Faith and freedom

I like how Guinness points out in reviewing "SACRED AND SECULAR: Religion and Politics Worldwide." By Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, that:

Far from setting up "Christian America," or establishing any orthodoxy, religious or secular, the Framers envisioned the relationship of faith and freedom in what might be called a golden triangle: Freedom requires virtue, virtue requires faith (of some sort), and faith requires freedom. If the Framers were right, then as faiths go, so goes freedom - and so goes the Republic.

Freedom is closely tied to faith and as long as faith is scientism or statism, then there can only be force over freedom and other competing faiths.

The beauty of the biblical Christian faith is that its foundation is not force (either carrot (reward based) or stick (punishment based)) but love, unconditional love. (I'll be the first to confess that I may not always exemplify this unconditional love -- all the more reason I need the forgiveness offered through Jesus Christ.)

True love, unlike force, does not bring out fear but, eventually, love in return -- something which can linger on. Force, on the other hand, has to be constantly exercised or else people will do whatever. As the old saying goes: when the cat's away, the mice will play. Or to put it in more modern terms: mice (people) gone wild!

The question is how to raise children to live under the faith of love rather than the force of carrot and/or stick....