that other people don't. They're beholden to the absolute authority of God over their lives, the Pope and the Magisterium and priests as arbitrars of God's will. They don't really look "free."
My intro to theology professor explained it to me like this (her lips pursed a little like she realized, on some level, how this sounds): Christians have a...different definition of freedom than the rest of the world. Most people would define freedom as an absence of coercion, the possibility of self-determination, the presence of choices and the ability to make those choices for yourself, without the threat of confinement or punishment or interference. But Christians understand that "true" freedom isn't merely the presence of a lot of choices, it's the ability to make the right one. Sin prevents you from being able to make the right choice all the time, so God promises to grant you freedom from your flawed human nature, to empower you to be fully obedient to him.
That, according to Christianity, is what "true freedom" means. Perfect obedience to God.
This is how they say, in the same breath and with no apparent contradictions, "God sets us free," and "We are all subject to God." This is how they squirm out of the obvious sticking points. They twist and redefine common phrases, they abandon their own ability to think independently and turn over their intellectual authority to the Church, even when it doesn't make sense. They preach intellectual humility—they say, God is greater than humans and so theological concepts can only be imperfectly approached and never fully captured—and all the while, they claim to be the only ones in the world who have access to the fullness of the truth. And if it sounds crazymaking and personally degrading to live in that intellectual landscape and try to make sense of it...that's because it is.
