Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

by Rankin Wilbourne

Professor Barry Schwartz, in his popular TED talk “The Paradox of Choice,” calls this prizing of individual freedom and choice “the official dogma” of all Western industrial societies. “The official dogma runs like this,” he says. “If we are interested in maximizing the welfare of our citizens, the way to do that is to maximize individual freedom,” because freedom is considered to be good and valuable in and of itself, even essential to being human. 13 These assumptions are woven through the fabric of our society, from our advertising, “Be a rebel, make your own rules” (says J. C. Penney—even J. C. Penney!), to our legal discourse, “The heart of liberty,” our Supreme Court has declared, “is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”