PHOTO PROVIDED Rev. Dr. Mark Boyea

Last week we commemorated another Fourth of July in our nation. And throughout the week, there were countless Americans, here in Florida and throughout the nation, wearing T-shirts with one word in common on them: Freedom.

T-shirts with “freedom” on them were everywhere. And of course there were. Because at this particular time of year we especially remember and celebrate living in a country in which we have so much freedom — freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly and so much more. All great.

But where were the other T-shirts? The ones with a different word on them: Responsibility.

I wondered that during the days surrounding July 4th this year because it seems as if more and more Americans more and more confuse freedom with license — believe that freedom means, or should mean, “no limits,” “no restrictions.” It’s an interpretation of freedom as being able to do whatever one wants, whenever, however and wherever one wants, with little to no concern for others’ beliefs or well-being.

But as the early Christian leader Paul so well understood, that interpretation of freedom is deeply flawed. Writing to an early Christian church in the ancient Greek city of Corinth which was surrounded by a culture that, as one historian described it, “had a reputation for license which was considered remarkable even in that time,” Paul makes it clear that confusing freedom with license does nothing to benefit or build up the individual or the community. For Paul, freedom cannot be divorced from responsibility to others and to the common good.

That flawed understanding of freedom, contrary to what we might think, also makes us less happy and less free. Regarding the former, the renowned sociologist Emile Durkheim recognized 125 years ago that “When there are no restrictions, no responsibility toward others, people become more alienated and sad.” And as for the latter, the contemporary Trappist monk and writer Erik Varden claims that “The unhindered pursuit of our inclinations is not freedom. It is enslavement.”

For Varden, when freedom is understood as having no limits, as requiring no responsibility to others and the common good, it eventually makes us captive to the things we insist on having without restraint, whether it’s speech, sex, guns or our particular religious or political allegiances. It makes us less free, as well as more open to the temptation to make others less free, more willing to take away others’ freedoms and rights when they don’t believe what we believe or live the way we live.

And sadly, that is far too often proposed or carried out in the name of the God who we, in the Christian spiritual tradition, claim loves and values all of us equally.

The Fourth of July has once again come and gone. But the freedom we commemorate at this time of year is meant to be celebrated and cherished every time of year. However, as Paul tells us, it must be freedom with responsibility, not absent it. Otherwise, it’s nothing more than license.

As Paul grasped, we need to wear both T-shirts.

The Rev. Dr. Mark Boyea is senior minister at the Sanibel Congregational United Church of Christ.