Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break
we were talking about,
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really a world in chaos
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in a world of chaotic religion.
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Yeah, that's the
best way to put it.
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Your--the emphasis
we've had with your book
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is really based on some of
the specific your experiences
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you had in Mongolia and China.
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But since, we talk
about global religion
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I need to get back on something
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that's occupied my mind a
lot since 9/11 particularly.
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Although, really
it goes back further,
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my father, used
to have many contacts
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in the temperance work
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with the
Seventh-day Adventist church
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and in particular
many with Islamic world.
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But since 9/11
it's focused my mind
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and many others and
I spend a lot of time,
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thinking about Islam,
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and I am sure you
read current events.
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And when every time
you go through an airport,
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you can't help but thinking
terrorist/Islamic terrorist.
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Its not question in my mind
that Islam is a looming threat
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to much of what the
Christian world stands for,
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which is not always Christ.
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But, I wanna
share a book with you
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and then get you comments,
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so that, in the
sense we will turn
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things on the head here.
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I don't know if the
camera is picking this up,
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but it's a book
that I read recently,
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the second by this author a
woman named Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
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Her first book was Infidel,
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which earned her death threat
or fatwa from Islamic leaders.
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She was a young woman
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brought up in
Somalia as a Muslim.
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Escaped from that
situation went to Holland,
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took a public life there,
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even became a member
of the Dutch Parliament.
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But wrote this book Infidel
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and her life
became unattainable.
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She had to travel
everywhere with police escort.
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She since come to
the United States.
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The second book
tells her life story.
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Did you, maybe I
should have asked further
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if you've been in countries
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where there's Islamic influence.
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I have not.
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With a caveat I grew
up with many, many friends
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that came to the
U.S. from Muslim nations.
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And I am not--
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So you probably had some
interesting discussions--
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I had very
interesting discussions.
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Well, let's call them arguments.
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Well, yes but what I
want to get out from the back,
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there is
something little leads us
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to discussion for
the rest of this time.
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Islam was not
good to this woman.
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She left it with
extreme prejudice they say.
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She has become an atheist.
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She doesn't believe in
anything personally. Oh dear.
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Philosophically which is
a personal tragedy, I think.
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People need religion,
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I think God made a God
shape void in every ones heart.
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But in this book,
she is telling her story
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and then at the end
she puts up prescriptions
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as to how to deal with
this problem with Islam.
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You know, convicted
Muslim, I don't like that.
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But she is
describing what we all know,
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that there's a conflict
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and some
violence by some Muslims
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or something that's
troubling the world.
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And I was really taken
with what she says at the end.
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Listen to this.
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She says, this is
an atheist speaking,
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an ex Muslim, "I have a theory
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that most Muslims are in
search of redemptive God."
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It's interesting. Yes.
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They believe that
there's a higher power
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and that this higher power
is the provider of morality.
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Many Muslim are seeking a God
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or a concept of
God that in my view
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meets the description
of the Christian God,
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instead they find in Allah.
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And then, on an
other spread near the end,
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she says, "The west
needs the Christian churches
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to get active again and
propagating their faith.
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It needs Christian
schools, Christian volunteers,
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the Christian message."
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And, then she concludes
with this thought saying,
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"I am not a Christian
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and I have no plans to convert.
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But, I am intrigued
by religious institutions
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and the role they play in
socializing young people."
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She says, "Some
readers may still be skeptical
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that the clash of civilizations
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can be won through
religious competition.
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But I know it can work,
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because I have seen
it with my own eyes."
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That's an
interesting colder activity
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to the Christian
world not to fight Islam.
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I mean that's led us
very in a bad direction
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as both sides therefore,
but to counter it with Christ,
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with the Christian God,
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with the true Christian witness.
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There is a huge work to be done,
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by the brave and the bold
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and it is call that
would scare most people.
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I know you've come up
against well not up against,
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but you have encountered
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some of the Adventist frontier
missions' people. Absolutely.
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In different parts of the world
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and I know that
they are the brave
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and the bold, some of them.
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I have good
friends who have served
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in very trying situation
in places, yeah, within AFM.
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But I don't know the answer,
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but I know that she's
given the right lead there.
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We shouldn't just feel
that this huge societal
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and religious clashes is
only going to end up badly
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that it's all negative.
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Very beneath it in
the global collapse
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that you're talking
about it in your book.
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I think there's this
wonderful opportunity,
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but it has to be Christ.
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Yeah, I'm convinced that
there's a huge opportunity
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that we that the
age that we're in,
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both political and economic,
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is one that is
going to cause people
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to examine their lives
anytime in this secular world,
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mostly secular world, that
people examine there lives.
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There's this huge opportunity.
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Well, you say
mostly secular world,
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I'll challenge you
politically on that.
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Okay, good, good.
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You were in China?
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This might have given me
a view of a secular world.
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Maybe, well I mean,
that I'll debate it with you.
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Material world, material world.
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Yes, I think you
can debate it in China.
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I tend to think that,
confucian--Confucianism
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and other, I am trying to think
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of the Chinese
philosophical/ religious fuse.
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I think that still
somewhat it work in China.
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But, I will grant
China and grant Australia,
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England and
America as largely secular,
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but most of the world
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I think is driven by
religious sensibility.
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If not, by personal
priority within a worldview,
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that is structured by
a religious construct.
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You know, in Asia, I
did see, a religion at work.
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And, I don't want to
come across the wrong way,
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but the religion that
I saw work was Mormonism.
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And now, okay granted,
I did live in Hong Kong
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and that's pretty much
ground zero for Mormonism,
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I acknowledge that.
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And of course, people everywhere
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do have a spiritual nature.
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But, we have become in my
view largely a material world.
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But, we are also in my view
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at the outer edge of an ark
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and are coming back
towards much spiritually.
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Absolutely I think
that's the direction.
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Well, I hope spirituality,
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but we certainly
going and coming back
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to religious consciousness.
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I make the distinction,
in fact I have spoken
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at the few
religious liberty conferences,
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where I have gotten
up and said directly,
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I said there's way too
much religion in the world?
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Way too much
religion, because you can argue
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from the point of historian,
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religion is being
one of the great curses
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upon mankind, but spirituality
not enough of that. Yeah.
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And that's the
redeeming side of true religion,
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if it's spiritual and elevating
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and speaking to the
higher nature of man
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and reaching toward the
divine that doesn't ever go bad.
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Now when, religion becomes
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part of a social
and political construct
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and not the basis
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for a personal
relationship with God.
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You know, how do we
then have too much religion
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and are we drowned in
spirituality with religion.
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I will put the
question back to you.
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Yes, it's a good
point, I like that.
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I think we clearly can.
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And you know, there's
someone living out in main too,
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I think there's lot to be said,
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since the world is pressing.
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I have been
good on poetry today,
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there's a line
of poetry it says,
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world is too much for this.
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I really think a lot of modern
world is conspiring to occupy,
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frustrate or to blind us,
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so much that we can't think
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of the finer most
spiritual things of life.
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And you need to Jesus
says, you got up before dawn
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and went to a silent or
isolated place in pride.
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It's true you can pray in
your mind in any environment,
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but it's very hard
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when everything
is crowding on you.
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And this modern
world is taking away
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that option very often I think,
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the need for
solitude and spirituality.
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See for me it
comes down to this,
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that do we have a sufficient
relationship with Christ.
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How we build that
friendship with Christ
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that we can carry
on the work of Christ
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in a world that becomes
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more and more and
more unstable and chaotic.
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We must, but it's a
challenging question
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we need to ask ourselves.
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I have probably mentioned
on this program before,
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but it comes up
in my mind naturally
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when my father died,
five and half years ago now,
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and not a unique occurrence.
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We all have
that one way or other
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but what's very impressive
for me in the hospital.
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He was there for about ten days,
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different phases, with
surgery and intensive care,
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but he was always very coherent.
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And I had the unusual
privilege to, early on,
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I was there for his
surgery and so what all
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and then I had to go
back to work for few days.
00:10:05.75\00:10:07.43
And I wrote a
Liberty editorial in between
00:10:07.44\00:10:09.42
and then I came back
when he was in intensive care
00:10:09.43\00:10:12.29
and I shared the editorial
00:10:12.30\00:10:13.33
I had written that
featured him. Yeah.
00:10:13.34\00:10:15.67
And he was talking
about some of the experiences
00:10:15.68\00:10:18.01
working for the
church sharing with people.
00:10:18.02\00:10:20.94
And I read it to him
00:10:20.95\00:10:21.97
and I thought it
was a good editorial,
00:10:21.98\00:10:23.33
I--actually was written okay.
00:10:23.34\00:10:26.16
And I have expected him to
say as he always did very good,
00:10:26.17\00:10:28.97
you know, great.
00:10:28.98\00:10:30.84
And he didn't look unhappy,
00:10:30.85\00:10:32.09
but he crippled
he says its okay,
00:10:32.10\00:10:34.42
he says but
there's something missing
00:10:34.43\00:10:36.82
and in that
environment you know-- Yeah.
00:10:36.83\00:10:39.31
It wasn't that
I minded my father
00:10:39.32\00:10:40.87
different from me,
but you know, this is--
00:10:40.88\00:10:42.71
You didn't expect analysis--
00:10:42.72\00:10:43.84
This is no tongue no murmur.
00:10:43.85\00:10:45.05
I know, he's gonna be
dead in a couple of days
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and he repeated
it couple of times
00:10:47.30\00:10:48.71
and then he says,
you must present Christ.
00:10:48.72\00:10:51.62
And, that really was,
00:10:51.63\00:10:53.40
it's not like I never
thought of that before.
00:10:53.41\00:10:55.31
I have always tried to not
just treat religious liberty
00:10:55.32\00:11:00.17
as a legal construct, but
there was an object lesson,
00:11:00.18\00:11:03.90
because I was writing
about religious liberty there
00:11:03.91\00:11:05.83
and he says present Christ.
00:11:05.84\00:11:07.31
And I am
absolutely convinced that
00:11:07.32\00:11:09.72
religious liberty,
religious freedom is fine.
00:11:09.73\00:11:12.40
We all want to fight
for it, we speak relevant.
00:11:12.41\00:11:14.68
But if you don't
turn it back to the author
00:11:14.69\00:11:17.97
to the one that gives
us our marching orders,
00:11:18.00\00:11:21.19
it's pointless.
00:11:21.20\00:11:22.79
But let me
springboard of your story
00:11:22.80\00:11:24.54
and relate a very short story.
00:11:24.55\00:11:26.62
My wife's
grandfather Percy Emanuel
00:11:26.63\00:11:31.45
was a tremendous gentleman,
00:11:31.46\00:11:32.77
a man that I learned a lot from.
00:11:32.78\00:11:34.31
Unfortunately, he declined
a lot in his later years
00:11:34.32\00:11:36.76
and his mind
eroded away to the point
00:11:36.77\00:11:39.50
where he didn't recognize people
00:11:39.51\00:11:41.49
and yet if you said,
let's pray before the meal,
00:11:41.50\00:11:45.40
he would bow his head,
00:11:45.41\00:11:46.69
he would fold his
hands and he would pray.
00:11:46.70\00:11:48.24
When he couldn't recognize
00:11:48.25\00:11:49.29
or do anything
else he could do that.
00:11:49.30\00:11:51.34
And my standard is what is
deep inside us so ingrained--
00:11:51.35\00:11:59.86
We definitely has
something inherent
00:11:59.87\00:12:01.45
that reaches out spirituality.
00:12:01.46\00:12:03.55
Yeah, is our
relationship with God
00:12:03.56\00:12:05.24
so deeply
ingrained that we can take
00:12:05.25\00:12:09.88
a stand for Him
when all else is gone.
00:12:09.89\00:12:12.93
Is our relationship
with Him so ingrained
00:12:12.94\00:12:15.87
that we witness for Him
when things are going wrong
00:12:15.88\00:12:19.50
or we have lost everything else.
00:12:19.51\00:12:21.68
In this day and age
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when the world is
rapidly declining,
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is our relationship with
God sufficient for the time.
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That's the question.
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Sometimes the
solution to our problem is
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so obvious that
people tend not to notice.
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We are in a world that's being
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convulsed by religious conflict.
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In fact the
entire war on terrorism
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on one level is nothing
but a religious conflict.
00:12:43.15\00:12:46.51
Some years ago I visited
the city of Rio de Janeiro
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and I was struck that
city that was poverty stricken,
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that hedonistically inclined
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but above it high
on the hill stood that
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figure of Christ to redeem
with His arms outstretched.
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In the years since I have seen
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a similar
figure in other places.
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In Dili, the
capital of East Timor,
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a place torn apart by genocide
00:13:06.44\00:13:09.39
that had left as many
as 200,000 people dead
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also had Christ with His arms
stretched out over that city.
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And there in Emborg,
where I visited a city
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that was torn apart by
again religious conflict.
00:13:19.63\00:13:22.37
Tens of thousands
of people killed, again
00:13:22.38\00:13:24.85
a giant statue of Christ.
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I believe that we
need to follow the Christ
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who said, "And I
if I be lifted up
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will draw all men unto Me."
00:13:32.00\00:13:34.78
Christ is not an abstraction
or just a statues figure.
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He has to be real
and vibrant in the lives
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and witness of His followers.
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For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:13:45.43\00:13:48.89