In response to pandemic, we're learning how interdependence, freedom are linked

Since before the founding of our republic, Americans have had deep and conflicting arguments about what freedom actually looks like. In spite of those differences of opinion, words like "liberty" and "rights" have meant a great deal to each generation in this country, even as each generation has had to reconsider what those words would mean, to whom they would apply and what cost they were willing to bear for those words. Our generation is no different. We have argued about marriage, guns and racial disparities in law enforcement. To that conversation, we now add public health. What does liberty look like for us now?

For a time, COVID-19 appeared to rise beyond partisanship and got our nation to stumble toward some kind of unity in order to try and protect as many Americans as we could from getting sick. Most of us agreed, across the political divide, to shelter-in-place at home. We worked online as best we could, limited our trips out, wore masks and stayed at least 6 feet away from each other. At First Congregational United Church of Christ in Naperville, we canceled all in-person activities and have been doing everything from worship to planning meetings to pastoral care online or on the phone.

The unity we had briefly is now gone. Something as obviously nonpartisan as a virus has been politicized, dividing the left and the right once again. Shop owners want to get their stores open and even the president is telling the faithful we should go back to in-person worship. But what about the people who work in those shops? And what about the ample evidence that crowds gathering in a space together is still dangerous? The data around the virus is also troubling. People of color are dying at higher rates than whites, enhanced by long-standing disparities in the health care system. And the virus has not shut down the disparate ways that people in power treat people of color. White protesters shut down the Michigan state legislature with an armed takeover of the capital, but this week, people of color, protesting the killing of George Floyd, faced tear gas and rubber bullets.

Who exactly is getting to enjoy the blessings of liberty? Whose rights are being protected?

This is our moment, in which we need to decide again what freedom means and what rights we will protect. We need to decide to whom these words apply and what cost we are willing to bear to protect them.

Business owners stand to benefit from exercising the freedom to get the economy going again, but what about the health of the workers and suppliers whose presence and labor is needed to generate that income? When does one person's expression of liberty start to impact someone else's freedom? Free speech and freedom of assembly always need to be protected, but what happens when they're not enforced equally?

We talk a lot about "independence" in America. But so long as independence is available only for those with money, influence or the accident of having been born white, this nation will not be free and the rights we're guaranteed won't mean anything. Until our value of freedom incorporates the reality of interdependence, recognizing that we depend on each other, maybe then will we live up to the promise this nation offers.

In my faith tradition, we are asked to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves. This is fundamentally a recognition of interdependence. When we look out for each other, everyone benefits. When we stay home, wear masks and follow guidelines from the CDC, that is a recognition of interdependence and helps every body. When we declare publicly that Black Lives matter, that is loving our neighbor. When we ignore reckless leaders and keep worshipping from home, that is an affirmation of the interdependent reality of human existence.

If we believe that all of us are created equal, endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we can only act that out by caring for each other.

• The Rev. Mark Winters, of Naperville, is pastor for the First Congregational United Church of Christ of Naperville.