16 of 52 Voices April 29th, 2014

The C3 Leaders devotion is a peer weekly reflection from business leaders related to their journey with Christ. Each weekly devotion will be written by a different author from among the C3 Leaders community, 52 unique authors to be exact.

As we go through this next year together, we pray that these words and reflections will encourage you in your relationship with Jesus Christ

Bob Nuber is the Chairman Emeritus of C3 Leaders

The title of this message is a quote from the book A Free People’s Suicide by Os Guinness.   I heard Eric Metaxas (author of Bonheoffer) speak last year. He exhorted all of us present that evening to read this book as we considered the present state of freedom in the United States in relation to what was happening in Germany in Bonheoffer’s time.   In Metaxas’ opinion there are many parallels and we all need to be informed.

Most of us believe in a strong Constitution. Guinness says the “the U.S. Constitution was never meant to be the sole bulwark of freedom…” He continues saying “What the framers [of the Constitution] believed should complement and reinforce the Constitution and its separation of powers is the distinctive moral ecology that is at the heart of ordered liberty. [Alexis de] Tocqueville called it ‘the habits of the heart,’ and I [Guinness] call it ‘the golden triangle of freedom’—the cultivation and transmission of the conviction that freedom requires virtue which requires faith, which requires freedom…’ and so on (emphasis added).

It is clear that we can’t pass laws to cover every possible issue we as a free people will face each day. Virtue—that sense within us of what is right and fair and just—must be our guide in each situation. “Only virtue can supply the self-restraint that is the indispensable requirement for liberty. Unrestrained freedom undermines freedom..” states Guinness.

Guinness quotes many of our founders including Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Madison and Hamilton who were not all Christians but did believe that “if freedom requires virtue, virtue in turn requires faith (of some sort).” And virtue and faith require freedom in order to be healthy and blossom.

The vision of C3 Leaders is to join with God as He moves boldly to impact every marketplace in the northwest. Each day we witness efforts, many successful, to marginalize Christians and Christianity. As a result, virtue and faith are held in much less esteem than even a few years ago. And if virtue and faith subside from our culture they will be followed by less and less freedom because the three are linked together in the “golden triangle of freedom”.

C3 has an important role: to bring the values of Jesus into the marketplace which will in turn burnish the “golden triangle of freedom.” We should all feel honored to be a part of God’s plan to bring faith and virtue into the marketplace through how we live our lives each day at our businesses and in our homes. In turn, we will be helping to build a stronger foundation for sustainable freedom in America.

Bob Nuber