[upbeat music]
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[upbeat music continues]
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[upbeat music continues]
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[upbeat music]
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- When you
migrate from the old world
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to the new the way
my own parents did,
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countries in the new
world like the United States
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just feel like brand new places.
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After all, America
isn't even 250 years old,
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and some of the
homes here in Leiden
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are much, much older than that.
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And it's here in the Netherlands
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that we pick up the next
thread in the complicated story
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of how America was born.
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But to really understand
what happened in this place
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and why it matters, we need
to travel back about 1700 years
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to a time when the Roman Empire
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was in danger of
becoming destabilized.
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The emperor, Diocles,
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famous for his ruthless
persecution of Christians,
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had decided to retire and
in the wake of his retirement,
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a number of powerful
men made it their business
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to come out on top.
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The massive empire was already
being ruled by a tetrarchy,
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a carefully designed system
where four men shared power.
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But after Diocletian retired,
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a fifth man emerged
in the city of Rome,
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a pretender to the
throne, named Maxentius.
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What happens next is one
of the most important stories
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on the road to
the birth of America,
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although it's going to
take a little bit of patience
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and quite a lot of Bible
prophecy to work it all out.
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[people shouting]
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In 312 AD, a man by
the name of Constantine
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defeats Maxentius at the
Battle of the Milvian Bridge.
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And because his mother
is a Christian convert,
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Constantine becomes convinced
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that the Christian
God has smiled on him.
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So he brings the persecution
of Christians to an abrupt halt
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and he actually
begins to favor them.
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Now, whether or
not Constantine himself
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ever really did become a
Christian is somewhat doubtful,
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but he did bring the
church out of the shadows,
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and elevated the Christian faith
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to the point where it
became Rome's official religion.
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After that,
Constantine pulled up stakes
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and moved to the
east where he founded
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the city of Constantinople,
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and that was the beginning
of the end for the West.
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In 410 AD the Goths
sacked the city of Rome,
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and by 476 it was all over.
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The last western
emperor had been deposed.
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That left an incredible
power vacuum in the west,
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because the
Romans who had been sent
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to the far-flung
regions of the empire
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started to head back home.
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The British Isles
were left to be overrun
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by the Anglians, the
Saxons and the Jutes,
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and the Celtic Gauls
filled the vacuum in France.
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Bit by bit the barbarian
tribes that had conquered Rome
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became the modern
nations of Western Europe.
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And at the same time,
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they started
converting to Christianity,
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really starting with Clovis,
King of the Franks in 508 AD.
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So essentially what happened
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is that when the
Romans began to pack up
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and leave their posts,
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the Christian church
started to fill the power void
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that they left
behind, so to this day
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you can still find
remnants of this period
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in the way that
Christian churches
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continue to structure themselves
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after the
ancient Roman government,
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For example, a
regional administrative unit
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in the Roman Empire
was known as a diocese,
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which came from the
Greek word for administration.
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When the church was legalized
after Constantine's victory,
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they too used the same
administrative structure
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organized by diocese.
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Then in 533 AD, the
Roman emperor, Justinian,
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the man who had built
Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.
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Well, he essentially
handed the reins of power
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in the Western empire
to the Bishop of Rome,
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declaring him to be head
of all the holy churches.
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And since the political
Roman structure was gone,
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the church
simply filled the void,
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and that's how
organized Christianity
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became so politically powerful
during the medieval period.
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Now add to that a
clever eighth century forgery
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known as the
Donation of Constantine,
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which was a supposed
decree from Constantine himself,
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giving the whole
western empire to the church.
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Well, you can suddenly see
why so many kings and princes
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found themselves
bowing to the wishes
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of high ranking clergy.
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What really happened is
that the Christian religion
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had gone from being a
humble persecuted group
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to the most powerful
political institution
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on the face of the planet.
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And as Lord Acton
so famously put it,
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"Power tends to
corrupt and absolute power
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corrupts absolutely."
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[upbeat music]
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[upbeat music continues]
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It's painful to admit
that the medieval period
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wasn't exactly our
most exemplary moment.
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There's a good reason
that when the black plague hit
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and Constantinople
suddenly fell to the Turks,
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that a lot of
people started to suspect
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that this might be judgment
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for the horrible
behavior of God's people.
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I mean, we were
rooting out heretics
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and burning them at the stake,
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and you'd be hard
pressed to find Jesus
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doing that kind of thing.
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Down in Spain, we were
forcing Jews to convert
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or lose everything.
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And while Jesus
said, "Foxes half holes
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and birds of the air have nests,
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but the son of man has
nowhere to lay his head,"
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we were living like
princes buying and selling
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lofty positions in the church
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and generating fabulous wealth.
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So you've got to admit it
wasn't our proudest moment.
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And of course, that's
where the emergence of people
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like Martin Luther
really made a difference.
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Just 25 years after Columbus
landed in the New World,
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Luther stirred up
all of Western Europe
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with a challenge to return
to a more biblical Christianity.
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And thanks to
another random coincidence,
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the printing press
had just been invented,
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so the reformation
began to spread like wildfire.
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So what we've got as
we begin the 16th century
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is a brand new printing press,
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the discovery of a brand
new world and a courageous monk
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who was willing to
upset the apple cart,
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and all of that set the table
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for the emergence of
a brand new republic,
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the likes of which
the world had never seen.
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[soothing music]
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To really
understand what happened,
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we need to wind the
clock back even further
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to a moment in history that
few people ever give thought to.
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It's a story in the Bible
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that only takes up
a couple of chapters,
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but proves to be ground
zero for every political problem
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the world has
experienced ever since,
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including some of the
turmoil we're experiencing
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in 21st century America.
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[soothing music continues]
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The story goes that a deeply
loved prophet, named Samuel,
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had been acting as liaison
between God and his people
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in a nation built
on a voluntary covenant
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where God was the ultimate king
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and the descendants of
Abraham were his subjects.
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Now, I can't stress this enough
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because it's really important
if we want to understand
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how America was born, this
was a voluntary arrangement
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built on a covenant that
God established with Abraham
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and renewed with
Moses at Mount Sinai.
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There was no king in Israel,
at least no king but God.
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And in this story,
Samuel, the prophet,
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is starting to show his age,
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and the Israelites are
afraid that when he dies,
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they're not going
to have any leadership.
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Now again, Samuel is not a king.
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He never passes any legislation.
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He's simply a messenger
from God, but when he dies,
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who's going to take his place?
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They don't want his sons
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because they were
absolutely corrupt,
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so they came up
with another idea.
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All of the neighboring
nations had human kings,
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and now that's
what they wanted too.
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"Look, you are
old," they told Samuel,
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"And your sons do
not walk in your ways.
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Now, make us a king to
judge us like all the nations."
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And that was an
unmitigated disaster
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because it was an outright
rejection of the covenant
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and the sovereignty of God.
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And the Lord said to Samuel,
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"Heed the voice of the people
in all that they say to you,
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for they have not rejected
you, but they have rejected Me,
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that I should
not reign over them."
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Now, what follows
is a warning from God,
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a detailed list of
things that kings normally do
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to their subjects,
like impose high taxes,
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or confiscate property, or
even use military conscription.
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I'm not gonna force
you to keep me, God says,
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but I think you're going to find
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that you haven't
really liberated yourselves,
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because well, this king is
going to make you serve him.
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And God was absolutely
right, it was a disaster.
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It was a marriage
of church and state
00:10:05.00\00:10:07.40
that placed an
awful lot of power
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in the hands of just one person.
00:10:09.67\00:10:12.27
The first king, Saul, was
a man who abandoned his faith
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and resorted to
spiritualistic seances
00:10:17.25\00:10:19.51
in order to run the country.
00:10:19.51\00:10:21.52
Then you had David, a
man that God really loved,
00:10:21.52\00:10:25.52
but even he managed to
bring a devastating plague
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on the nation
through his disobedience.
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And then there was
Ahab, whose wicked reign
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brought a three and
a half year drought,
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and finally,
Zedekiah, a man whose wickedness
00:10:34.76\00:10:38.07
was so legendary that it
resulted in the destruction
00:10:38.07\00:10:41.37
of Jerusalem and the temple.
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It ended with God's holy city
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in the control of
an actual heathen king,
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who took the Israelites prisoner
00:10:49.18\00:10:51.05
and marched them hundreds
of miles to the city of Babylon
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where they were
exiled for 70 years.
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They had wanted a king
like the nations around them,
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and now they had
exactly what they asked for.
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And in many ways,
that's exactly what happened
00:11:05.33\00:11:08.56
with the medieval church,
00:11:08.56\00:11:09.76
because we also
started behaving badly
00:11:09.76\00:11:12.40
when we married church to state.
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Before the rise of Constantine,
00:11:14.90\00:11:16.77
we had been a
persecuted minority,
00:11:16.77\00:11:19.34
but after he liberated us,
00:11:19.34\00:11:21.08
we started asking him to settle
the disputes of the church,
00:11:21.08\00:11:24.75
like the Donatist
controversy in North Africa,
00:11:24.75\00:11:27.82
or the Arian controversy that
led to the Council of Nicaea.
00:11:27.82\00:11:31.69
What we did was invite a
human king into the church,
00:11:31.69\00:11:35.32
and what we ended up
with was this odd mix
00:11:35.32\00:11:38.03
of pagan Roman politics
and the religion of Christ,
00:11:38.03\00:11:41.40
which led to the bad
behavior of the dark ages.
00:11:41.40\00:11:45.17
Now back in the case of
the Babylonian captivity,
00:11:45.17\00:11:48.57
God was careful to remind his
people that not all was lost.
00:11:48.57\00:11:53.07
As they slaved under the hot sun
00:11:53.07\00:11:54.74
for their new
Babylonian masters,
00:11:54.74\00:11:56.81
God sent word through
a prophet named Daniel
00:11:56.81\00:11:59.68
that Babylon would
eventually collapse.
00:11:59.68\00:12:02.65
And He did that through a
remarkable series of visions
00:12:02.65\00:12:05.49
that managed to predict the
history of the world somehow
00:12:05.49\00:12:08.82
hundreds of years in advance.
00:12:08.82\00:12:11.26
In Daniel chapter two, it's
a vision of a massive statue
00:12:13.33\00:12:16.40
with a head of gold,
chest and arms of silver,
00:12:16.40\00:12:19.03
a belly and thighs
of brass, legs of iron,
00:12:19.03\00:12:21.97
and feet made of
iron mixed with clay.
00:12:21.97\00:12:25.07
It was a symbolic
prediction of the world empires
00:12:25.07\00:12:27.64
that would follow on
the heels of Babylon.
00:12:27.64\00:12:30.18
The head of gold was Babylon,
00:12:30.18\00:12:32.31
which was
succeeded by the Persians,
00:12:32.31\00:12:33.98
or the chest and arms of silver.
00:12:33.98\00:12:36.65
They in turn were
succeeded by the Greeks
00:12:36.65\00:12:38.75
under Alexander the Great,
the belly and thighs of brass.
00:12:38.75\00:12:42.82
Then we get the
legs of iron, the Romans.
00:12:42.82\00:12:45.83
An empire more than any other
00:12:45.83\00:12:47.66
left its fingerprints
all over the western world.
00:12:47.66\00:12:50.47
And finally, the
feet and toes of the image
00:12:50.47\00:12:53.13
made of iron and
clay, which predicted a time
00:12:53.13\00:12:56.17
when the western
empire would be carved up
00:12:56.17\00:12:58.54
among other kings
never to be reunited,
00:12:58.54\00:13:02.78
which is exactly
what happened after 476,
00:13:02.78\00:13:05.91
when the
barbarians shattered the west
00:13:05.91\00:13:08.05
and eventually gave us
the modern nations of Western
00:13:08.05\00:13:11.22
Europe, the toes of the statue.
00:13:11.22\00:13:13.46
Then the final part
of the vision is a stone
00:13:14.59\00:13:16.66
that crushes the statue
and grows to fill the earth.
00:13:16.66\00:13:19.46
And what does that mean?
00:13:19.46\00:13:20.90
"In the days of these
kings," the Bible says,
00:13:22.03\00:13:25.10
"the God of heaven
will set up a kingdom
00:13:25.10\00:13:26.97
which shall never be destroyed,
00:13:26.97\00:13:28.97
and the kingdom shall
not be left to other people,
00:13:28.97\00:13:31.61
it shall break in pieces
and consume all these kingdoms,
00:13:31.61\00:13:35.21
and it shall stand forever."
00:13:35.21\00:13:37.81
[soothing music]
00:13:37.81\00:13:40.72
In other words, the
decision to run with human kings
00:13:44.55\00:13:47.49
was going to
last a very long time.
00:13:47.49\00:13:50.66
We will have to live
with human government
00:13:50.66\00:13:52.73
until the day that God sets up
00:13:52.73\00:13:54.63
a permanent kingdom of his own.
00:13:54.63\00:13:57.03
It's describing the
second coming of Christ,
00:13:57.03\00:13:59.87
and it's as if God
is saying, "Listen,
00:13:59.87\00:14:02.10
if you want to have a human
kingdom, I'll let you have one.
00:14:02.10\00:14:05.11
In fact, I'll let you
have whatever you want,
00:14:05.11\00:14:07.38
because well, I
never intended to force you
00:14:07.38\00:14:10.05
to take me as your
king, but after a while,
00:14:10.05\00:14:13.45
you're going to be
convinced the human government
00:14:13.45\00:14:15.38
doesn't have the answers,
00:14:15.38\00:14:17.22
and I'm gonna put an end
to all the pain and suffering,
00:14:17.22\00:14:19.89
and establish a
permanent kingdom
00:14:19.89\00:14:22.36
where this will
never happen again."
00:14:22.36\00:14:25.13
It's a message that
repeats itself several times
00:14:26.39\00:14:28.83
in the book of Daniel.
00:14:28.83\00:14:30.33
In Daniel chapter
seven, instead of a statue,
00:14:30.33\00:14:33.17
we see animals
coming up out of the sea.
00:14:33.17\00:14:36.34
Babylon is
portrayed as a winged lion,
00:14:36.34\00:14:39.14
a common symbol of the kingdom.
00:14:39.14\00:14:41.48
Persia is a lumbering
bear eating the three provinces
00:14:41.48\00:14:44.51
of Babylon
represented by the three bones
00:14:44.51\00:14:47.52
clenched in its mouth.
00:14:47.52\00:14:49.55
Greece is a four headed leopard,
00:14:49.55\00:14:51.62
because when
Alexander the Great died,
00:14:51.62\00:14:54.12
his empire was divided
among his four generals,
00:14:54.12\00:14:57.49
and Rome is
portrayed as a fearsome beast
00:14:57.49\00:14:59.89
with iron teeth and 10 horns.
00:14:59.89\00:15:02.70
And it tells us the
10 horns are the kingdoms
00:15:02.70\00:15:06.17
that emerged from
the broken empire,
00:15:06.17\00:15:08.34
which is exactly what happened
00:15:08.34\00:15:09.77
when the
barbarians carved up the west.
00:15:09.77\00:15:12.84
And again, the vision
ends with human kingdoms,
00:15:12.84\00:15:15.68
and all their
problems being swept away
00:15:15.68\00:15:18.85
in favor of the kingdom of God.
00:15:18.85\00:15:20.52
"I was watching in the
night visions, and behold,
00:15:21.85\00:15:23.72
one like the Son of Man, coming
with the clouds of heaven!
00:15:23.72\00:15:27.39
He came to the Ancient of Days,
00:15:27.39\00:15:29.72
and they brought
Him near before Him.
00:15:29.72\00:15:32.36
Then to Him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
00:15:32.36\00:15:35.50
that all peoples, nations,
and languages should serve Him.
00:15:35.50\00:15:38.90
His dominion is an
everlasting dominion,
00:15:38.90\00:15:41.17
which shall not pass
away, and His kingdom
00:15:41.17\00:15:43.91
the one which
shall not be destroyed.
00:15:43.91\00:15:46.68
But the saints of the Most
High shall receive the kingdom,
00:15:47.94\00:15:51.91
and possess the kingdom
forever, even forever and ever."
00:15:51.91\00:15:56.62
Now in this version,
there's a new component,
00:15:58.52\00:16:00.76
something that wasn't
there in Daniel chapter two.
00:16:00.76\00:16:04.13
Among the 10 horns on
the fourth beast's head
00:16:04.13\00:16:07.40
is a little horn, and the
description of this kingdom
00:16:07.40\00:16:10.23
is anything but flattering.
00:16:10.23\00:16:12.40
It goes to war
with other kingdoms
00:16:12.40\00:16:13.97
and makes exalted
claims for itself.
00:16:13.97\00:16:16.77
It persecutes people
described as the saints,
00:16:16.77\00:16:20.78
and it makes unauthorized
changes to God's laws.
00:16:20.78\00:16:24.45
And by the time we get to
the most troublesome periods
00:16:25.81\00:16:28.02
of medieval history,
when the black plague
00:16:28.02\00:16:30.49
is wiping out a
third of the population,
00:16:30.49\00:16:32.82
and Jerusalem
falls to the Muslims,
00:16:32.82\00:16:35.19
and Constantinople
falls to the Ottoman Turks,
00:16:35.19\00:16:38.76
a lot of people started
to look at this prophecy
00:16:38.76\00:16:41.26
and they began to ask a
very embarrassing question.
00:16:41.26\00:16:45.27
This little horn was a
religious and political power
00:16:45.27\00:16:48.17
that grew out of the
shattered Roman empire,
00:16:48.17\00:16:50.64
out of the
nations of Western Europe,
00:16:50.64\00:16:53.07
and it was behaving very badly.
00:16:53.07\00:16:55.48
It was like a bucket of
cold water to the conscience.
00:16:57.61\00:17:00.48
They'd been persecuting
any number of Christian sects
00:17:00.48\00:17:02.88
who didn't agree with them,
from the Albigensians of France
00:17:02.88\00:17:05.82
to the Waldensians
of the Piedmont Valley.
00:17:05.82\00:17:08.39
They'd gone to war against
entire nations as a church,
00:17:08.39\00:17:12.09
a decidedly political church.
00:17:12.09\00:17:14.93
So they had to ask the question,
00:17:14.93\00:17:16.70
is it possible that this
prophecy could be talking about
00:17:16.70\00:17:20.84
us? Is this 11th kingdom
in Daniel, our own Christian
00:17:20.84\00:17:25.91
Church? You see, they had
noticed that Paul had warned us
00:17:27.31\00:17:28.71
about a time in the future
when Christianity would go bad.
00:17:28.71\00:17:31.65
"But know this," he wrote,
00:17:32.98\00:17:34.65
"That in the last days
perilous times will come.
00:17:34.65\00:17:38.05
For men will be lovers of
themselves, lovers of money,
00:17:38.05\00:17:41.69
boasters, proud, blasphemers,
disobedient to parents,
00:17:41.69\00:17:45.89
unthankful, unholy,
unloving, unforgiving,
00:17:45.89\00:17:50.13
slanderers, without
self-control, brutal, despisers
00:17:50.13\00:17:55.17
of good, traitors,
headstrong, haughty,
00:17:55.97\00:17:57.97
lovers of pleasure
rather than lovers of God,
00:17:57.97\00:18:00.28
having a form of godliness
but denying its power."
00:18:00.28\00:18:04.21
Is it really possible
that Christianity itself
00:18:06.15\00:18:08.98
would go off the rails?
00:18:08.98\00:18:10.75
To those of us
living in the 21st century,
00:18:10.75\00:18:12.72
the answer seems obvious.
00:18:12.72\00:18:14.42
Of course we did.
00:18:15.32\00:18:16.46
[soothing music]
00:18:17.73\00:18:20.60
From the inquisition
to the pompous claims
00:18:25.23\00:18:27.94
we made about
our own importance,
00:18:27.94\00:18:29.90
to the way we use
the power of the state
00:18:29.90\00:18:32.37
to persecute people
who didn't share our faith.
00:18:32.37\00:18:35.54
Well, it seems obvious to
us from our vantage point today
00:18:35.54\00:18:38.41
that something went very wrong.
00:18:38.41\00:18:40.72
But back in the day to admit
that, well, it was staggering.
00:18:40.72\00:18:43.79
It was a tough pill to swallow.
00:18:43.79\00:18:45.82
Everybody, from
Joachim of Fiore,
00:18:45.82\00:18:47.32
to the humanist
scholar, Erasmus, and Luther.
00:18:47.32\00:18:50.76
Well, they were all
coming to the same conclusion.
00:18:50.76\00:18:53.60
God had actually
predicted what was happening.
00:18:53.60\00:18:57.20
So the churches of the West
00:18:57.20\00:18:58.80
suddenly had a lot
of soul searching to do.
00:18:58.80\00:19:01.17
And that unfortunately led
to some very sharp disagreements
00:19:01.17\00:19:04.61
about what should happen next.
00:19:04.61\00:19:06.88
And it's at this point that
some very serious religious wars
00:19:06.88\00:19:10.61
took place on the
European continent,
00:19:10.61\00:19:12.51
wars like the Thirty
Years' War from 1618 to 1648,
00:19:12.51\00:19:17.22
which was fought between
Catholic and Protestant princes.
00:19:17.22\00:19:20.62
It's a war that may
have killed anywhere
00:19:20.62\00:19:22.69
from three to 11 million people.
00:19:22.69\00:19:26.19
Protestants started pushing back
00:19:26.19\00:19:27.96
against the persecution
of Rome, but then in turn,
00:19:27.96\00:19:31.27
many Protestants
started persecuting people
00:19:31.27\00:19:33.44
who didn't agree with
them, like the Anabaptists,
00:19:33.44\00:19:36.71
who were baptizing adults,
00:19:36.71\00:19:38.87
and were sometimes punished
for that by being drowned.
00:19:38.87\00:19:42.11
It was an unholy mess,
and it all started the day
00:19:44.95\00:19:47.88
we did what Israel had done.
00:19:47.88\00:19:50.12
We invited a king
to run the church.
00:19:50.12\00:19:52.32
And that king was eventually
replaced by a kingly bishop,
00:19:52.32\00:19:55.79
who sometimes behaved
like the kings of Israel.
00:19:55.79\00:19:59.29
We married church and
state, in spite of the fact
00:19:59.29\00:20:01.96
that Jesus specifically told us
00:20:01.96\00:20:04.27
there should be no
king in the church.
00:20:04.27\00:20:07.14
Here's what Jesus said.
00:20:07.14\00:20:08.64
"The kings of the Gentiles
exercise lordship over them,
00:20:08.64\00:20:12.64
but not so among you.
00:20:12.64\00:20:14.34
On the contrary, he
who is greatest among you,
00:20:14.34\00:20:17.15
let him be as the younger,
00:20:17.15\00:20:18.61
and he who
governs as he who serves."
00:20:18.61\00:20:22.48
We did exactly what
Jesus warned us not to do.
00:20:22.48\00:20:25.85
And to this day that
serves as rich fodder
00:20:25.85\00:20:28.39
for critics of
the Christian faith.
00:20:28.39\00:20:30.63
Jesus originally told
his followers, by this,
00:20:30.63\00:20:33.83
all will know that
you are my disciples.
00:20:33.83\00:20:36.00
If you have
love for one another.
00:20:36.00\00:20:38.30
But when you look at our
behavior back in those years,
00:20:38.30\00:20:41.54
well, it was
obvious that most of us
00:20:41.54\00:20:43.51
stopped listening to
Jesus a very long time ago.
00:20:43.51\00:20:47.31
[soothing music]
00:20:47.31\00:20:50.01
[soothing music continues]
00:20:57.45\00:21:01.06
The reformation
of the 16th century
00:21:04.29\00:21:06.63
was about a number
of important ideas.
00:21:06.63\00:21:09.93
It was a call to shake
off some of the bad tendencies
00:21:09.93\00:21:12.67
that had crept into the church
00:21:12.67\00:21:13.87
in the centuries
after Constantine.
00:21:13.87\00:21:16.10
And it was an appeal
to return to the Bible
00:21:16.10\00:21:18.84
as the standard of faith.
00:21:18.84\00:21:20.61
It was also a call in the
face of some very public abuses
00:21:20.61\00:21:24.08
to return to
simple faith in Christ
00:21:24.08\00:21:26.51
as the only means of salvation.
00:21:26.51\00:21:28.75
But underneath
all those changes,
00:21:28.75\00:21:30.62
there was also a
deliberate attempt
00:21:30.62\00:21:32.59
to free ourselves from the king
00:21:32.59\00:21:34.19
we'd invited into the church.
00:21:34.19\00:21:36.36
And that proved to
be a hard thing to do,
00:21:36.36\00:21:39.69
even after we'd
overturned the idea
00:21:39.69\00:21:41.50
that political power
should be with a bishop
00:21:41.50\00:21:43.37
who had risen to power
because of the Roman emperor.
00:21:43.37\00:21:46.70
Even after we came
to terms with that,
00:21:46.70\00:21:48.27
we still had a very
hard time letting go.
00:21:48.27\00:21:50.94
So in the beginning, we
tried to keep the marriage
00:21:50.94\00:21:53.68
between church and state alive,
00:21:53.68\00:21:56.08
except that we now
did it on a local basis.
00:21:56.08\00:21:59.45
[soothing music]
00:22:01.15\00:22:03.99
[soothing music continues]
00:22:11.13\00:22:15.06
That's what happened
here in the city of Geneva
00:22:15.06\00:22:17.23
where my own family's
longstanding religious tradition
00:22:17.23\00:22:20.00
used to be headquartered.
00:22:20.00\00:22:21.40
In 1553, the city government,
00:22:22.40\00:22:24.51
which was clearly
blended with the church,
00:22:24.51\00:22:27.08
burned a man at the stake.
00:22:27.08\00:22:28.64
His name was Michael Servetus.
00:22:29.44\00:22:31.95
Now, the people who
did this had condemned Rome
00:22:33.08\00:22:35.92
for the very
same kinds of things.
00:22:35.92\00:22:37.95
Honestly, I think Servetus
really did have some bad ideas.
00:22:37.95\00:22:41.26
After all, he denied
the divinity of Christ,
00:22:41.26\00:22:44.59
but did that really
warrant the death penalty?
00:22:44.59\00:22:48.06
[solemn music]
00:22:49.50\00:22:52.07
Word of the brutal
execution reached the ears
00:22:56.00\00:22:58.31
of a former
friend of John Calvin's,
00:22:58.31\00:23:00.41
named Sebastian Castellio,
00:23:00.41\00:23:02.64
and it moved him
to start writing down
00:23:02.64\00:23:04.38
some very important ideas,
under a pseudonym, of course,
00:23:04.38\00:23:07.88
because he didn't want to
die at the stake like Servetus,
00:23:07.88\00:23:11.02
and Castellio's
ideas began to take hold
00:23:11.02\00:23:13.39
in the hearts of
God-fearing Christians.
00:23:13.39\00:23:16.16
Now remember, this
is just a few years
00:23:16.16\00:23:18.36
after Columbus
discovered The New World.
00:23:18.36\00:23:21.06
So what kinds of
ideas did Castellio have?
00:23:21.06\00:23:24.73
Well, they were
the kinds of ideas
00:23:24.73\00:23:26.63
that made a place
like America possible.
00:23:26.63\00:23:29.20
- [Narrator] "Such conduct
is not actuated by Christ,
00:23:32.57\00:23:35.48
as it seems to me, for He
did not defend Himself by arms,
00:23:35.48\00:23:39.81
though He might
readily have done so,
00:23:39.81\00:23:41.82
since He had at His
disposal ten legions of angels.
00:23:41.82\00:23:45.65
The oppressors are
actuated rather by the desire
00:23:46.92\00:23:49.32
to defend their
power and worldly kingdom
00:23:49.32\00:23:52.06
by the arms of the world.
00:23:52.06\00:23:53.60
This appears from the
fact that when they were poor
00:23:55.03\00:23:56.90
and powerless, they
detested persecutors,
00:23:56.90\00:24:00.27
but now having
become strong, imitate them.
00:24:00.27\00:24:04.77
Abandoning the arms of Christ,
00:24:04.77\00:24:06.91
they take the
arms of the Pharisees,
00:24:06.91\00:24:09.08
without which they
would not be able to defend
00:24:09.08\00:24:11.58
or retain their power.
00:24:11.58\00:24:13.05
When I see how
much blood has been shed
00:24:14.15\00:24:16.22
since the creation of the world
under the color of religion
00:24:16.22\00:24:19.92
and how they just
have always been slain
00:24:19.92\00:24:21.92
before they were recognized,
00:24:21.92\00:24:23.56
I fear less the same
thing happened in our day,
00:24:24.89\00:24:27.50
that we kill as unjust
those whom our descendants
00:24:27.50\00:24:30.57
will revere as just."
00:24:30.57\00:24:32.57
[solemn music]
00:24:33.87\00:24:36.54
- To kill a man, said Castellio,
00:24:38.04\00:24:39.97
is not to defend a
doctrine, but to kill a man.
00:24:39.97\00:24:43.28
When the
Genevans killed Servetus,
00:24:43.28\00:24:45.38
they did not defend a
doctrine, they killed a man.
00:24:45.38\00:24:49.55
[solemn music continues]
00:24:49.55\00:24:52.99
[upbeat music]
00:24:53.92\00:24:56.59
[upbeat music continues]
00:25:03.80\00:25:07.30
[upbeat music continues]
00:25:13.81\00:25:16.98
That was the beginning
of a very important idea
00:25:16.98\00:25:19.88
that people with
different belief systems
00:25:19.88\00:25:21.82
might actually
be able to coexist.
00:25:21.82\00:25:24.69
That it was time for Christians
to let go of the power
00:25:24.69\00:25:27.39
of the state and start just
living like Jesus suggested.
00:25:27.39\00:25:30.96
At the time, that was hard
for a lot of people to accept,
00:25:30.96\00:25:34.00
because for more
than a thousand years,
00:25:34.00\00:25:36.13
they'd taken
political power for granted.
00:25:36.13\00:25:38.80
If they disagreed with someone,
00:25:38.80\00:25:40.37
they simply forced
their opponents to change.
00:25:40.37\00:25:43.00
And if that failed,
well they killed them.
00:25:43.00\00:25:46.37
What you and I enjoy
is a relatively new thing.
00:25:46.37\00:25:49.61
An idea that came
at a very high cost
00:25:49.61\00:25:51.61
as the people of
Western Europe sorted out
00:25:51.61\00:25:53.82
what life might
look like if the church
00:25:53.82\00:25:56.15
was no longer running the state.
00:25:56.15\00:25:58.29
They were taking
the hands of the bishop
00:25:58.29\00:26:00.09
off political
power for the first time
00:26:00.09\00:26:02.86
since Justinian had
established the church
00:26:02.86\00:26:05.56
as the political
power of the West.
00:26:05.56\00:26:08.40
That was a huge leap forwards
00:26:08.40\00:26:10.50
toward one of the
boldest ideas in history,
00:26:10.50\00:26:13.00
a republic
where church and state
00:26:13.00\00:26:15.44
would actually
be separated by law.
00:26:15.44\00:26:18.67
And to get from Castellio
to the birth of America,
00:26:20.04\00:26:21.84
we're going to
have to figure out
00:26:21.84\00:26:23.04
what happened
back here in Leiden.
00:26:23.04\00:26:25.01
And that's a story that
almost defies imagination.
00:26:25.01\00:26:28.52
[upbeat music continues]
00:26:29.38\00:26:32.89
[upbeat music continues]
00:26:39.26\00:26:42.70
[upbeat music continues]
00:26:49.37\00:26:52.87
[soothing music]
00:26:52.87\00:26:55.18
- [Narrator] This
has been a broadcast
00:26:55.18\00:26:56.71
of the "Voice of Prophecy."
00:26:56.71\00:26:58.85
To learn more about
how you can get a DVD copy
00:26:58.85\00:27:01.68
of "Final Empire" for yourself,
00:27:01.68\00:27:03.85
please visit FinalEmpireDVD.com,
00:27:03.85\00:27:07.59
or call toll free 844-822-2943.
00:27:07.59\00:27:12.19
[soothing music continues]
00:27:12.99\00:27:16.63
[soothing music continues]
00:27:23.84\00:27:27.51
[soothing music continues]
00:27:33.78\00:27:37.45
[soothing music continues]
00:27:43.79\00:27:47.50
- [Narrator] Life
can throw a lot at us.
00:28:02.64\00:28:04.98
Sometimes we don't
have all the answers,
00:28:04.98\00:28:08.35
but that's where
the Bible comes in.
00:28:08.35\00:28:10.82
It's our guide to a
more fulfilling life.
00:28:10.82\00:28:13.89
Here at The Voice of Prophecy,
00:28:13.89\00:28:15.49
we've created the
"Discover Bible Guides"
00:28:15.49\00:28:17.59
to be your guide to the Bible.
00:28:17.59\00:28:19.19
They're designed to
be simple, easy to use,
00:28:19.19\00:28:21.63
and provide answers to many
of life's toughest questions,
00:28:21.63\00:28:24.67
and they're absolutely free.
00:28:24.67\00:28:26.67
So jump online
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