Equipped for Impact

Big Questions- “Isn’t Christianity Just Too Restrictive?”

• Luis Miranda and Nathan Deck • Season 2 • Episode 26

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We tackle the challenging question many Christians struggle with: "Isn't Christianity too restrictive in a culture that preaches freedom without boundaries?" Exploring the difference between true freedom and the world's definition reveals how God's commands actually protect and enhance our lives rather than limit them.

• Jesus defines true freedom as being set free from sin, not freedom to do whatever we want
• God's boundaries are like guardrails on a mountain road that protect us from danger while allowing us to enjoy the view
• Understanding the difference between God's boundaries and man-made religious rules
• Our culture's "expressive individualism" turns us inward, following hearts that Scripture warns are "deceptively wicked"
• Harvard research shows teens who practice faith are healthier, more hopeful and less likely to engage in destructive behaviors
• Addressing common objections that rules just control people or cause shame
• Practical tips for parents to establish and explain boundaries that protect rather than restrict

If this episode encouraged you, please share it with a friend who could use this insight, and subscribe so you don't miss our upcoming episode on teen slang where we'll explain puzzling terms like why kids are saying "6-7" all the time!


Send any questions you want answered to podcast@waynechristian.org

This podcast is presented by Wayne Christian School- A Christ-centered community school whose mission is to assist parents and churches in the education of their children from a biblical worldview to impact their world for Christ. You can learn more at waynechristian.org

Nate:

Welcome to Equipped for Impact, the podcast designed to assist Christian leaders, parents and educators to raise up the next generation to stand firm in their faith and influence the world for Christ. We're your hosts, I'm Nate and I'm Lewis, and we're glad you are here with us today. We're here at the end of our Big Questions miniseries, so this is kind of the last one we're due. Maybe we'll bring it back. I don't know. We haven't gotten any questions yet, but if you've got a question you would like us to answer, go ahead and email us at podcast at waynechristianorg. We'd love to throw this in and maybe we've got enough questions. We can run another mini-series, but this Big Questions mini-series is helping parents walk through some of the tough questions kids ask about God, about faith and the world around us.

Nate:

Sadly, when we recorded our last episode on you know, why do evil people do bad things? If God made the world good, lewis, you and I were recording that literally hours before the Charlie Kirk assassination, and so this is a relevant thing. This is things that you know, questions your children may ask you, and so there, I think, providentially, we were recording that one, you know, giving you those answers, you know, right before it was really needed. So today we're asking a big question that so many students and even adults wrestle with. Isn't Christianity just too restrictive, right In a culture that preaches, you know, freedom without boundaries, you do you. You know, if it feels good, do it. How do we help our children see that what God commands us to do is actually life-giving and it's not truly restrictive?

Luis:

And that's a really good topic, right, like Like it's. I would say that, if we're honest with ourselves, every Christian parent, every Christian today, has probably wrestled with this question in some way. Right, because the world says that freedom means doing whatever feels good in the moment. But when you look at scripture, it tells us a very different story, right, it tells us that true freedom isn't the absence of boundaries, it's being set free from sin and we are free to walk with Christ.

Nate:

Yeah, yeah. So I think that's a really important thing for us to just kind of step into that and not to get ahead of ourselves. Actually, this week here at our school, it's Spiritual Emphasis.

Luis:

Week.

Nate:

And the topic this morning again I think this is providential was from Galatians 2, talking about we were crucified with Christ and so now we live it's Christ living in us, and so we have that freedom, so Lewis, how would we define? Have that freedom, so Lewis, how would we define? If we're going to kind of roll through this, how would we define what freedom actually is?

Luis:

Well, let's start with what Jesus says. So in John, chapter 8, verses 31 through 36,. I'm not going to read it in its entirety, but I do want to cover a couple of things of what Jesus says. Right, he says if you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. And then later on he says truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. A slave does not remain in the household forever, but a son does remain forever, and then so if the son sets you free, you really will be free. And so what Jesus is doing is he's making it clear that he sets you free and that when you are freed by him, you are really free.

Luis:

You are free indeed, but notice that freedom doesn't and in this passage, isn't just doing whatever we want. Right, jesus isn't saying you're free to do whatever you want, you're free to continue in sin. What he's talking about here, it's a freedom from the slavery of sin, and the Bible has this image constantly, really all throughout Scripture, of when you're in sin, you're in bondage to sin, you are in the chains of sin. One of the most graphic images of sin that I've ever visualized is the story of Samson in the book of Judges right, Literally right at the end of it sin.

Luis:

his sin led him to be in chains that ultimately needed to be broken in order for him to be restored, and so what Jesus is saying here is that, without Christ, we may think we're free, but sin is really running the show, and he has come to set us free, really free.

Nate:

Yeah, truly to be set free. That's a great picture of the story of Samson, like the whole old school, like flannel graph where you see Samson, you know his eyes are plucked out and he's there between the two pillars like praying for that last thing of strength.

Nate:

And you know, that is where sin eventually led him. And of course he thought he was big and bad and strong and could do whatever he wanted. He thought he was free, yeah yeah, but it was leading him into what eventually led to his death there with the Philistines, I think. You know there's two pictures that kind of come to mind. One you know, lewis, you and I we've got a friend, used to be co-worker, paul, and he told a story about when he was a kid.

Nate:

He would, you know, never go out and play in his backyard as a kid because there was no fence in his backyard.

Nate:

Right, he wasn't going to run out in the street, he wasn't going to do anything that get hurt, but he just, like, he couldn't enjoy going out and just having fun in the backyard.

Nate:

Until his dad finally, like, had somebody put up a fence around their backyard and just just knowing where that boundary was, knowing where that fence was, allowed him the freedom to go and enjoy the safe area of his backyard. The backyard didn't change at all, the freedom he had to play in it didn't change at all, but but having those guardrails really worked, um, and it even, you know, just kind of going off the guardrails, right, You're driving along a mountain road and you've got the guardrails on the side of the road keeping you from going off that cliff, right, and too often we think of, you know, offense being something that's keeping me from something good, when, in fact, when God tells us something as a, as a rule, you know, don't do this, don't lie, don't? You know steal, don't cheat, you know those are. Were saying that it reminded me of something that my family and I we enjoy doing.

Luis:

We love going to the mountains. So we go to the mountains typically every summer and we spend a week there and we love, we just love everything about the mountains. But one of our favorite things to do is just to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway and to go to the different overlooks right.

Luis:

So you pull off the road.

Luis:

But if you notice, at most of those overlooks in fact I would venture to guess probably all of them they have a guardrail that keeps you from going off the mountain, and so you're able to enjoy the beauty of what you're seeing as long as you stay on this side of the guardrails.

Luis:

But when you make the choice to go on the other side of the guardrails, now you're not only just enjoying the good stuff, but you're actually putting your life in danger. And that's how God's boundaries work right. They're not there to steal our joy, but they're there to protect our joy. Like I can enjoy the view, we can watch the sunset, we can enjoy everything that there is to be at that mountain overlook, but when we cross over those boundaries we are disobeying, I guess, the boundary, and now we're operating outside of that joy and something that was meant to be joyful and beautiful could turn into a terrible accident, like if I climb over the boundary, I slip, I fall, and now I'm at the bottom of the mountain and I'm dead, or I've got a broken leg. And so Christianity isn't about less freedom God isn't taking away our freedom but it's about real freedom.

Nate:

Yeah, and I think we're going to talk about some objections a little bit later in the podcast, but let me throw in one right here. We're talking about God's boundaries, right? Not man-made, human religious boundaries.

Nate:

Like that's an important thing. I think sometimes we, you know, the kind of the culture I grew up in was very conservative. Some might even label it ultra conservative, but whatever semantics. But you know, it's that whole idea of you know. God said this, you know. So let me take two steps back from that line and let me, in a pharisaical way, and say like here's the new boundary, you know.

Nate:

So I'm going to. You know, god says you know, we need to dress appropriately. I think that's a good rule of boundary that God put in place. Well, then we start defining what that means of like. You know, ladies can't wear pants, and you know you've got to wear a suit to church and you've got to use this translation of the Bible in church.

Luis:

You know, you start adding those things. God didn't say that. So, yes, that type of Christianity is restrictive, but those arenistic form of Christianity and unfortunately, that when you paint with a broad brush right and you just throw out the term legalism. People hear it, think about it and they're like oh, any rule, any restriction, even if it's a God restriction, are like oh, now you're just imposing legalism on me, and so it's like our culture right has taken a pendulum swing and been like.

Luis:

You know, any rule is a bad rule, even if it's a God rule, right. And so we asked a question, right. Why does our culture resist this idea so strongly?

Nate:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think a lot of this comes back to Carl Truman. He's an author, written several great books Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. There's a couple others that are good books that he's written. But he calls this expressive individualism, and this idea is just like when I'm most true to myself, when I get to define my own identity, my own truth, my own rules, and it's like anything I say is an expression of myself. Therefore, any boundary or regulation that's going to limit my self-expression is like an attack on me, it's an oppression on me, and so that's the expressive individualism that just kind of like is pervasive in our culture today.

Luis:

Yeah, and it's actually really interesting with kind of the cultural waves that we're seeing in our culture today, right With, like, how people are defining gender right or their identity or whatever, and so that's actually-.

Nate:

They're turning inwardly right.

Nate:

And it's an inward turn, which is exactly what sin does is. It turns us inwardly. But we've said this a couple times recently on the podcast. But you know, it's our heart is deceptively wicked. Above all else, who can understand it? Right, that's in Jeremiah, and so you know, I said my, my professor used to say your heart wants to kill you, right? But then this cultural expressive individualism is I just need to express my sinful heart and it's like no, you don't need to express your sinful heart, your heart is sinful, so stop. And the boundaries that God puts in place are good for us. They're going to help us put that fence around our rampant sinfulness that we just naturally are going to want to do because we are sinners. So that's the expressive individualism.

Luis:

And just to build off of that, aaron Wren, who is a writer he actually wrote a pretty influential essay called the Three Worlds of Evangelicalism, way back in 2022, but he has this idea that he calls the negative world, and the way he describes it is it's a world where Christianity isn't seen as neutral. Because it's not neutral or because it's not positive, it's harmful, and so that's why, when Christians say here's what God's word teaches about marriage, about sexuality, about being honest, right, our culture says nope, that's restrictive, that's hateful.

Nate:

You are imposing your restrictions on me, yeah, and I think the irony of all of that is that even in this place, where people are supposedly expressing their true selves more and more, people are also more anxious, more depressed and more lost than ever. Right, and so those that throwing off the boundaries um, that culture you know has, has, has, has thrown off they were actually protecting human flourishing, whereas they're saying this is going to help me flourish and be my true self, yeah, and God is saying, no, this is making it so you can flourish more. Yeah, you know, it's like a? Um, like a climbing rosebush. I don't know if you've ever in your gardens at all, you've ever had a climbing that will actually climb up a trellis. I've never had a garden.

Luis:

My mom had a garden.

Nate:

Whoever mows your grass, maybe they can plant a garden for you and take care of it. But a climbing rosebush right, it's supposed to climb. God designed it to go out and it's a vine that will spread up and kind of climb over. We had this one when I was growing up in our front yard, in the in the garden out front, and you know it was multicolored. It was awesome. I loved the thing. But but you have to put that trellis there that support that structure, because if it just goes and runs rampant, yeah, it'll one take over your garden, yeah, two, it'll start rotting just because the branches are growing over each other and all of that. It needs the support, it needs the structure to kind of control its growth, yeah, and direct its growth to actually make it be healthy.

Luis:

Is that why sometimes you see like vines going up people's houses.

Nate:

Yeah, well, it depends on the type of vine. Okay, I've got some neighbors where they've just got. They just let these vines like grow all over their house and they like grow in my backyard. And I have to cut the thing down to keep it from taking over. But yes, there are certain ones that you need, like a grapevine, you need that trellis to keep it in place, look at that.

Luis:

We should do an episode on gardening. I mean, you're like an expert gardener.

Nate:

I don't think I would make that claim, but maybe it's really me expressing my true self.

Luis:

I don't know, and we actually to what you just described about people being more anxious, more depressed, more lost than before. It's really a callback to an episode that we did way back at the beginning, so I think it was called Engaging the Culture. It was probably like episode four or five somewhere around there, maybe episode six, and so if you're listening to us for the first time and you're like, hey, that sounds interesting, let me just point you back to that episode. It was episode six. This is engaging the culture and it just talks about how today, you know, we're seeing like the deconstruction movement and people are supposed to be being freed and liberated, but truly that's not what's happening, right, and so the real question isn't are God's commands restrictive? But the real question is do they bring life or destroy it? And when you look at the evidence, it's clear God's commands they bring life.

Luis:

There was a study done by the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health Research, and it was on teenagers, and here's what they found, and this is why I'm using this study, because if you know anything about Harvard like this isn't an evangelical, conservative, christian organization. That's putting out the study right. So oftentimes we quote Barna, oftentimes we may quote Lifeway and so people might listen and go. Oh yeah, well, of course they're going to speak positively because that's a conservative evangelical organization. But here, harvard TH Chan School, what they found is that teens who practice faith so if they pray regularly, if they attend church regularly, if they live within biblical boundaries, they are healthier, they are more hopeful and they are less likely to get caught up in destructive behaviors. And so the commands of scripture are helping them live a life that is, shall we say, free.

Nate:

Yeah, yeah, it's true. And there's constantly studies coming out. You know this was from, you know Harvard, but there's constantly studies on families that back this up. Right, kids raised with clear boundaries, especially biblical ones, grow up with stronger marriages, more stable lives right, and it just kind of continues on through the generations. And this is exactly what Paul says in Galatians 5.13, right, it says that we were called to live in freedom, but not the freedom to indulge in sin.

Nate:

It's the freedom to serve and love one another. Right, and it goes back to what Jesus said in Matthew 11, right, his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Right, it's not something to crush us under a heavy load of rules and regulations. It's a freedom that we've been given to then turn around and love others, as we have been shown love.

Luis:

And one interesting idea that I was recently just reading about comes from Marian and I'm going to butcher her last name, but it's Urberstadt and she writes a lot on culture, on family and faith and kind of the intersection. But what she does in her writing is she shows that when faith and family collapse, society collapses, but when the families and faith stand strong, people thrive, and so boundaries aren't restrictive, boundaries aren't a curse, but boundaries are a blessing.

Nate:

Yeah, yeah, that's really important. So let's kind of go into a few more of these objections. Right, we've already talked about the one right, the religious objections. They just kind of come up, and that's true, like that's an honest objection If this is extra biblical. Just human regulations, illegalism, that's not good. But what about another one, lewis? You know, people might say, well, rules just control people. Like how would you handle that when somebody says, well, the rules are just there to control others?

Luis:

Well, I think what that is is that's a false view of God. Right, when they say that they see God as a dictator. But God's not a dictator. God is a loving father, he is somebody who is giving us instructions and commands that are for our good, and he tells us what he tells us so that we might be free to enjoy his goodness.

Luis:

I think back to the story of Adam and Eve in the garden. They, like they, had everything they could have ever wanted, and God created a boundary of what they were allowed to and not allowed to. And there was only one restriction right Not to eat of a particular tree, because if they ate of that tree it would surely cause death. Right, and so they could have just left that tree alone and enjoyed everything else that God had, but they didn't. And God didn't do that because he was a dictator. He did that because he loved them. He says hey, I love you so much that I'm going to give you everything you could possibly want, but you can't touch that thing, you can't eat that thing, and if you do, it's going to cause death.

Nate:

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's really important, right, god? It's a wrong view of God. He's a loving father. There's another one that people might come up as just oh well, boundaries, they just bring shame. Right, they just bring shame. And here's the thing. Yes, because when you cross the boundary, you have sinned and therefore you are guilty. I think that's an important point. We need to differentiate between guilt and shame. We are guilty, we do sin, and so you should feel shame because of your sin. Now, caveat in Christ, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, so that shame can be let go of because our guilt has been paid for on the cross, right? So God doesn't give us boundaries, like to shame us. It's the boundaries to help us, and when we cross the boundary, there are consequences, but ultimately Christ has paid the penalty for our sin, so there's a restorative nature to that.

Luis:

And I think that there's one that's probably very common, especially in our culture today, is just this idea that, as Christians, we're just trying to push our rules on everyone else. Right Is, do things our way, but following Jesus isn't about forcing people to live like us. Jesus isn't about forcing people to live like us. It's about inviting people into the life and the freedom and the joy and the blessings of everything that we have found in him. It's like, hey, come and see the goodness of what I have in Christ.

Luis:

I have a friend who's not a believer and we were recently having a conversation and one of the things that I said to him, um, was if, if, if I'm wrong and I die believing what I believe today, I didn't miss anything out. Right, I still had a really good life, a really good marriage, a really good family, and I raised them in a way that that that leaves a legacy and I'm proud of. So if there really is nothing after this which which I don't think is the true right, I mean, obviously that's why I'm a believer, but I didn't miss anything, uh and so and so we're not making anybody be like us, we're just saying, hey, come, come, experience the world from from from my perspective, from the way that I see it, yeah, and we mentioned Carl Truman earlier and he talks a lot about how, like the American, just kind of dream the American ethic.

Nate:

The foundation of our country, it was founded on that Judeo-Christian ethic, which I not to get political, but that's why I believe that America has flourished to the point that it has the way things are. Now we're getting away from that Judeo-Christian ethic and we're seeing the natural results. You know we've gone outside of God's boundaries and there's flourishing in this. If you do things God's way, it will be blessed, it will be successful, because you're following what God says.

Luis:

So you're probably listening to this as a parent and you're like, hey, I'm with you, nate Lewis, I agree. So what do I do now? And parents, here's what I would say is, again, it starts simple. We don't want to make this complicated, but just have simple, consistent boundaries in your life and in the life of your children. So, like a phone curfew we've talked about that before. Right, we've talked about Is that in the Bible A phone curfew? No, I don't think so Second hesitations.

Luis:

Maybe, okay, maybe it's one of those like hidden phrases that we're not familiar with right, we joke, we it's one of those like hidden phrases. Okay, but we joke, we joke people, but it may sound restrictive, right? So you might be thinking like a phone curfew for my kid, like you know, go back and listen to our previous episodes you know you guys know, if you've been listening for a while, you know how that is.

Luis:

But it actually protects relationships, right. It gives your kids rest, right, it gives your kids rest and it and it gives it protects their, their mental thinking and their thoughts and the way they see the world. And so, again, a simple boundary, like no phones after seven, or no phones after nine, or no phones in the bedroom.

Nate:

Yeah, it may sound restrictive, but but man, is it really doing good in their life? Yeah, yeah, and I think just you know, being a part of the church and just seeing you know what, like you said, the come and see, like, come and see how good it is when there are other people worshiping together, living together, trying their best, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to follow the boundaries God has laid out, that will help too, because then your kids see we're not these weird people singled out as the only ones in culture doing this. No, you're part of. We are weird. Okay, the church is supposed to be weird, but not weird for weird sake. We're weird because we're following what God says and when you're around other believers they'll see that.

Nate:

And of course, we as a church need to do a better job of explaining the why behind these boundaries. You know it is good to follow what God said in marriage. It is good for kids to obey their parents, right, it is good to come and worship with other believers. Like, all of these things are things God has commanded and if we explain the why behind it, it will help. So instead of just hey, don't do this, even with that phone rule. You know it's a rule. It's our family's rule. We're going to do this. So you got to do it because I said so. But here let me also tell you why I said what I said, and that freedom without boundaries isn't really freedom.

Luis:

It's slavery to sin. And God's boundaries aren't chains, they're blessings, and so we should be excited to tell our kids, or to explain to our kids, why we're making this choice, why we're saying no to this or why we've made a certain rule, right? Because, to Nate's point, like, if we just say, well, it's don't do this because I said so, then yeah, that sounds restrictive and yeah, that may sound like it's a chain, but the reason we don't do this is because God has something better for us. I think I've described it this way before Sometimes sin is a shortcut to enjoying God's goodness, right.

Luis:

So when we talk about engaging in inappropriate behavior before marriage, right. So if you choose to do something before marriage that God reserved for marriage, you're making a shortcut to something that's good, something that God said is good, and then now you're taking matters into your own hand which could lead to an unwanted pregnancy, it could lead to a disease, it could lead to death. I mean, there's all certain things that now, because you rush God's plan for you, you now are feeling the fallout, and so explain to kids why. Because God's boundaries are a blessing and when we follow them, we find life.

Nate:

That's right. That's right and maybe you know, just real practical. We always encourage those dinnertime conversations. So just ask you know what's one boundary, one rule God has given us, and how does it protect our love for Him, our love for each other? Just kind of making our lives flourish more and use that moment right to point your kids back to Christ. I think that would be just a great practical takeaway here. So, guys, just thank you guys for sticking with us through this mini series and thanks for joining us on Equipped for Impact. If this episode encouraged you, please share it with a friend, another parent who could use this and even just this whole mini series of just answering those big questions, and subscribe so you don't miss what's coming up next. Which, lewis? What are we hitting next?

Luis:

We are talking teen slang.

Nate:

Again, again, yes.

Luis:

Because it's always changing. It's always changing because Access has released a new guide on slang and so one of these we're going to be talking about is. You may be wondering why your kid randomly started saying 6-7 all the time 6-7. 6-7, yes, and in fact I actually heard a kid say that recently and I was like what are you talking?

Nate:

about. I made a bunch of friends walking across the playground because there were some fourth graders that were all yelling it, and so then I just said it with them and they were like oh, that's so awesome Six seven, yeah, it was great. So tune in to know what that means. Hint, it means nothing, but tune in to know what it means. But until then, guys, keep leading the next generation to stand firm in their faith and influence the world for Christ.

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Luis Miranda

Host
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Nathan Deck

Host