Feb 27 2008
Who’s Your (Slave) Daddy?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of the heavy hitters of the so-called Age of Enlightenment. He was also pretty much an idiot. Here’s what he has to say about Christianity:
“True Christians are made to be slaves, they know it, and they are not concerned by that: this short life is too unimportant in their eyes.” [The Social Contract, 4.8]
His sarcastic point was that true Christians - those who live a life of Christ-likeness - have the silly notion that this world is not their home. To Rousseau’s mind, Christians need to loosen up and be more involved in the daily hedonistic pursuits of the world.
Hmmm. I’m not buying it. A major critique of modern/post-modern Christianity is that we are too loose and too involved in the world. I’ll accept that we should be slaves, though as Paul says (Romans 1:1; Jude 1:1, Titus 1:1), “I am the bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.” That’s not a bad thing.
Rousseau and others reject the very idea that any man is or should be subservient. Talk about the creation shaking its fist at the creator. My prayer is that God would show me what it means to be a bond-servant of Christ, called as an apostle, and set apart for the gospel of God. That beats being a slave to the world any day.
