Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Dwayne Leslie
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000150
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00:22 Welcome to The Liberty Insider. This is the program that brings
00:26 you discussion and news and updates on religious liberty 00:29 issues and events around the world. My name is 00:32 Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty magazine. My guest on the 00:36 program is Dwayne Leslie. Dwayne you're the legislative liaison 00:40 for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, just so our viewers know 00:43 your responsibility. But let's talk about something that goes 00:47 beyond church matters. You know, separation of church and state 00:52 is the bedrock position of Liberty Magazine and I know 00:54 of what you do in representing the Seventh-day Adventist Church 00:57 but that doesn't mean that we're unaware of political happenings. 01:00 It's just that we are not partisan political operatives. 01:04 But we're swimming in the pond of political activity obviously. 01:09 Right now in the United States we're in a very early buildup 01:13 or earlier than usual, in my view, there's been a buildup to 01:18 the presidential campaign for 2012. Do you see religion being 01:24 bandied around in ways that might be troublesome? 01:27 Well I think it's interesting because for a country that has 01:31 had a historical separation of church and state, what we're 01:35 seeing in this campaign and what's a growing trend is a 01:39 move toward religiosity of candidates on both sides of the 01:44 political spectrum. 01:45 Didn't Michele Bachman, whose fortunes have faded a little, 01:49 didn't she make some statement about the separation of church 01:52 and state as sort of un-American? 01:54 Well, she just said that it doesn't and should not exist 01:59 and I think she spoke to a group of youth leaders and she just 02:04 said that they're teaching separation of church and state 02:07 and it's not true. 02:09 What do you think about that? 02:11 Well as somebody whose job is to promote and protect religious 02:14 freedom, I'm troubled with that. I understand that people have 02:17 strong political views and strong religious views, but I 02:22 think I get very nervous if we want to impose those views 02:26 onto others that may not share those same beliefs. 02:29 After some of the debates and even after the different 02:33 presidential addresses, not just the present president; I've 02:37 listened to radio programs where they have the truth meter and 02:40 they sort of gage some of the statements, it seems to be that 02:44 is a statement that's just palpably untrue. She may have 02:48 honestly said it. I think she believes it. 02:50 Yes, that's what I mean. She may believe that. 02:53 Or it may be an advocacy statement saying that it 02:55 shouldn't be. 02:56 Yeah and this does trouble me that I think the American 02:59 electorate more than Australia where I came from tends to 03:02 accept what politicians say. They don't realize that we're 03:06 being bombarded more and more with talking points that very 03:10 often are manipulations of reality but on occasion they're 03:14 just flat wrong. 03:16 And I think what we're seeing, particularly among the 03:19 Republican candidates, is that many of them are attacking to 03:23 the right in terms of basically saying that there really should 03:27 not be this wall and it's okay to bring your personal Christian 03:31 beliefs into, not just the public sphere, but in terms of 03:35 governing even. 03:36 Where did this ideal of a wall come from? I've read the 03:38 constitution. It doesn't say it in the constitution. 03:42 Well I think it tracks back to something Thomas Jefferson said 03:45 a long time ago. I think it was in response the Danbury 03:49 letter I believe, the Danbury Baptists, and he said that 03:52 there's this wall of separation. But that's been debated 03:55 considerably over the years. 03:58 What about the context of the? I've mentioned it myself but 04:02 I've never heard anyone really explain the context of that 04:06 letter and not the way that I think it should be. Why was he 04:10 writing that letter? Or why did they write to him? 04:12 Well I think, if I remember correctly, I believe in that 04:17 case the Danbury group was basically troubled with the 04:21 people who were professing their Christian beliefs for 04:26 political gain. 04:27 Yes they were concerned enough. But people tend to forget, 04:32 Thomas Jefferson, when he ran for president, was accused of 04:38 being a total secularist, against religion, basically a 04:43 heretic and someone that was not fit to rule the country. 04:46 So it seems to me the prevailing concern of the time was that 04:51 there was not enough religion in government, that religion would 04:55 be driven away and in some ways the Danbury Baptists were 04:59 running against the tide at the moment. Most people wanted more 05:02 government involvement in religion and more overt 05:06 religiosity. 05:07 But now I think Jefferson's view would almost be viewed, as you 05:11 said, was to be secularist. 05:14 Yes, and I think in the best sense he was a secularist but 05:19 I'd like to have another program sometime to discuss more about 05:23 Jefferson and through some of his letters with Adams. 05:26 I've been impressed by those. But you know he made a 05:29 great statement, in fact I think I have it here, let me read it. 05:32 And this is what is wish some of these candidates would apply 05:35 to themselves at the moment. He says, "Say nothing of my 05:40 religion. It is known to my God and myself alone. It's evidence 05:45 before the world is to be sought in my life. If that has 05:48 been honest and dutiful to society, the religion that has 05:53 regulated it cannot be a bad one. " And obviously it matters 05:57 what faith or lack of faith a candidate has. I think it's very 06:01 important. But you judge it on how they act on it, not sort 06:05 of... Well, as the constitution says, no religious test for 06:09 public office. That's the improper side of it. But yes in 06:13 a nominally religious society, not a government, I think it's 06:17 very important to many people what faith that person 06:20 exemplifies. 06:22 Well I think it is relevant to see what they have but in 06:28 today's currently politically charged environment it's really 06:31 hard to separate their personal views from their ability to 06:35 govern objectively. That's on both sides. 06:39 What about Governor Perry? He said that he was praying for 06:42 certain things. He even prayed that President Obama would see 06:46 the light on other things. 06:47 Well I think he, quote, that he prayed that he would turn back 06:52 the health care law. 06:54 Like Daniel was at great pains to be seen publicly praying 06:57 when he was forbidden. But I don't read in the Bible where we 07:01 know what he prayed for. I mean that crossing sort of a line 07:05 where you're invoking your God for a political agenda. That's 07:09 what I see on that. 07:10 And that starts to take you down, I think, a difficult path. 07:16 Yeah, and we don't want any of our political leaders to stand 07:21 up as a religious leader and say, You know, I know what God 07:27 wants for this country and here this group or this religion is 07:31 opposed to that and, therefore, they're un-American. You know, 07:35 since 9/11 we've seen plenty of evidence that the political 07:39 parties or political factions will do that: Say my political 07:43 enemies are not Americans, they're supporters of terrorism 07:47 and so on. That's a nefarious use of this dynamic, but we 07:51 don't want that applied to religion. 07:54 No and again there's sort have been that talk that we have to 07:57 protect America from these, you know, these people who don't 08:01 have out best interest at heart and that has really put in 08:04 danger some people that share minority views. 08:08 Yeah, absolutely. What else in the campaign has sort of caught 08:11 your radar? 08:13 Well again I think it's interesting how people are 08:16 trying to see I'm more religious that the next guy, or my 08:21 Christian views are better or more mainstream than views that 08:25 are out of the mainstream. 08:28 Several years ago I know I used this example but this seems 08:30 like and appropriate time to remember. There was a Bloom 08:33 County cartoon - Do you follow Bloom County, Opus the penguin? 08:38 In fact, I think this was as far back as the beginning of the 08:43 Bush administration when religion was freely used for 08:48 political advantage. And Opus in the cartoon was a candidate. 08:52 He was running for office and he stood up and he says, I believe 08:56 in religion. And he says, furthermore, I believe it 09:02 20% more than my nearest candidate. And he says, but my 09:06 religion is a private affair. He says, I will not share it. 09:10 Then from the audience someone yells out, because he's a 09:14 penguin, they said do you believe in walrus angels? 09:16 And he says, Oh certainly I do. And the next thing you see him 09:20 being kicked off the stage, and he says, Conspicuous religiosity 09:25 is such a dangerous thing. Well you see there is a down side to 09:30 someone that invokes religion I think and it's not a self 09:36 correcting mechanism but very often people that go beyond what 09:40 they should in religious propriety to try to get 09:43 political support by a religious stand, you know, they pay a 09:48 price. And that's probably appropriate and it's our best 09:52 hope at the moment. But I could wish that we could as a 09:55 constituency in the United States, that people could sort 09:58 of communicate to these political leaders that it's not 10:01 to the good of the country and it often offends minorities 10:05 certainly. And it's offensive to the constitution isn't it? 10:09 Well I think so, but what we're realizing is that to go the 10:13 other way... I mean if someone is truly a secularist, 10:17 or where else are they going to go. So I think even on both 10:21 sides they realize that we can actually play to the religious 10:25 crowd because they do vote; there's a lot of political power 10:28 and the people who are not religions, they're going to vote 10:32 a certain way anyway. 10:33 You know in the early Seventh- day Adventist Church... I don't 10:36 know if you've read this article in Liberty yet but in the early 10:40 Seventh-day Adventist Church there was a serious debate 10:43 among the membership as to whether they should be 10:46 politically involved at all because it seemed to them that 10:50 they were heading sooner rather than later to Christ's 10:54 everlasting kingdom, this was a sinful world that was imploding 10:59 rapidly and they shouldn't be concerned with solving problems 11:02 here and now through political means, that they should be 11:05 heavenly-minded and heaven-bound and there was quite a discussion 11:08 about whether they should be involved in political matters. 11:11 But I think our primary focus obviously is our eternal 11:18 salvation but while we're here I think we want to make sure 11:21 that the world is a better place and if we're to love our 11:24 neighbor, part of loving them is to make sure that they have 11:27 the right to worship and believe the way that they want to. 11:30 Absolutely, I agree with you. So I think that it's a matter of 11:36 balance. If a Christian had put an unbalanced amount of their 11:40 concern with solving here and now they show that they're not 11:44 really headed there but we're not to be so heavenly-minded 11:48 that we're of no earthly use, to use the old cliché. And I think 11:51 the Seventh-day Adventist Church did settle it that way. There 11:55 were real issues and prohibition which is the loaded word but 11:58 the temperance message which was a moral regeneration of 12:02 their society argued strongly that they needed to be involved 12:06 politically. And you gave the reason too I think. A person of 12:10 faith and of good charity toward their fellows would want to do 12:14 what they could here and now to improve the lot of other people. 12:17 And I think the one danger sometimes is that we can make 12:21 broad generalizations about an entire group of believers, which 12:25 may or may not be true. And again the message that it sends 12:29 is one of rigidity and intolerance and I think we saw 12:33 candidate Herman Cain who did that who made a statement 12:36 originally which he subsequently retracted that he wouldn't 12:39 include Muslims in his administration should he be 12:41 elected. 12:43 Yeah, that was a very ill- advised statement. 12:44 Right, but again he's taken that back but when you look at how 12:49 that was perceived both here in this country and abroad, it says 12:54 that its rigidity and intolerance. I think he's 12:58 realized that obviously that's not something that you should 13:02 state publicly. 13:04 You know, he's fairly new to the political scene. I think he was 13:07 expressing a personal bias that he hadn't thought through too 13:10 carefully but he's thought on it long and hard now. And to 13:13 it's credit the United States has shown a willingness to 13:15 involve many religious minorities in high office. 13:19 As I said, it derives from the constitution, no religious test 13:24 of public office. You know we can debate what they really 13:28 meant when they put that in because in its past history the 13:33 U.S. has been extremely biased toward certain religious and 13:38 national groups, there's no question. Right. 13:41 We'll be back after a short break. Stay with us for our 13:45 discussion of religion in politics in the presidential 13:49 campaign. 13:50 ¤ ¤ 13:58 One hundred years, a long time to do anything, much less 14:02 publish a magazine. But this year Liberty, the Seventh-day 14:06 Adventist voice of religious freedom celebrates 100 years of 14:10 doing what it does best, collecting, analyzing and 14:14 reporting the ebb and flow of religious expression around the 14:18 world. Issue after issue Liberty has taken on the tough 14:21 assignments, tracking down threats to religious freedom and 14:24 exposing the work of the devil in every corner of the globe. 14:28 Governmental interference, person attacks, corporate 14:31 assaults, even religious freedom issues sequestered within the 14:34 church community itself have been clearly and honestly 14:38 exposed. Liberty exists for one purpose: To help God's people 14:42 maintain that all important separation of church and state 14:46 while recognizing the dangers inherent in such a struggle. 14:50 During the past century Liberty has experienced challenges of 14:53 its own but it remains on the job thanks to the inspired 14:57 leadership of a long line of dedicated Adventist editors, 15:00 three of whom represent almost half of the publication's 15:03 existence and the foresight of a little woman from New England. 15:07 One hundred years of struggle, 100 years of victories. 15:11 Religious freedom isn't just about political machines and 15:15 cultural prejudices; it's about people fighting for the right to 15:20 serve the God they love as their hearts and the Holy Spirit 15:23 dictate. Thanks to the prayers and generous support of Seventh 15:27 day Adventists everywhere, Liberty will continue to 15:31 accomplish its work of providing timely information, Spirit 15:34 filled inspiration and heaven sent encouragement to all who 15:38 long to live and work in a world bound together by the God 15:42 ordained bonds of religious freedom. 15:47 ¤ ¤ 15:52 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider. Before the break I was 15:57 talking with guest Dwayne Leslie about the buildup to the 16:02 election of 2012 and how religion has really, I think, 16:06 played an unseemly part in it already. But it's not new. 16:11 I mean, go back 8-10 years ago to when George Bush was running 16:16 for president. There were plenty of religious comments and 16:20 players, but it seems to me there's been a shift. Don't you 16:24 agree, where it was the classic religious right, Jerry Falwell 16:27 and the moral majority people and their hard core religious 16:32 agenda. I don't see that same group evident in this campaign 16:37 already, do you? 16:38 Not really, but I think what's happened is that we've had a 16:41 broadening of the appeal on religion, because, again, 16:44 traditionally religion was more seen on the right as opposed 16:48 to the left and I think the left realized that in the recent 16:52 election 41% of the electorate were church goers. And so they 16:56 thought here's an opportunity to tap into that and so it's 17:00 okay to "be religious. " 17:03 Yeah, because like Rick Warren who's now a major league favored 17:08 figure by the political elite. You know his appeal is not sort 17:12 of doctrinaire, it's more sort of the mega church approach 17:17 so in some ways it's worse than it was then. Then it was a 17:20 highly motivated doctrinaire religious group that had decided 17:24 to become politically involved. Now it's broadened and, as you 17:27 say, the Democrats have got religion, the Republicans feel 17:32 that it's theirs but they'll invoke it just the same but it's 17:36 more broad-based and I think across the political spectrum 17:40 politicians see a political advantage in using religious 17:44 sentiment and that's not in itself wrong but when they use 17:48 it improperly it just troubles me. A demagogue on religion 17:52 never occurs that well does it? 17:54 Well and again what that does though it again sets up a debate 17:58 as to who's a better Christian than someone else and then that 18:02 takes you down a path in a political election which I'm not 18:06 sure we want to be. 18:07 Absolutely. So what do you think is going to happen. 18:10 Play the prophet or the pundant, the TV pundant. Where do you 18:19 think we're headed. Is this going to rattle along on the 18:24 slightly proprietous level or do you think it's going to 18:28 come more and more... 18:30 Well I think at some point it will reach a point where there's 18:34 that natural balance. Because on the one side, on the left, you 18:38 probably don't want to go too far. You don't want to alienate 18:42 the folks who are not religious at all. Then I think on the 18:46 right side then you may have a situation where if it gets 18:50 to be too much religion in politics then you still want to 18:54 appeal to the center because a lot of the American public is in 18:57 the center. 18:58 Now of course we are in an election season but other things 19:02 are happening. The economy is, depending on where you're coming 19:07 from, you can say that it's crippling along and barely 19:09 recovering or you can say that it's on the verge of dropping 19:13 off another cliff and when people get dissatisfied, they 19:17 become politically restive and when things get bad for them 19:21 they become more religious. Do you think that this dynamic is 19:24 working in conjunction with the campaign? 19:28 In some ways, like you said, in difficult times people are 19:33 you know, but go back to church, they become stronger in their 19:38 faith and so I think people want to see candidates who they can 19:43 identify with, with their faith group. But that can also cut 19:47 against you if you're candidate that is not deemed to be from 19:51 the typical traditional main stream and the voter says, I 19:55 can't identify with you so that could be a problem. 20:01 You mean Mitt Romney. I feel very sorry for him really. 20:06 I'm not supporting any candidate We said we would never say that 20:11 on this program but just look at him as a human being who 20:14 happens to be a candidate. I think this whole religion issue 20:17 is biting him big time at the moment. 20:19 Well what it does is it's now the story that won't go away 20:23 and so one part of the debate with religion on the campaign 20:27 trail is the scrutiny of candidate Romney and his 20:31 religion which then leads into well let's look at the 20:35 examination of the beliefs of the Mormon church. 20:38 Which may not be bad for Mormonism. I can remember in 20:42 Australia years ago when the Lindy Chamberlain issue was 20:46 was preoccupying the whole nation. Of course, Lindy 20:50 Chamberlain was the wife of an Adventist pastor and their child 20:55 had been taken under bizarre circumstances by dingoes and she 20:59 eventually spent time in prison on murder charges which were 21:05 later dismissed. But I remember we got an expert who happened 21:10 to also be a member of the church, a public figure who was 21:14 on television a multimillionaire doctor and we asked him what 21:19 can we do to solve this PR problem. And he says, well I 21:23 think any publicity is good publicity. He says, it will turn 21:28 out well in the end. And I have to admit that I think the truth 21:32 of that has been born out. You know 9/11 was a disastrous 21:35 event clearly. It was bad to see that fanatical Muslims had been 21:41 involved there. You would think that that would be a negative 21:46 for Islam. It's not. More people than ever have wanted to find 21:50 out about Islam. They've been studying it vigorously. In the 21:54 United States the conversion rate has gone up. I have a 21:58 feeling that Mormonism is not going to suffer from this. Mitt 22:03 Romney is but people want to find out more when they hear 22:08 these attacks. 22:10 But I mean, it's interesting. I've had a chance to actually 22:12 talk with some high level Mormons on this and it's a 22:16 chance to tell their story. So they look at it as a chance to 22:21 get a lot of free publicity to say, Here's what we believe, 22:26 and candidate Romney doesn't want to engage in that so when 22:30 he gets questions he refers them to the church. 22:33 Yeah and of all the candidates I actually think he's the one 22:37 that's least problematic on how he projects his religion. 22:40 I haven't seen him sort of using it for political advantage which 22:45 he could. It would be hard for him to do but he doesn't sort 22:47 of try for the cheap shots. But pulling back from that, 22:51 I need to make a statement to our viewers. We are told in the 22:55 Bible that there will be a very special testing time at the end 22:59 of time when God's people will have to give an account for 23:02 their faith. Certainly that's happened many times in the past 23:05 and even now in some countries. But more globally that will be 23:09 the case and I really think that while persecution is not good, 23:12 that's the up side to it. When you're really brought to account 23:16 for what you believe, in a certain way it can only help the 23:20 truth. What did Jesus say? You can't do anything against it 23:24 only for it. So we need to keep that dynamic in mind and while 23:28 I don't agree with Mormonism, I respect Mitt Romney for having 23:33 that faith, for not being ashamed of it and also not so 23:37 far, in my view, for in a cheap way trying to use it. 23:41 Well people should judge him and all the candidates on are they 23:45 the right person to lead this country on either side of the 23:49 spectrum. 23:51 And you know, you've got to ask the question, let's forget about 23:54 Mitt Romney, but you know if you had a secularist who is a person 23:58 of good publish morality and governs well, is that better 24:02 or worse than say someone who trumpets loudly that they're a 24:06 Christian but is living very badly as a Christian. So just 24:10 to be a Christian is not... 24:13 That's actually a great point because from a religious liberty 24:16 perspective the secularist would probably be the strongest 24:19 advocate for religious freedom. 24:22 And in reality, back to Thomas Jefferson, we've got the example 24:26 He was not quite as secular as people imagined but he was not 24:30 an orthodox Christian by any stretch, but he was very heavy 24:34 into public morality and I think he was a patriot and what he and 24:38 some of the others put down on paper has stood the U.S. well. 24:43 It was interesting because he took it, I think, to almost a 24:47 logical extreme where he was so particular about not wanting to 24:51 cross the line between church and state, he refused to issue 24:55 thanksgiving day proclamations, which I thought was interesting. 24:59 Very interesting. He was not the only one to be cautious about 25:03 that but you know he just wouldn't deal with it. 25:06 But I'm not sure a secularist today could win the nomination 25:10 of either party and actually win an election 25:15 It's a good point because while in the very early days of the 25:19 the U.S. republic religion was more commonly accepted than now, 25:22 the U.S. had gone through some periods of what, in retrospect, 25:27 seem extreme secularity. So we are very publicly religious now 25:32 which is not bad on a personal or cultural level but it's very 25:36 bad politically. That's my view. 25:39 And the thing is, what message does this send to the 25:41 international community? I think is something that we also need 25:44 to focus on. 25:46 Absolutely. We're arguing against, you know, the 25:49 televisation of the Islamic world. We need to be careful 25:53 that we don't have a similar dynamic in the United States. 25:57 I think that's exactly right, because what's happening abroad 26:01 is sort of what happens if you play this out; if one way of 26:06 religious thought becomes too strong and then they are able to 26:10 have the power to oppress the religious world. 26:12 Yeah, so I think the genius of the United States is that it 26:15 stands both for religious freedom and for the separation 26:18 of church and state, or a secular governance. 26:21 Right. And I think that that is one of the things that we really 26:23 want to focus on. Because particularly in our department 26:26 we focus on protecting religious freedom and really getting that 26:30 message out and so to folks in other parts of the world we want 26:35 to set a good example that it's possible as we sort of move 26:39 together a little bit but we can still protect religious freedom 26:42 and still protect the rights of all Americans to believe what 26:46 they want and share their faith accordingly. 26:49 Years ago, decades actually, I traveled to Jamaica during the 26:54 prime ministership of Prime Minister Manly and attended a 26:59 political gathering. I'll never forget it. There were tens of 27:03 thousands in the crowd and when the prime minister arrived as he 27:07 walked up to the podium they chanted out lion, lion, lion, 27:11 lion of Judah. And he got up there and ranted and raved 27:15 against his political enemies, these were the Philistines, and 27:19 he said I will take you, he says my people to the promised land. 27:23 I found it very interesting political theater, almost 27:27 humorous at the time because there was not an edge to it. 27:32 It was almost a naive religiosity. But I must admit 27:36 as the years have gone by, and particularly in the U.S. 27:39 presidential campaign, I hear religion similarly invoked and 27:43 the same marginalization of the political religious enemies. 27:47 My blood runs cold because I don't think this thing is 27:51 healthy. It's not healthy any time. It certainly is not 27:54 healthy when there is a constitutional requirement of 27:58 the separation of church and state. For Liberty Insider this 28:03 is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2014-12-17