Us Four S’more: What does freedom mean to you?
Sticky questions, personal answers:
The Religious Trauma Network’s team mashup.
What does freedom mean to you?
Rebekah Drumsta
We’ve all heard the slogans: “Freedom isn’t free.” “Home of the free because of the brave.” Or MLK’s powerful reminder, “No one is free until everyone is free.” They sound good, and they matter. But here’s the truth—until you’ve lived without freedom, or with just scraps of it, you can’t fully grasp how freedom, liberation, choice, and autonomy are tangled up together. It’s not just a political idea. It’s personal. It’s in your bones.
Freedom, for me, is messy and sacred all at once. It’s not just a word—it’s the ache I carried for years, suffocating under other people’s rules and expectations. It’s the slow, sometimes brutal realization that I get to choose what I believe, what I value, and who I want to be. There’s nothing easy or tidy about it. Some days, freedom feels like finally exhaling after holding my breath for years. Other days, it’s terrifying—because suddenly, there’s no one left to tell me what’s right or safe. But I’d still choose it, every single time.
I’ve said before that freedom is a human right, and I mean it. It’s the right to question, to hope, to fail, to try again. It’s letting go of control—both the control others had over me, and the control I tried to keep over my own story out of fear. Real freedom means honoring my own humanity and letting others do the same, even when it’s uncomfortable. It means I can finally say, “This hurt me,” or “This is who I am now,” and that’s enough. Freedom isn’t just about breaking out; it’s about showing up as myself, scars and all, and believing that’s sacred, too.
And honestly: true freedom means we don’t get to control the outcome. I think that’s why so many parents, teachers, and leaders grab for more rules and consequences—because there’s an outcome they’re desperate for, and it feels safer to try to force it. But what I’ve seen, what I know deep down, is that the real power is in letting people think for themselves. When we give people the tools to process, to observe, to absorb, to learn, and then—within healthy, ethical boundaries—make their own choices, that’s where actual growth and transformation happen. That’s the kind of freedom I’m fighting for. For myself. For all of us.
David Ruybalid
In this, I want to share a discovery from my personal faith deconstruction and reconstruction.
I have heard freedom defined like this:
“Freedom is the felt safety to live fully in your body, your story, and your voice—without fear of punishment, control, or abandonment. It is the restoration of choice where choice was once taken away.”
Common Christian theology speaks of freedom from “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” And yet, in the same breath, they often call us to total surrender, to become “slaves of Christ,” insisting that our lives are no longer our own. This is often framed as the highest expression of devotion. But for many, especially those with experiences of spiritual abuse or control, it doesn’t feel like freedom—it feels like another kind of captivity. If freedom means the restoration of choice where choice was once taken away, then theology that demands unquestioning obedience and self-erasure can easily re-traumatize rather than liberate.
The paradox I now see isn’t that surrender and freedom are at odds—it’s that we’ve often been taught a version of faith that diminishes agency, mutes conscience, and suppresses the sacred self. Healthy faith isn’t about becoming invisible—it’s about becoming more fully alive in love. A trauma-informed Christian faith recognizes that freedom in Christ isn’t about being bound again; it’s about being healed enough to choose love freely, to give ourselves as ourselves, not despite ourselves. It’s about freedom to love, not ownership.
In order to hold onto my faith, I’ve had to ask: What if freedom in Christ means being freed by the One who restores my voice, reclaims my story, and returns my agency? That would be a freedom worth trusting. Not a new captivity with better branding—but the felt safety of a love that never forces and never leaves.
Janyne McConnaughey
What does having freedom actually mean? On one level, it is being able to make choices. At a deeper level, that means being able to trust the choices that I make. None of that comes easily for a survivor of childhood trauma. It is even more complicated when spiritual abuse is part of that history. At that point, trusting my choices often runs counter to religious teachings and those who teach them. Especially when those teachings are used to control others. In this scenario, exercising my freedom to make choices turns into a spiritual issue. There was little freedom in my life when religion was involved, and not having freedom of choice felt spiritual. It also saved me from making choices that would be judged. For most of my life, this felt comfortable.
That convoluted paragraph is exactly who arrived in therapy over ten years ago. I can still hear the words, “Janyne, you always have a choice.” I argued with my therapist about this, and would likely still argue, but understand I was hearing the statement with the deeply embedded black and white thinking that believed I NEVER had a choice. In truth, I was comfortable with the choices not being mine. Freedom to make choices meant I was responsible for bad choices. I had made a few of those before landing in authoritarian church settings (or blamed myself for making a choice when that choice belonged to another). Following the rules felt more comfortable.
With all of the above in mind, the question, “What does freedom mean to you?” The answer is fraught with complications as it is intertwined with my healing journey. The question also arrived at the end of seven months of caregiving for my husband, who is now almost three months past liver transplant surgery. I am thankful I worked hard to believe I could make good choices because thousands of them needed to be made when the one I had depended on to make many of them for over 45 years went down for the count. Was I free to make any choice I wanted? Not if I meant the "in sickness and health" vow! But ultimately, yes, it was a choice, and once made, I gave up much of my freedom to make other choices. It was in the middle of this trial that my understanding of freedom evolved.
Freedom means having the ability and right to make logical choices that best belong to me, while deferring to the choices that are best made by others. For instance, the doctors and medical staff were obviously better able to make some decisions, but they often needed my input. It was important for me to speak up! Speaking up was my choice; I was often thanked for providing essential information. Outside of the hospital, the choices were all mine to make. This was no time for learned helplessness and submission to authority to step in.
As I write, I can sense two boxes in my head where I began to throw choices. Sometimes a choice fell into the messy middle, and I had to go pick it up and seek some wisdom from others. What I did not do was defer to patriarchal teachings about my role as a wife in the situation. Those teachings do not prepare women for a crisis this severe. They are based on the illusion that the man is always the strong leader of the family. This is not true when liver disease (or any other serious health concern) knocks at the door and robs able-bodied men of physical strength and mental capacity. In reality, that “leader thing” is a burden that men should not need to carry. Women are equally capable of making excellent choices.
Freedom now requires that I hand back some choices to my husband, who is well on the way back to health. Our lives have fundamentally changed as his post-transplant care will always be a central focus, and some choices have been removed because of the transplant. Freedom is being able to set down patriarchal dogma (that we were unaware still lingered) and live out the remainder of our lives as equal partners who can make good choices all by ourselves.
Luke Renner
The idea of freedom has always felt strange to me. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt truly free, at least not in the ways that freedom is usually sold.
In religion, “free will” was supposedly God’s ultimate gift to humanity, proof of divine love. But in practice, it meant I was free to send myself to hell, whether by accident or intent. As a loving father, I would never allow my own kids to damn themselves to an eternity of hellfire, not by accident and not on purpose either. The “as you wish” fairytale version of freedom that was sold to me as “proof of love” always seemed to leave out the fact that any all-loving, all-knowing God would, by definition, know better than I ever could about what was best for me, just as I, an adult, generally know what is best for my children when they are still little. That’s probably why “free will” never felt as liberating to me as it was meant to. When I consider how stupid, ignorant, or inexperienced I often am, that level of freedom feels less like a gift and more like a liability. To that gift I say, “No thanks!”
As a citizen, even as a privileged white man, life has always come strapped with terms and conditions. Taxes. Social norms. Cultural expectations. Masculinity. The demand for allegiance to “this” or “that” if I wanted to remain acceptable, or even be permitted to function in “normal” society, has always made the idea of absolute freedom feel pretty far out of reach and impractical. For me, there have always been too many consequences for absolute freedom to carry any real weight in a world filled with others and their legitimate needs.
As a practical reality, whether we are arguing for freedom “from” something, freedom “to do or be” something, freedom “because of” something, or freedom “in spite of” something, no one is ever fully free. We are parts of a whole, whether we like it or not. Maybe the sooner we accept that, the freer we will feel to simply be who and what we are, even as that keeps changing.
Up to this point, I would say the freest I have ever felt is free to think, believe, and feel the ways that I do, even if I cannot always live a life that makes those beliefs fully possible to exercise. I’m ok with that.
Visit the Religious Trauma Network Resource Page or our personal bios for additional support or resources.
This article is not intended to treat or diagnose any condition. The authors are not licensed therapists or clinicians. Any advice or opinions given on this site are strictly individual observation and insights based on personal experiences and study. It should in no way take the place of professional assistance.