We cannot save the Statue of Liberty without a Statue of Responsibility

“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13).

When a man like Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor who founded logotherapy and wrote “Man’s Search For Meaning,” opens his mouth, we would be wise to listen. When a man like Frankl proposes that America needs a Statue of Responsibility to counter-balance the Statue of Liberty, we would do well to consider his request.

The famed Austrian psychologist was rare amongst his contemporaries in that he believed that liberty is only a means toward a better end.

“Freedom,” Frankl said, “is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth.”

“Freedom threatens to degenerate into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness,” he stated. “That is why… they should see to it that the Statue of Liberty on the Atlantic Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the Pacific Coast.”


Frankl was not the first to make this unusual connection. The ancient marriage between liberty and responsibility has existed since the dawn of humanity. It only seems unwonted to us because, for just as long, mankind has made every attempt to maintain the former without the latter. Americans especially chafe at the thought of rules, authority, and responsibility because we view them as incompatible with the autonomy and self-rule we so highly prize. 

But freedom does not exist merely so that no one may tell us what to do. That is a shallow approximation of “liberty,” indeed! True freedom is always accompanied by a “so that” clause, but that “so that” clause leads inevitably to a responsibility.

To see this, let us look at one of the most famous declarations of freedom in history. In the book of Exodus, the classic anti-slavery text, the God of Israel commands Pharaoh to release His covenanted people from bondage in Egypt. Most everyone can identify the supernatural demand: “Let my people go.”

But that is not all the Lord says.

Ironic, isn’t it, that we have left off the “so that” clause?

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me” (Exodus 8:1) [emphasis added]. Various iterations of this phrase appear eight times in Exodus alone.

The God of Israel did not set His people free so that they would simply enjoy their newfound independence. The purpose was not for Israel to self-actualize or self-express or break free from following rules. Quite the opposite.

God granted the children of Israel freedom so that they would pursue a higher end. He entrusted them with responsibility. Let my people go (freedom) that they may serve me (responsibility). Freedom itself was not the aim. Serving God was. Freedom was only part of the story.

Specifically, the Exodus led to Sinai, the glorious mountain where God would reveal His Law to Moses. Indeed, the Exodus account is incomplete without “communing with [God] upon mount Sinai.” Receiving and following the Law, what with its exacting rules and commandments about everything from how long to cut the curtains in the temple to what to do “if one man’s ox hurt another’s” — that was what it meant to be free. That was what it meant to be self-governing. If the Israelites anticipated a rule-free existence after Egypt, they were sorely mistaken.

The opposite of slavery is not anarchy. The opposite of subjugation is not chaos. As “free moral agents,” we must put both extremes at tension and aim for the center. Only there will our freedom be of any use.

Self-governance is the only happy medium between totalitarianism and lawlessness. If we do not want Pharaoh telling us what to do, we must accept the Law. We must use the liberty God entrusts us with to serve Him. We must not say, Now that we’re free, no one can tell us what to do. Someone will always try to tell us what to do. Authority is inescapable. The question is not if we will answer to anyone, but whom will we answer to.

Will we bow in Egypt or at Sinai?

Viktor Frankl was right. Liberty without responsibility is bound to self-destruct. Either you and I must construct a Statue of Responsibility in our hearts, or America will waste away.

Take it from those who suffered under Egyptian enslavement and the man who survived the horrors of Nazi Germany. Responsibility is worth it.

To be continued...