Liberty and church

Watch the following video by the economist Milton Friedman. Or, if you are pressed for time, just jump down to my comments below



Friedman mentions that, historically, the vast majority of people have lived lives of misery under abusive authority. Liberty is the exception in history not the norm. However, the 19th century America demonstrated the greatest degree of liberty ever observed. However, Friedman does not explain how the greatest expansion of liberty that the world has ever seen came about. I suspect that one of the greatest contributing factors is the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer and its expression in congregational churches. (Priesthood: all believers have direct access to God through the sole mediation of Christ. Congregational churches: policy and leadership is provided by all the members, rather than by a few special people.) I think the congregational style of church governance is a fairly natural outcome of a robust belief in priesthood of the believer. When churches practice this form of actively involved governance, it emphasizes the individual responsibility of each believer for the health of the church. This, in turn, trains a population of people who can be trusted to make wise civic and governmental decisions, because they have had practice at a very local level with often immediate feedback about what works. It also trains people for leadership (e.g. deacons) that can go on to be political leaders. Many of America's founding fathers had active involvement in their churches.