Questions for discussion and reflection:
1. When have you felt the most free, unrestricted? Describe your thoughts, emotions, and actions at that time.
2. Foucault said, “Truth is a thing of this world. It is produced only by multiple forms of constraint and that includes the regular effects of power” (p. 37). Keller notes that many have concluded from this that all truth-telling claims are power plays. Have you ever experienced a person’s truth claim as a power play? Have you had a positive experience with a truth claim?
3. Keller writes, “The idea of a totally inclusive community is… an illusion” (p. 39). Do you agree or disagree? Think of the most inclusive community that you have been involved in. What are the marks of such a community? Was it “totally inclusive”?
4. Keller writes, “In many areas of life, freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the right ones, the liberating restrictions” (p.46). What are examples of “liberating restrictions” that you can point to in your own life?
5. Did you find Keller’s argument on p. 47 (that there are definite and broadly held rules of moral conduct) convincing? That is, do you feel it adequately addresses the argument that there are no moral absolutes in modern life?
6. “Freedom is not the absence of limitations and constraints… but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us” (p. 49). Do you agree? If so, should the church be in the business of helping others find such “right” constraints? How might the practice of “church discipline” help or hinder an individual’s search for the “right” constraints?