We magnify Thee, O Christ Bestower of life, and we honor Thy holy Cross, whereby Thou has saved us from slavery to the enemy!

-Magnification for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

In my last article, I discussed the spiritual consequences of a worldview shaped and dominated by the concept of “rights.” Such a worldview has become so wholly characteristic of modernity that, to the vast majority of people, the denial of the idea of human rights is virtually synonymous with the denial of goodness, morality, decency, and love. It is nearly indistinguishable from the praise of intolerance, injustice, oppression, and tyranny.

But I did not attack the idea of human rights because I wanted to take something away from modern man. I did not denounce them because I care nothing for the downtrodden and the oppressed. The problem with human rights is not that they give too much to modern man, but rather that they give far too little.

This nation was founded upon the love of freedom and the hatred of tyranny. And I want to be absolutely clear: this longing for freedom, so characteristic of the American soul, is without any doubt divine and holy. This desire, implanted in the American heart by God Himself, is something precious and praiseworthy, far more valuable than all of the many riches and comforts which we as a nation have amassed.

And it is precisely for this reason that I wrote against the so-called “Rights of Man.” Such “rights” have promised freedom, but brought us only slavery. They have promised justice, but brought us only oppression. They have promised independence, but brought us into a subjection far worse than has ever existed under any tyrant in all the annals of history.

They have enslaved us to ourselves.

St. Justin the Philospher once said: “To yield and give way to our passions is the lowest slavery, even as to rule over them is the only liberty.”

The only liberty.

The modern world has achieved great success in its fight against external oppression and outward subjugation. But as Archimandrite Vasileios of Iveron once asked, “What am I supposed to do with a success that does not conquer death?”

And therein lies the fundamental difference between Christianity and Antichristianity. As Fr. Seraphim Rose once wrote, “The Antichrist is the fake Christ who promises to give outwardly and obviously what Christ brought inwardly and hidden.”

The world given birth to by the Enlightenment (that forerunner of the Antichrist, which sought to build the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, to build the Tower of Babel anew) has brought with it outward freedom, outward riches, and outward justice… but has left the inward man to starve like the prodigal son, surrounded by the riches of the far country, but himself perishing with hunger.

Because as paradoxical as it might be, here is the truth: in this life there is no freedom without obedience, there is no joy without suffering, and there is no life without death.

There is no freedom except the freedom of the Cross.

But in seeking to bring us absolute and unmitigated external freedom, our modern obsession with rights has thereby pathologized obedience. And without obedience, our freedom dies and our passions reign. Thus it has turned out to be as that other great philosopher, St. Justin Popovich, once wrote:

In truth there is only one freedom – the holy freedom of Christ, whereby He freed us from sin, from evil, from the devil. It binds us to God. All other freedoms are illusory, false, that is to say, they are all, in fact, slavery.

Before men learned to speak of rights, they used to speak of something much better: the ancients spoke of virtue. But after they learned to speak of virtue, Christ taught them to speak of something even higher: he taught them to speak of love. And more than this, He taught them to be “doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

He taught them to take up the Cross.

How petty, after all, are these “rights” which we hold so dear! “Give me that, don’t do this, I deserve such and such.” How pale and insignificant is such merely earthly justice, when measured against the love by which a man lays down his life for his friends!

How worthless are our rights, when set against the glory of the saints! How sad are our lives when we cling to our rights, in comparison with the lives of those who, like St. Paul, “count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.”

What kind of right can a Christian claim while hanging on the Cross?

My brothers and sisters, let us not allow ourselves to be defrauded. Let us not deceive ourselves with the empty riches and illusory freedoms which are all that this vain world can offer. Let us not settle for those things which pass so swiftly away, and which bring no lasting peace nor profit to those who choose them.

The modern world loves to boast of its rights and its freedoms. But let us say rather with St. Paul: “God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Amen.

To be continued…