Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Clifford Goldstein
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000180A
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00:22 Welcome to the "Liberty insider."
00:24 This is the program bringing you up-to-date, 00:26 news, views, discussion, 00:27 and information on religious liberty, 00:30 developments around the world 00:31 and of course particularly in the United States. 00:34 I am Lincoln Steed, Editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:37 And my guest on the program is Clifford Goldstein. 00:41 Once upon a time, an editor of Liberty Magazine, 00:44 but for the last 13 or 14 years Editor 00:46 of the Seventh-day Adventist Sabbath School Lessons 00:49 that go out around the whole world membership. 00:53 Now you never have anybody differ from you 00:55 or what you edit in put together-- 00:57 I have never, never, ever. 00:59 And I wish I can say that about 01:01 what goes to liberty even though 01:03 it's a consistent with the historic 01:07 Adventist view on religious liberty. 01:09 But within a church there is often dissidence, 01:12 questioning, argumentation, can even get further a field than 01:15 that but because they denies 01:17 the common claim to be worshipping a God, 01:22 and honoring and respecting each other. 01:24 But is at the bite within a church, 01:27 can you legitimately say that a religious liberty question? 01:30 Well I think generally, I can remember 01:32 when I was in your job and every now and then, 01:35 I would get an e-mail or complaints 01:37 somebody's favorite dissidence. 01:39 They didn't let him speak in a church 01:41 or got this fellow or something and they called me up 01:44 in the religious liberty department. 01:47 And I'd say, "I am sorry 01:48 but this is nothing, to do with us." 01:52 You know, this is a see the main thing, 01:55 see the genius I think of that. 01:57 The whole concept of separation of church 01:59 and state is I obey the Laws of the Land. 02:02 Why I do because I am so in love with government 02:05 that I obey the laws, pay the taxes 02:08 and do and follow those, no. 02:09 I do it because they have the force of law. 02:14 The force, they can force me. 02:15 And in fact-- They coarse me. 02:17 You don't even need to put the law in. They control force. 02:20 In fact, the surfer said the state 02:21 has the monopoly on force. 02:22 Yes, yes, so the point is, 02:24 the point is and it has to be that way. It has to be that way. 02:26 No government is gonna work unless, you know. 02:29 what could of the laws, unless there is the power 02:33 to force them, the force, the threat of jail, 02:35 and, you know, fines. That had a church in forces-- 02:38 Well, that but I'm not there. 02:40 Let me get to the point, but the point is, 02:42 the point is when...and that's the way government should work. 02:45 But when you deal with religious issues, 02:49 you know, the whole point of the Gospel, 02:50 the whole point is we worship God freely. 02:54 We worship God, I mean a force to worship the-- 02:57 That's the force, that's a biblical viewpoint 02:59 that may not necessarily be a Quranic viewpoint-- 03:02 Yeah, yeah, but I'm just dealing from our perspective. 03:04 I'm dealing from our perspective right know. 03:06 We, we deal with that, that and the whole point is God 03:10 doesn't want forced worship. 03:11 He could have coarse us if He wanted to, 03:13 He didn't and so on. Now that's the difference 03:17 so you got the realm, the civil realm. Uses force. 03:21 You've got the religious realm which does use force, okay. 03:26 That's the idea with God. 03:27 And so the genius of church and states separation 03:31 is to try to keep them separate now to get to your question. 03:35 You are working inside a church. 03:38 It is a voluntary organization. 03:41 That is the key. You are right. 03:42 It's voluntary. There is no force of law telling you, 03:47 If you don't do this, your going to get a fine. 03:50 You know, you don't do this, you're gonna go to jail. 03:52 So you are in a voluntary or relations, 03:54 so I think, I remember 03:55 when I first became editor of Liberty. 03:57 There was an article about some dissident nuns, 04:01 some dissident nuns who had posted... 04:04 you know, wrote it-- A cover illustration. 04:06 It was a cover illustration, 04:07 but we got a lot of trouble over that, but that's another issue. 04:09 I don't think I want to go into that. 04:10 We won awards for that, but we also got. 04:12 And funny things is I had nothing to do with the cover. 04:14 I wasn't there at the meeting, 04:16 at the editorial layout meeting, 04:17 but because it was my article I was one that got shoot out. 04:20 But the point is these nuns have written an art, 04:23 or published an ad or something, 04:24 the fine the pope on abortion a birth cum nuns birth control, 04:28 I don't know what that's all about but-- 04:30 But sure of us. Yeah. 04:31 Well, they do abortion or whatever 04:33 and then they were getting in discipline, 04:35 they were getting disciplined 04:37 and we basically the article was. 04:39 I defended the Roman Catholic Church. 04:42 It was like hey, it's their church. 04:43 They have the right. These are the rules, you know. 04:45 They maintained their own. Yeah, yeah, 04:46 and these women wanted to go there. 04:48 You know, they get to the state of all 04:49 that and then we hadn't had. 04:51 It was not a religious liberty issue. 04:54 It was an eternal issue with the church, 04:58 in of itself, it didn't deal with laws of the land. 05:01 Now there were cases too I remember too early on. 05:03 It's funny the stuff comes back. We did a case where, 05:07 I think some armies or something in Canada. 05:11 And there was some fight. 05:13 I remember that. Yeah, and the people split up, 05:16 but see then the government got involve because there was, 05:20 there were property rights. 05:22 There was property that was involved. 05:24 Then these people with this fellowship 05:25 and kick out that, well, they say, well, 05:26 we pay for this building. We did that so. 05:29 So in principle and internal church dispute 05:33 doesn't really have and I think the basic... 05:35 but there is really no recourse of the government 05:38 as long as the church follows the establish procedures 05:41 that it has for dealing with these kind of thing. 05:44 But in short in most cases, 05:47 it's not a religious liberty issue. 05:49 You are actually giving and I agree with you, 05:51 but display the devil advocate here. 05:54 You're in a way giving the backdoor 05:57 I given for Sharia law within the certain community 06:01 as long as that doesn't impinge on civil law. 06:04 Well, you know, often, you know, 06:07 if it doesn't I supposed it doesn't. 06:08 If you have a Muslim and their mosque, 06:13 and they want to, I mean, enforce certain things 06:15 and they want use their Sharia law-- 06:17 But because we also had article in liberty magazine 06:19 about Orthodox Jewish Law for one of the better term 06:23 where within that community, 06:25 they have had their prescriptions for, 06:27 in fact we had an article recently went out of bounce 06:30 because it was the led the divorce decree. The Get. 06:35 The Get. The Get wasn't been granted 06:38 and was being used prejudicially against this woman 06:41 to restrict her options in civil life, 06:46 but within the normal bounce, 06:47 they had the community 06:48 had been allow to watch it though. 06:50 And I think the courts for the most part, 06:52 the courts wisely so as I said, 06:56 I've been out of the stuff for a longtime 06:57 but I remember lot of the principles 06:59 but not the details, but the courts as much as possible 07:03 they want to stay out of religious disputes. 07:07 Yeah, and... Stay out as much as they can't. 07:09 They leave it to the people to deal with it on their own. 07:11 And we've been very gratify then the religious liberty community, 07:15 the very recent supreme court case in Hosanna-Tabor case. 07:18 Don't know. We got a whole program on it, 07:20 but just to refresh those viewers who didn't seen it. 07:23 There was a case in a Lutheran school 07:25 where a teacher who mostly taught secular topics, but-- 07:30 But did take chapel now and then, 07:33 she was laid off. She says because of her disability. 07:38 She had narcolepsy. The Lutheran school said 07:42 they didn't need give a reason, as a church institution 07:45 they were within their rights. 07:47 Went to the supreme court and the supreme court said 07:50 that in matters of employment 07:52 and all of these issues doesn't matter 07:54 if it's the church operating its program, 07:56 the state is out of the business. Well. 07:59 And that might allow some very unfair things 08:02 to happen within the structure. 08:03 But it gives a safety environment 08:06 for the church to operate within its chatter. 08:08 Of course, now, you want a play the devil's advocate here. 08:12 I was just putting myself in the mind 08:14 to somebody like Richard Dawkins. 08:16 Oh, he would find this very convention. 08:18 Yeah, 'cause it suddenly, 08:20 you wrap something in the matter of religion and suddenly 08:24 all these protections, you know, 08:26 are given through that they claim it's a religious things 08:29 and suddenly they wrapped around all these protections 08:31 and the argument would be well, 08:33 they are sure there might be some people 08:35 who are dishonest with it, 08:37 disgenuine with it and abusing it 08:40 but it's a nature of our country. 08:42 It's a nature of the government that we have. 08:45 We go out of our way to protect even the most absurd, 08:49 ludicrous religious views. I mean, 08:51 I remember we used to, we find ourselves time and again 08:56 allied with the scientologists. 08:58 Yeah. What we gonna do? 08:59 That I like the religion, no, but that I even think it. 09:04 I don't know I mean that was but whatever was. 09:06 They weren't breaking the law. 09:08 Yeah, they have to be respected. 09:09 So they have, we would go to bad form. 09:12 But I am afraid. And I mean I was happy 09:15 with that Supreme Court action, but the logic 09:17 and you mentioned too that's the logic 09:21 of thought development within our present society, 09:23 I think is arguing against this old blanket respect 09:27 and accommodation for everything that the church does. Yeah. 09:30 President Obama when he came into office said 09:34 that on the faith-based initiative 09:35 which is improbable compromise 09:39 I think where the states is funding 09:42 church affiliated programs, 09:43 but he said the money would continue 09:45 but when I took the state money 09:47 that would be required to abide 09:49 by these is non discriminations standards. 09:50 Sure. Well, that's the main problem. 09:51 And I think that's where it's heading. 09:53 The state is loathed to do 09:54 that because then almost by definition 09:59 they are paddling about in church concerns 10:01 even as they untangled probably real cases 10:04 of discrimination on gender and disability. 10:07 Well, that's always been the issue. 10:09 You want to get government money, 10:10 you got to get the rules. And that was since 10:13 when I remember in the early days again 10:15 that stuff is still faint early days 10:17 when they were disestablishing 10:19 the churches from the government. 10:22 There was one got I thought there was gonna be a disaster. 10:24 You know, it was gonna, 10:25 the state needed to help the churches, 10:27 needed to and then they ended up disestablish 10:30 and this guy years later was a best thing 10:32 that ever happen to him. Yeah. 10:34 When you get their money, they help the play. 10:36 They help the write rules. And I don't want some, 10:38 I think it be very lurid to have some bureaucrat 10:42 in Washington D.C. writing the rules for your, 10:45 how your churches gonna go. 10:47 But to a certain degree there was some of it, 10:49 but there was certain degree because we, 10:52 religion is everywhere the government is everywhere, 10:54 it's not, James Madison remember 10:56 he talked about and we used 10:58 the metaphor "Wall" which came from-- 11:00 Not from Madison that was Jefferson, 11:01 we use the term. From Jefferson, 11:03 but Madison talked about a line of separation. 11:07 He talked about a line. And in many ways 11:09 as you know Madison was more specific 11:13 about maintaining that line of the separation. 11:16 Yeah, yeah, well. Jefferson was more conceptual Madison 11:19 really even argued against 11:21 paying teachers against Chaplains-- 11:23 He was against the Chaplain. 11:25 And technically, technically how can you, 11:28 you know but I think whatever the court said 11:30 there was one of the early court cases years ago 11:33 where somebody fraud against chaplain 11:34 and there was a court case with it. 11:36 The supreme court voted, upheld it 11:40 and siding precedents and so on-- 11:42 So usually that's sort thing is ceremonial deals-- 11:46 Yeah, yeah. Something had a sort of religious-- 11:48 Well, that's the money. 11:49 Been around so long, it's meaningless. 11:50 Yeah, yeah. that in God we trust the people 11:53 that thought that as well. But I think the point is 11:56 we want separation of church and state, 11:58 but it's not this clear cut. 12:01 The concept of absolute separation 12:04 of church and state is ludicrous. 12:06 It's not, you know, won it so you got absolute your church 12:10 is burning to the ground. Well, they don't pay taxes. 12:13 Well separation of church and state 12:15 why to have tax payer money come in help 12:17 put out the fire in your church 12:19 when you don't support you know 12:21 the government with tax payer money? 12:24 So it's not a clear cut thing either way around, 12:27 but when internal church disputes unless there is some, 12:32 you know, legal or civil or financial issue pretty much 12:37 the courts stay out which is the way other support. 12:39 Absolutely that's the safest way. 12:40 We will be back after a short break 12:42 to continue this discussion. 12:44 I think you will find it very interesting and I hope, 12:47 but often I hope not, but often very reminiscent to perhaps 12:50 what you have experienced in your church. We will be back. |
Revised 2014-12-17