think it had to do with America in the Olympics.
Land of the free, home of the brave
kind of pompous, arrogant. definitively American. very much "in your face" about American values. the free and brave are in America, duh. of course it's lyrics included in our national anthem, and I'm sure it only makes sense for them to be there.
Land of the free because of the brave
someone's slightly humorous twist on the lyrics. someone who is pro-military, obviously. you can't have national "freedom" without the brave souls fighting and dying to establish and maintain said freedom. still somewhat arrogant, mainly in the idea that the freedom in America is the only true freedom around.
I don't like either one. I don't believe in American freedom. as far as I'm concerned, it's more of a curse than a blessing.
so I propose this change. and I'd emphatically propose it to American Christians, aimed specifically at the egocentric and nation-centric ideals of American Christians.
Global church: home of the free because of Jesus Christ
oversimplified perhaps. the American church isn't better than the Iranian church or the Chinese church or the Russian church or the French church or even the Vietnam church. We all worship Jesus, we all are joined together by His blood, and we are all equal to each other because of it.
and Christian freedom is true freedom. American freedom isn't. the latter, you can attain as a human being through birth, rituals, proscription to a particular national agenda, placement at opportune times in a country's independence day, etc. the key: it's humanly attainable. the former, is not humanly attainable. it is based on nothing I do, rather on the work of Jesus Christ. it's not a club, it's a humbling admittance of inferiority and inadequacy.
I'd submit that neither of those words are comfortable in an American vocabulary.
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