Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Clifford Goldstein
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000176A
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00:22 Welcome to "The Liberty Insider."
00:24 This is the program that brings you 00:26 news, views, discussion, and opinion 00:28 on religious liberty events 00:30 in the United States and around the world. 00:32 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of "Liberty Magazine" 00:35 and my very special guest 00:37 on the program is Clifford Goldstein. 00:39 Now, some of our viewers may know you're Clifford 00:42 but I know you mostly as the previous editor 00:45 of "Liberty Magazine" and presently 00:47 you're the editor of the Sabbath School Lesson Quarterlies 00:50 for the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. 00:52 But let's talk about "Liberty Magazine." What? 00:54 For seven years, wasn't it, you were editor? 00:56 Yeah. I had written for it 00:58 for a number of years and worked with-- 01:00 You have a very long association with it. Yes. 01:02 And then I came in and I was there 01:03 about seven years, till I left. 01:05 But, you know, "Religious Liberty" 01:07 is a movable feast and you ate at that table 01:10 for a long time. Yeah. 01:11 What are some of your views on it as you look back on it 01:14 and maybe relate to what's happening now and what-- 01:17 Well, you know, it's very interesting, 01:19 because when you're immersed in it 01:20 and I was a lot younger 01:22 and I thought I had all the answers. 01:24 And everything was clear cut-- 01:25 You don't have them now? No, no. 01:27 And in fact even as I-- Yeah. 01:29 The longer, the more, you know, 01:30 it's that classical thing, the more you read, 01:32 the more you learn, the more you realize, you don't learn. 01:34 It's a very complex topic. Yeah. 01:36 Well, that was a thing that was very complex 01:38 and I started out with this idea 01:41 that church state separation was something that emanated 01:47 from the very nature of God himself. 01:50 And by promoting church state separation, 01:53 we were, you know, tapping into that. 01:55 And even though I'm for church state separation 01:58 of course, really it's much more complicated than that. 02:02 Well, it's more complicated than that, 02:04 but that is a bedrock principle. 02:05 I remember reading recently 02:07 the charter of how Seventh-Day Adventist Church 02:09 Religious Liberty moved but not the magazine. 02:11 And they put down there that they would fight against 02:13 anything and everything that diminished 02:15 the separation of church and states. 02:17 What is really funny though, 02:18 you know, what's very interesting 02:20 to and from our standpoint, from a prophetic standpoint, 02:23 how among many secular people, 02:26 I mean, among many of the religious people, 02:28 the concept of separation in church 02:30 and state has now become an anathema. 02:32 Well, this is what we need to dwell on not just this program. 02:34 I want to take another program to talk about that-- 02:37 I think in some ways it's perverted. 02:38 There are people who do the stupidest things 02:40 in the name of separation of church and state. 02:43 Some kid sits down and wants to pray over his meal 02:45 at lunch in a public school. 02:47 And they say, "You can't do that, 02:48 that's violating separation of churches." 02:50 That's got nothing to do with separation of churches. 02:52 Plus that's legally false anyhow-- 02:54 Yeah, of course, of course, you know, that was--so there was 02:57 because some things had been done, 02:58 but the troublesome thing is many traditional churches 03:02 that traditionally were very strong proponents 03:05 of church state separation-- 03:07 Have changed. Have changed. 03:08 And, you know, are now, you know, are hostile to it. 03:11 I can remember many years ago 03:12 when Pat Robertson was running for President. 03:16 Before he ran, he once said 03:18 something about church state separation being bad. 03:21 And at a press conference, I asked him about that thing 03:25 and he denied he ever said it. 03:26 Well, we went back and we found it. 03:28 Now it's common fare. 03:29 They all say they're against church state separation. And-- 03:32 Well, and I'd like to about it in some length in another show, 03:35 but Rick Santorum-- Yeah. 03:38 Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, that's an example. 03:39 Nobody 30, 40 years ago, 03:42 they never would have said anything like that, 03:44 but now every thing has changed 03:46 so much that it's become, you know-- 03:48 They've moved things around so that's the secularist 03:51 and the Anti-Americans almost that-- 03:54 Well, that was one of the things too that used to-- 03:57 and I'm sure you experienced this as Liberty Editor. 04:00 There'd be-- some issue would come up 04:01 and I would go down to some meeting in Washington D.C. 04:05 And I'm standing here, you know, representing Liberty 04:09 and you got the ACLU, the American Humanist Society, 04:13 the American Atheist Society, some extreme other groups 04:16 that we would have nothing to do with on any other issue. 04:20 Yeah, but on this very narrow thing 04:24 and I used to scratch my head sometimes and think, 04:27 "What's wrong with this picture?" 04:28 You know, I mean the principle that we're standing for is good 04:31 and I'm glad where they're doing it, 04:33 but it sometimes made me quite uncomfortable. 04:35 What am I doing with these people? 04:36 I don't agree with them on anything else 04:38 but this one thing. 04:39 So have you rethought that we need to be separationist 04:43 in that sense or what is the change 04:45 that's made it so apparently unpopular to be separationist? 04:49 Oh, well, I think what happened is that 04:51 a lot of the influence of the Christian right, 04:54 they have twisted the whole concept 04:57 of what separation of church and state is. 04:59 And when you, you know, I still remember them 05:02 talking about the war against Christians in America. 05:06 The war against them and-- I mean these are people 05:09 some of these big evangelists and I think of one 05:12 in particular, some guy 05:13 out in Colorado, big, big industry. 05:15 I don't know since-- because he's very popular 05:17 with a lot of people. 05:18 In fact I had been the at the doghouse more than once and-- 05:20 This wasn't Haggerty, was it? No, no, no. 05:21 Actually I was thinking of James Dobson, you know, 05:23 who did a lot of good stuff. 05:24 In fact more than once we had something-- 05:26 he would say something about religious liberty 05:27 that we didn't agree with. 05:29 And I'd come home and I'd get a tongue lashing from my wife 05:31 because we raised our kids on the principles of James Dobson, 05:34 you know, and she makes me sleep on the sofa. 05:36 You say anything more bad about him but on the specific area, 05:40 just on the specific church state separation area. 05:43 But let me put an interjection, 05:44 so that we don't totally badmouth Dobson. 05:46 Well, he's got a lot of good-- 05:48 You know, I'd spoke to him once 05:49 and he said that his principles of dealing with children, 05:52 he got absolutely from Raymond Moore. Well, yeah. 05:54 Seventh-Day Adventist child development expert 05:56 who got it from Ellen White's writings, 05:58 which is the Seventh-Day Adventist's heritage. 06:00 Well, I always said Dobson was great when he would help 06:01 with you bedwetting children 06:02 and men who were going through midlife crisis. 06:05 But get him on the topic of politics, 06:07 get him on the topic of politics and he made a fool of himself. 06:10 He was getting in with David Barton of Wallbuilders. 06:14 He'd bring some guy that even a lot of the Christian 06:15 right people say is a nut job. 06:17 And as far as separation of church and state, 06:18 he made a legal fool of himself, because his organization 06:21 was a threat with its non-profit status, 06:24 so he's become a political operative. 06:25 Yeah, I mean the thing is here a guy who sat-- 06:28 and he's not the only one. 06:29 I don't want to single him out as I said he's a good man. 06:31 He's done a lot of good. 06:32 But he was a guy sitting on millions of dollars of property 06:35 that the government lets him have tax-free 06:38 and they're bemoaning--you know, what used to get me 06:40 when I would hear these Christian right people talking 06:42 about the persecution of Americas. 06:44 I mean every day on my desk in Liberty and you know, 06:47 we'd get stories of Christians in countries 06:50 where they're thrown in jails, they're beaten, 06:52 their properties confiscated, their children are taken away. 06:56 And you've got these multimillionaire evangelist 06:58 sitting with these big vast empires 07:00 and all that complaining because, 07:02 oh, they don't let-- they're books aren't 07:06 put on the bestseller list or something like that. 07:08 And they are talking about persecution. It was a joke. 07:11 Yeah. In reality they want political power. 07:13 Well, that was the bottom line, yeah. 07:14 And as far as they're frustrated doing that, 07:16 they'll claim they're being persecuted. 07:17 So what better way to get the saints all worked up 07:21 to tell them that things like not allowing legislated prayer 07:24 in school is religious persecution, 07:26 not allowing a statue of "The Ten Commandments" 07:29 on public property is religious persecution. 07:31 They make a big hoopla about "The Ten Commandments" 07:33 but then none of them even keep it. 07:35 And what it's really done even hearing you discuss this, 07:39 it's diverted Christians attention from real persecution, 07:42 real trouble in other countries. 07:44 Yeah, well, it's just part of-- 07:45 Not some concern, but there's a lot 07:47 of self-absorption in the U.S. about gaining political power, 07:50 regaining this mythical Christian identity. 07:53 Oh, yeah. And you're right. 07:54 Nominally it's always been Christian-- 07:56 Well, more than nominally it was a protestant culture 07:59 as it began, but I've spoken on this program before, 08:03 structurally it never was a government of religion. 08:06 They're trying to turn it into that. 08:08 I remember years ago we had an article in Liberty 08:11 based on a book called "Our Godless Constitution." 08:14 And you read the U.S. Constitution, 08:16 it never says anything about God and the only time it says 08:19 anything about religion is to restrict what 08:21 the government can do and people out of hoopla because 08:23 they sometimes they mix up the Declaration of Independence 08:27 with the Constitution, but they think that 08:29 has nothing to do with us today-- 08:30 Well, it's the founding document, 08:32 but it isn't legal in the sense of the Constitution. 08:33 It has nothing to do with the way we run our country. 08:35 We don't run our country-- 08:37 And it was the product of just a couple of people. It wasn't-- 08:41 Someone will want to hang me for this. 08:42 If you read the Declaration of Independence-- 08:44 I mean, Jefferson was so over the top with that. 08:47 You study the history. It was a radical document. 08:51 I am an Australian background. 08:53 I've got to be cautious on what I say about that. 08:54 It was a radical document. 08:56 Sure we're glad we broke away from England 08:57 and it all worked out fine in the end but the bottom line 09:01 is the Declaration of Independence is not 09:04 how we run our country. 09:06 It's the Constitution. And what do you know? 09:08 There's nothing about God in the Constitution at all. 09:10 And that's not how people want to view-- 09:13 and they talk about the mythical days of American history. 09:16 Well, the days of slavery. 09:17 Yeah, what a great Christian nation we were. 09:20 We had slaves and then in parts of the country-- 09:23 It took, you know, a civil war to free the slaves 09:27 and then it took another 100 years of U.S. Supreme Court 09:30 to help get parts of the country to treat African Americans-- 09:34 And women to vote for that matter. 09:35 Yeah, women to vote. 09:37 Yeah, all this in our Christian nation. 09:38 I prefer the Christian America today 09:40 than the Christian America of the Jim Crow laws. 09:42 What I tell people without meaning and trying to demean 09:45 the Constitution but when you talk about church state issues 09:48 and higher loyalties to guard, you got to remember 09:50 the Constitution is a human construct. Yeah. 09:52 And all human constructs are fallible. 09:54 More than fallible they're a product of there environment. 09:57 And the Constitution is a pretty solid document 09:59 and it's serving the U.S. well, 10:01 but it's not without its flaws nor without its-- 10:02 Well, that's why they have the amendment process. 10:04 Absolutely. That's why we've amended it. 10:06 We've amended it. 10:07 Antonin Scalia who has some interesting ideas, 10:09 but that's his view. 10:10 You don't like it, change it. 10:11 Yeah, well, of course the whole point is not very easy to do. 10:13 But they made that purposely. 10:15 Yeah, yeah, but they-- of course it took 10:18 a civil war to get them to free slaves. 10:21 So, yeah, it was flawed from the start. 10:23 People understand that but-- 10:26 What did you think recently, 10:28 what it's about a year and a half 10:29 two years ago we had the congressmen 10:31 reading the Constitution as a public exercise? 10:34 Well, that's fine. 10:35 I mean it is the document and ideally 10:37 we're supposed to follow that but-- 10:39 Were you impressed by them? 10:40 What grade would you have given them? 10:41 Oh, I don't know and who's gonna--you know, 10:43 the Constitution is not simple. No. 10:45 You got to take your time and you got to read it. 10:46 It's complicated. There's a language. 10:48 But what impressed me after listening, 10:49 they're not reading it. 10:51 That's the message I get out of it. 10:52 That's the takeaway. There were missing sections. 10:54 It was political showmanship. Yes. 10:56 It was political showmanship. That's all it was. 10:58 And the Constitution should be cherished 11:00 and not used as a political ploy like that. 11:03 Well, you know, what the funny thing too is I thought about it. 11:06 You got this founding document. 11:08 I mean the instruction manual for my Honda Civic is about 11:13 five times the size of the founding document 11:16 of a country now-- Yes, but it only has 11:19 a 3-year warranty but the Constitution 11:21 has lasted a couple of centuries. 11:23 So when you were editing there, what are some of the topics 11:28 that stuck with you over the years 11:29 that you found significant. 11:33 It was fascinating to see how our concept of religious liberty 11:38 had changed over the years. 11:41 And so you know it's funny too how everybody says that, 11:44 you know, the first amendment says, 11:46 "Congress shall make no law 11:47 respecting an establishment of religion." 11:49 Well, notice, it says, Congress shall make no law. 11:52 If, you know, there's a big argument over original intent. 11:55 Well, if you went back 11:57 to what the founders originally intended. 12:00 I live in Maryland. 12:01 The way the Constitution was originally written, 12:04 if the state of Maryland which was a catholic state 12:07 wanted to make Roman Catholicism 12:10 the official religion of the state. They could. 12:12 There was absolutely nothing 12:14 in the Constitution to stand in the way. 12:16 In fact some have argued that the whole reason 12:18 they wrote the first amendment was to tell the states 12:23 that had established churches, our federal government 12:27 will leave your established churches alone. 12:29 And then what do you know, 100 some year, 12:31 150 years later whatever starting in the early 12:34 20th century they start incorporating 12:37 these to the state which I'm glad they did-- 12:40 You hit on the nail on the head before. 12:42 The pivotal thing on many issues but particularly 12:45 religious liberty is the civil war. 12:47 The civil war changed the power from 12:51 the sovereign states to a federal government. 12:53 And I studied American history and loved it. 12:56 The takeaway I got and I'm sure I'm right on it 12:59 because it's unambiguous early on these were 13:02 13 sovereign states, countries. 13:05 But, you know, it wasn't-- 13:06 They weren't giving away sovereignty. 13:08 They were compacting together for common defense 13:12 and commerce between the states. 13:15 But remember the time and that was right after 13:16 the war with England. 13:17 They were very ambitious and very jealous 13:20 for their sovereignty, you know, 13:22 and so on--I remember even reading somewhere someone said, 13:25 "I am willing to fight and die for New Jersey," okay? 13:28 So they were very reticent about that, 13:29 but, you know, 100 years have gone by. 13:31 No, we've changed, there's a new reality, 13:33 but we need to understand where that reality came from 13:35 and when these original intent guys started to look at it. 13:39 They're wrong on the Constitution and it's, 13:43 you know, creating an American Republic, 13:45 a Christian republic, they didn't do that. 13:47 But as you say, the sovereign states 13:49 I think that they expected that, that's how it was. 13:52 They had established churches. 13:54 Nobody was uncomfortable with it expect the people 13:56 in the other state, they didn't want-- 13:57 Well, they weren't comfortable 13:58 if you happen to be in the minority. 14:00 In fact they say one of the whole reasons 14:02 that you got the first amendment was the Virginia Baptist. Yeah. 14:06 They went to James Madison and said 14:09 we are not gonna support this Constitution 14:11 if you don't put a bill of rights in there 14:13 because we needed to protect that because 14:15 the Anglican Church was the established church. 14:17 Okay, we'll be back after a short break. 14:20 Interesting discussion. I can hardly stop talking myself. 14:24 We'll be back. Stay with us. |
Revised 2014-12-17