Participants: Chris Holland
Series Code: IIWC
Program Code: IIWC201528A
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00:00 It Is Written - Our Land Glorious and Free
00:05 It Is Written - Our Land Glorious and Free 00:10 It Is Written - Our Land Glorious and Free 00:14 It Is Written - Our Land Glorious and Free 00:17 It Is Written - Our Land Glorious and Free 00:21 It Is Written - Our Land Glorious and Free 00:28 It Is Written - Our Land Glorious and Free 00:35 It Is Written - Our Land Glorious and Free 00:38 It Is Written - Our Land Glorious and Free 01:29 > 01:31 >>Announcer: It has stood the test of time. 01:34 God's book, The Bible 01:38 Still relevant in today's complex world 01:44 It Is Written 01:46 Sharing messages of hope around the world! 01:58 CHRIS: Religious freedom. How does an individual. how does an institution of a religious 02:04 nature relate to a growing secular society? Today to help talk about that and to answer 02:12 questions on that issue, we want to welcome someone who's no stranger to It Is Written, Barry 02:18 Bussey. BARRY: Nice to be here, Chris. CHRIS: You know, Barry, you have a unique position to be 02:26 able to discuss these issues of religious freedom because you have an undergraduate degree in 02:31 theology; you have several master's degrees, one in constitutional law, one in peace 02:38 and conflict studies, and one in political science. You spent several years as a pastor, 02:45 several years working in the administration of the church, the Seventh-day Adventist 02:52 Church. Then you had opportunity to actually work with the Seventh-day Adventist Church 02:55 down in Washington, D.C., working on Capitol Hill. And now you're the director of legal 03:02 affairs with the Canadian Council of Christian Churches. So it has aptly prepared you for 03:08 this discussion that we're about to have. BARRY: Mmhmm. CHRIS: Now, on top of all of 03:12 that, though, which makes you an even more honest individual is, you are from Newfoundland. 03:17 BARRY: Right, indeed. In fact, I'm so honest, I'm going to say that it's the Canadian Council 03:22 of Christian Charities. CHRIS: You know, it is so interesting. You know, we've had 03:26 so many discussions on that, that it is the Canadian Council of Christian Charities, and I 03:31 always want to call it the Canadian Council of Christian Churches, and I apologize for 03:35 that. BARRY: That's okay, we just want to make that clear. CHRIS: Now, you know, I want to 03:39 ask you why you have so many degrees, but before we get to that, you are actually currently 03:42 studying to do a doctoral degree. BARRY: Mmhmm. CHRIS: What are you studying in 03:47 your doctoral degree? BARRY: Well, I'm doing a doctorate in law at the 03:51 University of Leiden, which is in the Netherlands. And my professor over there is Dr. Paul 03:56 Cliteur, who's done a lot of writing on secularism and law and religion issues. He has 04:05 written a book called Secular Outlook which is a fascinating book, an excellent book. I 04:10 encourage everyone to read it. And I very much enjoy working with him. Obviously, well, he 04:16 comes from a different faith perspective than I have and so forth, but it's great. It's a 04:21 wonderful relationship as we are discussing these issues back and forth. CHRIS: And what are you 04:26 writing about specifically? BARRY: So one of the things that I'm finding that's developing in 04:32 the legal system is a. how can I say it? A re-evaluation of religion. I call it. I refer to 04:41 it as a legal revolution. Historically, religion has received special status. There's 04:47 no two ways about it. We've got special status when it comes to being a registered charity, 04:53 being able to issue charitable receipts, and so on. And it's because we have seen religion as 04:59 a public benefit, just by definition, advancement of religion, that is now being 05:04 challenged. And so it's a whole paradigm shift in the legal community, looking at religion. 05:11 And so what I'm doing is I'm studying that, and I'm basically looking at why that is 05:20 problematic going forward. And I talk about the whole concept of religious freedom and religion 05:26 as a prototypical right, that it encourages other rights, has lots of benefits. And anyhow, so 05:34 it's kind of like. it's counterintuitive from a lot of legal academic mindsets right 05:39 now, which says, you know, religion is not necessary to be so protected in the 05:43 Constitution. I'm coming around the other way and saying yes, it is. And from my research, I look 05:49 at it from a historical perspective. I look at the whole history, I look at practicality 05:55 of our experience in the West, and I look at philosophy as well, and I say, at the end of 06:01 the day, my view is that we still need to have religion protected. CHRIS: And we're 06:06 going to have a whole show on that in a couple of shows. Now, I do want to ask you, you have a 06:12 lot of degrees. BARRY: Mmhmm. CHRIS: Why so many degrees? What's happened in your life? 06:17 BARRY: Listen, I'll tell you right now, if I ever say to my wife again that I'm interested 06:20 in yet another degree after I do the doctorate, I'm afraid she's going to put me out in a tent. 06:26 No, it's one of those things in life, you know, as you go along, you know, people collect 06:33 baseball cards; I collect degrees. No, the reality is, is this: A law professor said one 06:39 time in class, he says, "You know, when you write your exam, make sure you don't spend any 06:43 time trying to get that point on the exam that's way up at the top of the tree; grab the apples 06:50 that are right in front of you." So for whatever reason, wherever I've been, whether I've 06:55 practiced law in St. John's Newfoundland, I went to Memorial University, I got a degree in 06:59 political science, came back up here, lived in Oshawa for a while, and I got a degree at 07:05 Osgoode doing constitutional law. Of course, I did my law degree at University of Western 07:10 Ontario, and that's where he shared that with me. And then when I went to work with Four 07:16 C's, Canadian Council of Christian Charities, I went to the University of Waterloo and 07:18 said, "Hey, you know, peace and conflict studies, I'm very much interested, why not do it?" 07:22 CHRIS: And why so much interest in theology and religion? BARRY: Well, you know, it's very 07:28 interesting. Growing up in Newfoundland, of course, I come from a family that was very much 07:34 politically attuned. I've followed politics probably from the age ten or even before, 07:40 onwards. My uncle was involved in provincial politics. He was minister of labour and so forth 07:47 in the Frank Moores government there. And so I spent a lot of time, you know, going door to 07:51 door, advertising for my uncle and so on. My grandfather was a justice of the peace. And so the 07:58 whole concept of being involved in the public is something that attracted me. I always wondered 08:05 whether I would go into ministry or whether I'd go into the practice of law, will I go into 08:10 the practice of law and get involved in politics? All of those kinds of things. And 08:13 ultimately. but as time went on, I found myself really interested in the concept of religious 08:20 freedom. I love reading and studying about political philosophy, religious philosophy 08:26 and so on, and the whole interaction and the historical experience of religion, 08:30 religious freedom. I think of all the greats, you know, whether it's William Tyndale, 08:34 Martin Luther, all of those things, kind of inspired me. And so I ended up in my career 08:39 focussing around that. And what. You know, growing up in Newfoundland in the early 1970s 08:48 and so on, we still had a situation where we were segregated in the schools. One 08:53 group went to one school, one went to another school. We lived in a community that was 08:58 homogeneous in many ways. It was, you know, all Protestants live here, all Catholics live 09:04 here, and so forth, you know. You know, I remember one time having a Catholic friend who was 09:12 in kindergarten, but then he wasn't with us the rest of the school experience because you 09:17 know, he went to a Catholic school, and so on. And you know, we're all free and we all need 09:21 to be able to do that, but it was just this concept of coming from different communities and 09:27 understanding who you are, how you relate to others. Newfoundland has a lot of 09:31 history; if you look back in the 19th century, there was a lot of bloodshed, actually, over 09:36 religion in Newfoundland. And so all of that kind of caused me to say, "Okay, how can we all live 09:43 together peacefully on the same piece of real estate?" I mean, at the end of the day, that's 09:48 what we need to be able to do. And so that whole concept has really invigorated me, trying to 09:56 answer those kinds of questions. I mean, throughout the history of our life on Earth, it seems, 10:01 we're asking the big questions: Where do we come from? Where are we going? How do we get here? 10:05 All of that. Scientists today are talking about things like, you know, where did the Big Bang 10:11 come from? How did it start? I mean, we're still asking these big questions. And so that's 10:16 part of my trying to. I'm just very curious. And so all of these things, all of these 10:21 studies, it's all in this quest of trying to know. CHRIS: And so it's brought you to the place 10:27 where you're now the director of legal affairs with the Canadian Council of Christian Charities, 10:32 an organization that's actually committed to finding this balance of how, being all 10:39 different, do we get along? BARRY: Yeah. Well, I mean, and when you look at us, we're 3300 10:44 charities across the country that have come together. And it's an organization that 10:51 started in 1972. It started because there was a real need for Christian missionaries who 11:01 were coming back, being repatriated after they spent their career overseas, and 11:07 they'd have no pensions, for example. And so what happened was, a group of individuals got 11:12 together and said, "Hey, we need to do something for these people." And so they decided to 11:17 start up a pension plan. And as a result, what worked around that pension plan was also group 11:23 benefits. So for example, we have a lot of churches that are not associated with a 11:28 denomination, for example, and so they don't have anything for their pastor. They wouldn't be 11:34 able to have a pension for their pastors. It's just, you know, you need to have volume and you 11:39 need to have numbers. And so we're able to do that for them and provide group benefits that 11:46 the church pays into and so forth that enables them to be able to give a good retirement 11:50 for their people and for the missionaries, which was the original understanding of us as 11:56 an organization. CHRIS: And so you've given a little bit of the history of the Canadian Council 12:01 of Christian Charities. And let's talk a little bit about what you're doing right now. 12:08 What's happening with the Council? What they're doing to help charities and how that 12:16 relates to our viewers? BARRY: Okay. Well, I can tell you right now, hot off the 12:20 press, so hot, in fact, this is only the second copy that we've had in our office, and we're 12:25 going to get all of the thousands coming up. But we've got the Charities Handbook. The 12:33 Charities Handbook is really the go-to book for Christian charities in the country. This 12:37 is now the 20th edition. Every two years, we publish - it is now every two years - it used to 12:44 be yearly - but every two years, we have put together all of the recent updates. This handbook is 12:53 the A to Z information on how to run a charity, how to start a charity, how to close it down. 13:02 We talk about things like the importance of ensuring proper policies with employees. Job 13:09 descriptions. We talk about how you run a board. Talk about how you comply to CRA guidelines and 13:16 so forth. We deal with all of the mundane things that a charity would have. And by the 13:27 way, I should mention that we also have a number of non-Christian charities who are 13:32 members of Four C's who are affiliate members. We provide all kinds of this information 13:40 that helps them to do ministry better. The tagline for the Four C's is "advancing ministry 13:47 together." So while we look at all of our members who are involved in every kind of 13:53 mission and ministry that you can think of, from working down on Yonge Street, working with 14:01 the street people, to being involved in Africa with development, to running radio 14:06 stations, to running nursing homes, you name it. We've got them who are our members, and 14:12 we've got churches and so forth. So lots of things are happening. They get to call us. We've got 14:18 about four people that, every day, answer phone calls. We will answer every question on how to, 14:25 whatever it is that needs to happen with their particular charity that they have an issue 14:31 with, for tax policy, government policy, whatever. And we will provide them an answer within 24 14:36 hours. CHRIS: Wow. BARRY: And if we can't get it in 24 hours, we'll call you back in 24 hours 14:42 and say, "We're still working on it." But we are very much in tune and we make that happen. 14:47 CHRIS: Well, that's very powerful, you know. It Is Written is a charity here in 14:53 Canada. And some of the criticisms that I often hear about charities is that 14:58 charities are, so to speak, above the law. But what we're saying here is, that is actually 15:03 not the case. In fact, the Bible points out that we need to render unto Caesar what is 15:07 Caesar's and we need to be law-abiding. And so the Four C's is committed to helping 15:15 charities abide by the laws here in Canada. BARRY: Absolutely. In fact, when we give information, 15:21 we don't give information to charities to say, "Okay, let's push the limits of the law. 15:26 Let's go to the boundaries." We want people to be right in the middle so that they won't have 15:31 any hassle with a CRA audit or whatever, if they will follow the policies that we outline in 15:37 the Charities Handbook and so on. It is extremely important. We want to be not just simply 15:42 effective charities, but we want to be exemplary. We want to be the best that God would have us 15:49 be. And it's extremely important for our witness as Christian charities to ensure that we are 15:55 in keeping with the law. And so that is certainly an emphasis that we make. CHRIS: Now, Barry, 16:01 there might be a viewer right now, there might be somebody that is either interested in 16:06 starting a charity or they are a part of a charity, and they're saying, "Wow, I'm really 16:11 interested in this. I'm really interested in this handbook." Where can they go to get more 16:15 information about this handbook? BARRY: Our website is Four C's dot O-R-G. So it's cccc.org. And 16:27 you can go in there and you've got all the information on our website. We have a section of 16:33 the website that's free, and a section that is not free. In other words, if you are a member 16:39 of Four C's, you get all the free access to everything. You can buy everything, like, as far 16:44 as our books and DVDs and all of those kinds of things. You can buy that, no problem. We have a 16:50 store online that helps you to do that. CHRIS: Now, you know, and I'm looking across the table 16:56 and I'm not trying to eavesdrop with what the Four C's has going on, but I see something there 17:02 that's very intriguing, because maybe there's people watching saying, "Well, you know, I mean, 17:05 I'm not a part of your charity. Maybe this show is not even applicable to me." But you have 17:10 something there that's very interesting. I spent a number of years as a pastor. And it talks 17:16 about being a board member. Tell me, what is this project that you have here? BARRY: So we've 17:20 got the DVD Serving as a Board Member by Reverend Dr. John Pellow, who's our CEO. And in 17:27 fact, he recorded this video series right here in this studio. And he goes through the 17:35 whole experience of what the role of a board member is from the theological perspective, 17:42 also from the legal perspective, concerned about ensuring that the relationships are going 17:49 well, what is expected of you as a board member, and all of those kinds of things. And we also 17:54 have as well a book that is a companion to this is Serving as a Board Member book which kind 18:02 of puts in writing all of the various ideas that he's expressed in the DVD. This is 18:08 really our big seller, to be honest with you. CHRIS: I would imagine, because you know, one 18:12 of the challenges we face in pastoral ministry is as pastors who are not trained in the law, 18:18 and then many of our board members, they're laypeople, they're not trained in the law. 18:24 And so this DVD as well as this book could provide a wealth of resource and information for an 18:31 individual to be an effective board member. Now, again, you've already mentioned the website. 18:38 Can somebody make a phone call to get more information? BARRY: Yes, they can. The phone 18:41 number is 519-669-5137. CHRIS: And they're going to call into your office. Now, I would 18:51 expect, with such an entity that's dealing with law and all of this stuff, I would expect 18:56 that you are right up there in Ottawa sitting next to the Parliament. Is that where your 19:01 office is located? Because that does not seem like an Ottawa prefix on your phone number. 19:06 BARRY: Yeah, no, we're down in Elmira. Elmira is just north of Waterloo. Beautiful country. 19:13 It's really a gem, a forgotten gem, perhaps, in some ways, but it's awesome. I'm living where 19:22 there's horse and buggies going back and forth my window several times a day. It's Mennonite 19:27 country. Beautiful place. The reason we're there is because the director, the CEO, the first 19:36 CEO of our organization, in the 1980s, ended up having the office, originally, was down in 19:43 Kitchener. But he was struggling with all of the amount of mail that was going on with. there at 19:49 the Kitchener office. And what happened was, it was too much. So he went to the post office up 19:57 in Elmira and said, "Hey, listen, we've got all this mail. Are you able to handle it?" "Oh, 20:02 yes, no problem." And so then he decided, as a result of the warm treatment he received at the 20:07 post office in Elmira, that hey, maybe we should have our office in Elmira. And that's exactly 20:12 where it's been ever since. CHRIS: Wow, and so you're actually an organization that's 20:16 even founded on the principle of the government and a religious organization, or a charity, 20:22 getting along together. So that's a beautiful thing. So speaking of mail and mailing 20:28 things out, you have a publication. Tell me about this publication. BARRY: Yeah, so 20:31 this is the Four C's bulletin. And five times a year, we produce a bulletin. This one 20:37 here is a special bulletin dealing with healthy church boards, and there's all kinds of 20:43 articles in here, duties of directors, executives, effective committees, dealing with 20:48 conflict, understanding financials, board minutes, all these kinds of. everything you 20:52 would need to have to run an effective board is in here. So five times a year, we put 20:59 together these bulletins. What happens is, we've got four people who answer the phones. We 21:05 do about 6,000 calls or more a year. And so we tend to get a lot of questions. And what's 21:13 interesting is, we are understanding what the issues are. Then when we meet together 21:19 as a committee - every week, we all have a meeting - and we'll say, "Okay, what are the 21:24 questions that people are asking? What is it we need more information on?" And so then we 21:28 will assign responsibilities to write articles and we will write articles to answer those 21:34 questions in depth. And then that becomes, then, the material that we put together for the 21:39 Four C's bulletin. CHRIS: And so the Four C's, the Canadian Council of Christian Charities, 21:45 powerful organization that is committed to helping charities function in exemplary ways that 21:52 can set an example, an example set by the Bible. Somebody's watching, again, interested in 21:59 charities, church board member, maybe there's a pastor, so on and so forth. One more time, 22:04 what is that website where someone can go, get more information about what the Four 22:09 C's is doing and can help them with? BARRY: It's cccc.org. CHRIS: There, they'll find 22:17 information on how to become a member of the Four C's, as well as the abundance of resources 22:23 that are available. Barry, in our last few minutes together, let's talk very briefly about 22:33 the issue of Christian charity as it's related to the individual and why that's so 22:40 important to God. BARRY: Well, you know, the Lord has given us that commission to go out and to 22:47 spread the Word of His love, of salvation, and all the rest of it. As Christians, we simply do 22:56 not bottle up our faith into the four walls of a church on Sunday morning or Saturday morning or 23:02 whatever we are worshiping, Wednesday evenings, and so forth. We are individuals who 23:10 seek God to serve God. And we organize these organizations to meet the needs of the people, 23:20 and that's what we're about, and we want, as Four C's, to ensure that your ministry can be the 23:25 best it can be. CHRIS: That is wonderful information. I can't believe we're out of time. But 23:31 as we end here, let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we pray that each of us would be 23:36 exemplary in our Christian charity. We pray that our charitable organizations that we 23:42 work with, work for, or donate to, are exemplary. To Your honour and to Your glory, we 23:49 pray in Jesus' name, amen. 24:36 > 24:38 Today, in our NEWSTART acronym we're focusing on "E" for Exercise. The mere mention of 24:43 the word causes so many of us to quickly pull in our stomachs and straighten our shoulders. 24:49 Research shows that though most of us know that participating in some form of exercise helps to 24:54 keep us in good health, only around 20% actually do anything about it! For some of us the 25:01 very thought of "exercise" conjures up bad memories of grade school gym class or 25:06 not-quite-successful attempts at losing weight. Instead of thinking about the drudgery of 25:12 exercise, or the discomfort of ill-fitting work-out gear, try focusing instead on 25:18 incorporating physical activity into your every-day routine. But in our extraordinarily busy 25:24 lives, how in the world do we go about doing that? Easy! It's as simple as using the stairs in 25:30 your apartment building or at your work-place instead of using the elevator. Or, how about 25:36 getting off the bus a few stops before you reach home and walking the rest of the way? 25:40 Power-walk at lunchtime or while you're doing your shopping! What's so great about exercise? 25:47 Plenty! Regular physical activity strengthens your heart, helps to lower your blood 25:53 pressure, strengthens your bones, boosts your immune system and energy levels, improves your 25:59 ability to handle stress, and helps reduce anxiety and depression, not to mention it 26:06 helps you achieve and maintain a healthy weight. Being physically active also helps to lower LDL - 26:14 otherwise your unwanted bad cholesterol and raises your good cholesterol, your HDL 26:18 cholesterol in your body. Now, listen to the health risks associated with not exercising: 26:26 premature death, heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, 26:35 stroke, depression, and even cancer. Our muscles are designed to be worked. After all, we were 26:43 created in a garden! No time you say? Even 10 minutes of physical activity is beneficial, 26:50 especially if you do several 10-minute sessions during the day. Feel too old? You're never 26:56 too old! Hulda Crooks started mountain climbing at age 66 Kinda puts the rest of us to 27:04 shame! No money you say? No problem! Keep in mind that walking is one of the best 27:10 choices of exercise - just dress for the weather and it's right outside your door. Add in 1 or 2 27:15 pound weights around your ankles or carry them in your hands and now your walking is not only 27:21 cardiovascular but is now a weight bearing exercise, which is ideal for building bone 27:27 density. So do your whole body a favour and get up and go! If you want additional information 27:34 on getting active, visit our It Is Written website at www.ItIsWrittenCanada.ca, go to 27:42 the Live Healthy page, and you'll find links to great websites such as the Health 27:47 Canada site where you can order Canada's Physical Activity Guide. See you next time! 27:56 > 27:59 CHRIS: My dear friends, being exemplary for God is important to the individual, but also 28:05 important to organizations. Today for the free offer, I want to offer you the Four C's 28:11 bulletin on healthy boards. Now, if you're interested in other resources, you can go to the It 28:16 Is Written website at itiswrittencanada.ca. Here's the information you need for today's 28:22 offer. 29:22 > 29:24 CHRIS: Dear friend, thank you so much for watching. And Barry, thank you for such a lively 29:28 discussion. BARRY: Well, it was great to be here, Chris. CHRIS: Friends, if you're 29:32 interested in more of what Barry has to say or want to follow along with his blog, I want to 29:37 invite you to go to LawAndReligion.org, and there you can find more information. 29:43 Please join us again next week. Until then, remember it is written: "Man shall not live by 29:49 bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." 29:55 $$$$$$$$$$$$$ |
Revised 2016-04-14