Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Allan Reinach
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000118
|
00:21 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:23 This is the program that brings you up to 00:24 date news and discussion on Religious Liberty 00:27 issues. My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of 00:31 Liberty Magazine, and my guest on the program 00:34 is attorney Allan Reinach. Now, Allan for the, 00:38 the information of our viewers you are the 00:40 public affairs and Religious Liberty director for 00:42 the Pacific Union of Seventh-day 00:44 Adventist based in California. 00:46 That's true, we serve a five state western 00:48 region including California, which by itself 00:51 would be the fifth largest economy in the world. 00:55 And the fifth healthiest, we won't get into that. 00:58 Well, only about 30 billion dollars in debt 01:00 rate now. Let's talk a little about law, we often 01:04 have lawyers on this program, but you know 01:06 the lawyer of the day. And I know you, you, 01:09 and you have a lot of very interesting 01:10 opinions of thing, things but many of our 01:13 viewers probably have listened to what we 01:14 said about Religious Liberty and we're always 01:16 referencing the constitution, but they may 01:20 not really understand how law works? 01:22 I'm not sure I understand, but I deal 01:24 with lawyers a lot, now. Well, that assumes 01:27 that law works. Well and, and that's really why 01:29 I'm asking the question. Clearly if you watch 01:31 television nowadays with all these hearings in the 01:34 Supreme Court, challenges of this not other. 01:36 And, and, and, and the average person is 01:39 constantly deals with the idea that this criminal 01:41 you know is walking the streets and is being 01:43 locked away, this is some miscarriage of 01:45 justice here. They start to wonder is our 01:47 illegal system even working. And the bigger 01:50 question is, what is the legal system, 01:52 what is law? How would you define law? 01:56 You know, I think if there is an illusion Lincoln; 02:00 the illusion is that somehow there are these 02:03 objective principles and the judges apply them 02:07 in a consistent and systematic way for 02:11 reasonably predictable outcomes. I was 02:14 discussing a, a Sabbath discrimination case, 02:18 a religious discrimination case with an attorney 02:22 who had Adventist truths and representing the, 02:26 the employer. And we were comparing notes, 02:29 both of us as we were discussing our 02:31 respective views of the case, strengths and 02:33 weaknesses and what his position was and what 02:36 our position was and, and looking to settle? 02:38 He observed that the courts are increasingly 02:41 unpredictable. Well, in my mind they're 02:44 increasingly slanted towards the side of, of 02:47 large corporations and companies, makes it 02:49 harder for us when we're representing individuals 02:53 with religious discrimination cases, 02:55 but what we're finding is that judges 02:58 increasingly are unpredictable and they 03:03 are more and more consistently getting the 03:06 law wrong. There, there is actually a body of 03:10 objective principles, but whether human beings 03:15 who are judges are going to apply them well is 03:18 another matter entirely. But if the law is 03:21 so cut and dried, why do we need judges? 03:24 Well, first of all the law is not that cut and 03:27 dried all the time. That's right. But the other 03:29 thing is that you know in most cases, 03:32 if it's gonna go to trial, it's because there is a 03:36 sharp dispute over what happened and there's 03:40 interpretations of motives of facts. You know, 03:44 there's two sides to the story. Yeah at, 03:49 at the moment as we're filming this Rahm 03:51 Emanuel is, is arguing his case that he should 03:55 be eligible to, to, to run from there to Chicago 04:00 and it is so centering on whether he is a 04:02 resident. Now, there is a statue that's very 04:05 applying that you have to be a resident, 04:08 but determining whether or not he is, is 04:11 quite an argument. And it seems to me even 04:15 very clear statues like the constitution, 04:17 right? That's as plain as the nose on your 04:20 face. There should be no restriction on, on, on 04:24 the practice of religion, the State shouldn't 04:26 be involved or shouldn't make laws regarding 04:29 religious establishment, but yet when it comes 04:32 to the real world all sorts of ins and outs, 04:36 but I want to go a little bit further and, and 04:38 I'll let say a revolutionary statement 04:40 that seems to me that the law while most 04:43 people think so is really not concerned with 04:45 morality, or not morality in the sense that 04:50 that, that we look at, it's concerned 04:52 with rights and obligations. 05:00 That's a tough question, but I think that 05:03 historically law and morality have closely 05:06 tracked with one and another. Yes. And, and, 05:08 and especially, 'cause I wanted to draw into, 05:10 in the, in the western, in the Western Legal 05:13 Concept it's, it's very clear that when it comes 05:18 for example to family matters to, to marriage 05:22 until the last generation for example, 05:26 family law reflected the morality of, you have 05:31 to be a wrong doer in order to justify 05:35 divorcing someone, there was no such thing 05:37 as no fault divorce. Divorce was morally wrong 05:41 and you're only justified if you had certain 05:44 specified grounds and you had to be able to 05:47 prove them, which made it a field day for 05:50 private investigators trying to prove that 05:54 there was adultery for example. Yeah, you've 05:56 picked on a, on a case that in some ways 05:59 under gets my assumption, but I, I, I 06:01 would comeback and I think back in the Middle 06:04 Ages marriage law was picked up, attitudes from 06:08 the close affinity with, with church, 06:09 the church and the State. 06:11 Oh! I think in the Middle Ages marriage law 06:12 was predominantly governed by the Church. 06:15 That's the point. And, and if the church was 06:17 separated we've kept the assumptions of the 06:19 church that placed in the law, but it seems to 06:22 me going back, let's just go 06:24 back to 12, 1215 I think. 06:28 Well, that your history, not mine. 06:30 You're from the Commonwealth. 06:32 Oh! I know, Justice is clear on the Supreme 06:35 Court is inclined to dismiss English 06:37 Commonwealth and all that sort of stuff, 06:39 actually in reality, I did research in English 06:40 common law, when I was a law student for a 06:42 Supreme Court case. So it is actually relevant 06:46 to American law. But you know and that was the, 06:48 the, the signing of the Magna Carta, which was 06:52 a big chart of rights, but till that point the, 06:58 or of human rights really against arbitrary 07:02 arrest and, and imprisonment, but 07:04 before then most of the lawyers I see it in, 07:06 in the Medieval Times was really just to 07:09 enunciate the, the right of the landholder and 07:13 the obligations of his tenants and his, as it was 07:17 subservient to him was, it really to, to back to 07:21 something that is more American oriented, 07:23 that was very much concerned with property 07:28 and the obligations that that resided on that. 07:31 And, and I think myself that that this is, 07:34 the elephant in the room even in the US 07:36 Constitution that its principles derived from a 07:39 theory that had to concern more property 07:42 and the rights of property and, and the 07:44 rights of power. And unless the human rights 07:49 that we know which I think derive 07:52 more directly from religion. 07:54 Well, and you know it's interesting here Lincoln 07:56 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, 07:59 there was a major export from especially 08:02 the United States to Eastern Europe to the 08:05 Former Soviet Bloc Nations of lawyers. 08:08 And the export was that in order to participate 08:11 in the Modern World, in the Modern Economy 08:14 you have-to-have the rule of law. 08:16 Businesses can't do business, if there is no 08:20 predictability of the enforcement of contracts 08:23 and so setting up a legal system with judges 08:28 who are independent with some sort of 08:30 predictability with rule of law this was deemed 08:33 essential to integrating the Eastern European 08:37 nations into the Modern Economy. 08:40 The illusion of course is that judges in any 08:44 society will in fact apply these contract 08:47 principles in some sort of consistent or 08:50 predictable way. And you know the, the 08:52 difficulty here frankly is, we want judges or 08:59 human beings and they tend to look at a case 09:02 and they have a gut feeling you know who is 09:05 right and who is wrong and they want to 09:07 decide on the bases of what they think is right 09:09 and wrong in that case. And lo and behold 09:13 surprise, surprise they manage to interpret 09:16 the law in such a way as to determine the 09:19 outcome that they think is just, you rarely ever 09:23 here a judge in a written opinion say, 09:27 what we think the first party should win, 09:30 but the law requires that I rule in favor of the 09:32 second party and I think the law should be 09:35 changed, it happens, it happens very rarely, 09:38 for the most part there is enough 09:41 flexibility in the law that the judge 09:44 can figure it out anyway he wants. 09:47 I think most of us suspect that, it goes 09:49 back to what you say is a little bit like when 09:51 you're in High School, you have to write an 09:54 essay of deductive reasoning, but you've 09:56 decided ahead of time, what you're conclusion 09:59 is gonna be, so you massively evidence to, to 10:02 support it, which is not really an open academic. 10:04 But the, but the problem you know, 10:06 taking this beyond law in our, in American 10:09 culture today, you have Fox News on the 10:12 one hand, you've got MSNBC or, or the 10:15 Liberal Press on the other hand and they 10:17 each martial a completely different set 10:21 of facts about the same stories to come to 10:24 such diametrically opposed interpretations 10:27 of the story that listeners to each one 10:31 people in each camp can hardly even 10:33 communicate anymore, they can't even 10:35 have a decent argument because 10:37 they're so worlds apart. 10:40 What I'm, there's several points that I'm 10:42 trying to make, but I really think when, we, 10:44 we're dealing with, with Religious Rights, 10:49 very important point of Civil Rights and, and 10:51 when Seventh-day Adventists and others 10:52 who have a view of perhaps a conflict 10:56 between certain states and certain, 10:58 several views in our religious practice, 11:01 we need to recognize that as much as hard 11:03 and fast law there is a philosophy at work. 11:06 And it might be that the judge is colored by 11:11 a changing view of what it is to even have a 11:14 religious faith, a changing view of what it 11:16 might even, right, be for you, your right to, 11:19 to stand on your, on your own. 11:21 There is, there is no question that in an 11:23 increasingly secular society our judges have 11:28 much less appreciation, understanding or 11:30 respect for religious faith and Religious 11:34 Freedom does not fair well in our secular 11:38 courts today. And we're gonna, I know 11:39 today we're gonna discuss programs that 11:43 we'll record today that might be seen on 11:45 another occasion. Yeah, and this is a very 11:48 important point because the constitution 11:50 the United States and, and, and most laws 11:53 in other countries are not changed 11:54 momentarily, I mean the, the, especially 11:57 constitution like this, the US one's with a very 12:00 few amendments, amendments was gonna 12:05 say endorsements, yeah, is, is unchanged. 12:07 Very difficult to do an amendment. 12:09 But, how it's perceived, how it's executed 12:13 changes radically. Sure. And I know that 12:16 there is a very cryptic statement that Ellen 12:19 White, 100 and some years ago writing to 12:22 Seventh-day Adventists about fulfilling Bible 12:25 prophecy in the United States you said the 12:26 time probably will come when the United States 12:30 may turn its back on every principle. 12:33 And I don't see the, to fulfill such a statement. 12:36 Every principle of the constitution right, right, 12:38 it's not necessary to formally put the 12:41 constitution away, it's better to see it as 12:43 what we're living through where it shifts 12:45 beneath, well, the, the, the words mean 12:49 what they always meant, but the way that 12:51 they're executed in the assumptions that now 12:53 inform the application, okay, 12:54 are radically different. So and, and I think 12:56 that we need to understand you know when, 12:59 when Ellen White talks about every principle 13:02 that we should care about all of the principles 13:05 of the constitution. You know, as we sit here 13:08 today it's in the midst of, of this amazing 13:13 conflict over the WikiLeaks leaks of all 13:16 of that and there are very profound first 13:19 amendment free speech. I glad you brought 13:21 that up, and freedom of press issues are 13:24 you know, whatever you think of WikiLeaks 13:26 and, and what they've done and the, the 13:29 implications of it, which you know is not really 13:32 our area of expertise, but clearly there 13:35 are first amendment, 13:36 first amendment they're concerns. 13:39 We'll be back after the break to continue 13:41 this discussion. There is a lot talk about on 13:43 law, how it changes and how it's applied? 13:54 One hundred years, a long time to do anything 13:58 much less publish a magazine, 14:00 but this year Liberty, the Seventh-day 14:03 Adventist voice of religious freedom, 14:05 celebrates one hundred years of doing what 14:07 it does best, collecting, analyzing, 14:10 and reporting the ebb and flow of religious 14:13 expression around the world. Issue after issues, 14:17 Liberty has taken on the tough assignments, 14:19 tracking down threats to religious freedom 14:21 and exposing the work of the devil in every 14:23 corner of the globe. Governmental 14:25 interference, personal attacks, 14:28 corporate assaults, even religious freedom 14:30 issues sequestered within the church community 14:32 itself have been clearly and honestly exposed. 14:36 Liberty exists for one purpose to help God's 14:39 people maintain that all the important separation 14:41 of Church and State, while recognizing 14:44 the dangers inherent in such a struggle. 14:47 During the past century, Liberty has experienced 14:49 challenges of its own, but it remains on the job. 14:53 Thanks to the inspired leadership of a long 14:55 line of dedicated Adventist Editors, 14:57 three of whom represent almost half of the 14:59 publications existence and the foresight 15:02 of a little woman from New England. 15:04 One hundred years of struggle, 15:06 one hundred years of victories, 15:08 religious freedom isn't just about political 15:11 machines and cultural prejudices. 15:13 It's about people fighting for the right to serve 15:17 the God they love as their hearts and the 15:19 Holy Spirit dictate. Thanks to the prayers 15:22 and generous support of Seventh-day Adventists 15:25 everywhere. Liberty will continue to 15:27 accomplish its work of providing timely 15:29 information, spirit filled inspiration, 15:32 and heaven sent encouragement to all 15:34 who long to live and work in a world 15:37 bound together by the God ordained 15:39 bonds of religious freedom. 15:51 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider, 15:53 before the break I was talking with attorney 15:56 Allan Reinach about the law not everybody 16:00 is quite clear and what the law is and, and, and 16:02 you've explain how, how the practice of Law 16:06 is, almost coming to disrepute today with, with 16:08 many people today because they see judges 16:10 suede by political opinion, by their own 16:12 bias, this uncertainty by many people 16:17 about what the law even says. 16:19 But when it comes to the constitution we 16:21 have this sort of myth that there are these 16:24 principles set down practically in stone like 16:27 the Ten Commandments without the 10, 16:29 I'm glad you brought that up, amendments of 16:31 the bill of rights and, and, and so the, the 16:33 debate is well you know, these judges who 16:35 want to keep reinterpreting and 16:37 reapplying them, you know that's somehow not 16:41 right that there are these principles that were 16:44 set down in stone and we have to go back 16:46 and, and look at exactly what they meant to 16:49 the Founding Fathers. But of course society 16:52 has changed an awful lot in two centuries and 16:55 to take principles of free speech or Religious 16:58 Freedom from the 18th century and apply 17:02 them today, you have to adapt them to the 17:06 circumstances of the day. Yeah, now I 17:08 often in meetings where I talk about 17:10 Religious Liberty I point out the obvious to me, 17:12 but I know people have never thought it like 17:13 this. I said the constitution, U.S. 17:16 Constitution which we deal with a lot in our, 17:20 in our geographical circle of influence in the 17:22 United States, but the U.S. Constitution is a 17:25 good document, a very good lineage, 17:30 pedigree, but I said remember it's a human 17:33 document, its not Holy Written, right? 17:38 And, and I think this is the conundrum that 17:39 many judges find seeking social justice they're 17:42 trying to find as the, as the conservatives say 17:45 you know, Justice Scalia says, you know 17:48 it's a wonderful day today what you write 17:50 will I find in the Constitution. Well, he's 17:52 mocking it a little bit, but there is an element 17:54 of truth in there, isn't it? That that the 17:58 United States I think has moved on to see 18:01 more-and-more that there are inherent rights 18:03 for the individual of late, I think we're 18:05 diminishing some of those, but at the time of, 18:08 diminishing all of them and much faster than 18:10 American's realized. Right, but at the signing 18:12 of the, of the, of the ratification of the 18:15 constitution there was slavery, they really 18:18 didn't in a practical way see human rights 18:20 as we see them now, right, so the self 18:22 evident regardless of the word said, 18:25 so we've, we've moved on and I think some 18:29 Christian leaders have, have clarified that 18:32 there's, there's been charity applied in the, 18:35 in the execution of the law, but we need to 18:37 realize that it's the ebb and flow of human 18:39 opinion, it is not a moral absolute that's, that's 18:42 guiding this and, and that's why I think in a 18:45 society and I'm sorry to carry on so long, 18:47 I think it's very important for people of 18:49 faith, not to impose their religion on, on, on 18:53 the law and the government, but to be the 18:55 force that that informs and, and, and clarifies 18:58 higher moral values because I do not believe 19:01 that the law itself will automatically do that. 19:03 Well, since you now raised the subject of 19:06 the relationship of religion and law, one of 19:09 the things that I, I like to point out 19:12 frequently is that the church is on solid ground 19:16 when we articulate the moral principles, 19:20 for example. Well, we have an obligation to 19:22 articulate them. But, but let's take for 19:24 example the very hot topic, continuing hot 19:27 topic in American culture today over 19:30 abortion. It's much easier for the church to 19:33 say that we should respect the life of the 19:37 unborn and that this is a value, regardless 19:40 of whether you set official person who had 19:43 conception or at birth it doesn't matter, 19:46 the unborn its life, its human life and it 19:49 should be respected, it should be protected, 19:52 but when I talk to Christian leaders there is 19:55 no real consensus about how to take that 19:58 principles and translate it into public policy. 20:02 There is a lot of angst about abortion on 20:05 demand, about overly permissive society, 20:08 but there is no real consensus about just 20:12 how the law should reflect this principle, 20:14 and so the battles continue. It's enough for 20:18 the church to teach the, the moral principles 20:21 and the values, that doesn't mean that 20:24 religion to going to dictate the public policy 20:27 in some way. Public policy is messy; 20:30 it's difficult to adapt principles to 20:33 the realities of, of day-to-day life. 20:36 Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to think how to take 20:39 this abortion discussion without naming names 20:41 as a former associate of yours that's, that's 20:44 adamantly pro- abortion and, and I don't 20:46 understand how is anybody that reads the 20:48 Bible can come at that conclusion and, and 20:51 the why that that, that I like to see this is 20:55 it's, it's not a matter of policy or doctrine, 20:59 this is a matter of loyalty to God, the life 21:01 giver and surely any Christian, any person 21:05 of faith that sees a higher power that they 21:07 believe created everything should have 21:09 deep respect for life itself and not gut 21:12 you with the sleek terminator. 21:13 Well, at the risk of, of coming across as 21:16 though I take this position, I can at least 21:19 explain why you know another Seventh-day 21:24 Adventist leader would take a, a, a position 21:27 more favorable to pro-choice. For one, 21:30 as a Religious Liberty leader, one of the 21:32 principles of religious freedom is the right of 21:35 the individual conscious before God to make 21:38 moral choices and wanting the state to 21:42 grant permission to the individual to both 21:47 make those choices and then ultimately to be 21:49 answerable to God for them. So, there is a 21:51 certain pro-choice Biblical philosophy that 21:57 comes into play here. The other thing I 21:59 think is that there is a suspicion of having the 22:05 law too closely dictated by the church. 22:09 And they have a union of church and state. 22:12 Exactly the Middle Ages showed where that 22:13 leads directly and, and, and, and, and this 22:16 person who I name out, Steve Cooley tries to 22:20 connected to theology of the Roman Catholic 22:23 Church in the Middle Ages, which I think he is 22:26 half right, but we are living in the Present Ages 22:29 now, and there is a new dynamic at play and 22:31 I think we're living through an age where an 22:34 awareness of God is diminishing rapidly in 22:36 society. So, it's not helping that to sort of 22:39 gratuitously or to allow people gratuitously 22:42 to just dismiss developing love. 22:44 But you're, but you're right we need to, 22:45 we need to be because even in the Bible 22:50 you know, there were property laws really 22:53 apply to unborn children and so on, there 22:55 was the potential and there were punishments, 22:57 it wasn't seen as actually killing a person, 22:59 but there was a penalty, if, if, if a 23:01 pregnant woman was, was harmed or the 23:03 child was harmed. Or one of, one of the issues 23:05 in our society today that I think underlies all 23:08 of this is we have lost sight of the reality of 23:12 our Creator and we've lost sight of the reality 23:16 that the law of God is not simply something 23:20 that pertains to believers who wanna go 23:23 to heaven, but the law of God was given 23:27 by the Creator who knows human nature, 23:30 He created humanity, He knows what's for 23:33 our best happiness? And so to the extent 23:36 that particularly the Commandments, 23:38 the second table of the law that pertain to our 23:41 relationship with one another to the extent 23:44 that human law reflects the wisdom of the 23:48 Creator about the reality of human life it will 23:52 be a, a better set of laws, it will create a 23:55 happier and, and healthier society. 23:58 And, and those basic "Moral or laws of public 24:02 morality that that, that we can find in religion 24:05 that we can also find in the government are 24:08 really not unique to Christianity you know, 24:09 a lot of people make much of the law, 24:11 laws of Hammurabi that go back to 24:13 prehistory and so on. Well, Paul, Paul in 24:15 Romans. I think human beings have 24:16 discovered what God had told early on that 24:20 certain things you do because you will 24:22 live long in the land because of them. 24:24 Look, look Paul in Romans makes the 24:26 argument that the Gentiles who don't have 24:29 the Torah, they don't have the revealed law of 24:32 God, when they do what's written in the Torah 24:35 they show that it's written in the heart. 24:37 There are some basic things like don't murder, 24:39 don't steal, don't commit adultery. 24:41 You don't need thus saith the Lord to know 24:44 that this is wrong, I don't care what culture 24:47 or a civilization you live in, these basic moral 24:50 principles are just, they're in the Ether. 24:54 The spirit testifies, they're part of human 24:57 nature, they're, they're written in our DNA sort 25:00 of speak. They're written in our DNA, 25:01 but where I think the danger is in. 25:04 At the end I'm close to why I started this 25:07 whole discussion at the beginning of the 25:08 program I've reread again recently Alvin 25:11 Toffler's book Future Shock and I do believe 25:14 that in the Modern World with, with, with the 25:19 computerization and, and, and mass 25:22 production and, and move, people moving to 25:24 the cities, the social precious, atomic bombs 25:26 and the whole thing, I think we're very close 25:29 to in the, in, in Modern Societies at least 25:31 there is sort of a group psychosis where 25:33 we're not thinking clearly, and things that 25:37 were aberrant to clear thinking societies in 25:40 the past like not killing other people. 25:42 They may actually be formalized 25:44 now as absolutely acceptable. 25:47 Well, that's a frightening thought, 25:49 yeah, but you know George, George Orwell and, 25:53 and, and Aldous Huxley and, and they're 25:55 a kind of prophetic casting of, of a futuristic 25:59 society where human rights are, are just 26:01 demolished and, and privacy and, and freedom 26:05 are, are no more. We're, we're away past 26:10 1984 today Lincoln. We're in a time where we 26:13 need to; to God good laws well and test all 26:17 laws by the word of God and by higher moral 26:19 absolutes I believe. You know the old saying 26:21 is that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty 26:25 and it's, I think this is something Americans 26:29 are so prone to focusing on what's new, 26:34 what's different, what's immediate? 26:35 You know it's, it's the age of, of texting and 26:39 Facebook and everything is very 26:41 shallow. We have to recover things that are 26:44 really significant. Eternal, eternal vigilance 26:48 really is the price of liberty, it's so important 26:52 to be informed and to stay involved and to 26:56 actually do something to protect 26:57 our Religious Freedom. 27:01 In the Old Testament it was obvious that the 27:04 Medes and the Persians imagine that their 27:06 laws once signed by the King could not be 27:09 changed. In the Western World laws are 27:13 not really like that, every time the legislator 27:15 sits down they can add to the laws. 27:18 The Supreme Court can put a new cast on an 27:20 old law, law is a dynamic and most of us 27:24 haven't quite realized that, it's only when you 27:27 look to God's word, to an absolute moral 27:30 eternal law because something that is fixed 27:33 and really ultimately inflexible. Today there is 27:38 a great debate in our world, in the United 27:41 States particularly about the role of law and 27:44 the role of morality. We need to recognize 27:48 that the church has a higher role to represent 27:51 God's law to a Secular State. The Secular 27:54 State is seeking to uphold the public good, 27:58 but it is not working necessarily for moral 28:01 absolutes. For Liberty Insider, 28:05 this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2014-12-17