Biting and devouring

Christians believe that God calls a person to freedom and stipulates there are no restrictions or restraints whatsoever on one’s call to love. Freedom is directed to the other. “You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another” (Gal 5:13–15).

Biblically speaking, freedom is always removed from getting what one desires right now and is placed in the context of considering what one can do for others, or what one can give to other people. These two perceptions reveal profound differences, not only in how one understands politics in America, but how one interprets the meaning and purpose of life itself.—America and Its Guns: A Theological Expose, page 152