Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Clifford Goldstein
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000181A
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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, and information and discussion 00:29 on religious liberty events in the United States 00:32 and around the world bringing you confirmation 00:35 that religious liberty is still a most important principle. 00:39 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine 00:42 and my guest on the program is Clifford Goldstein, 00:45 previous editor of Liberty but at the moment 00:49 for the last 13-14 years you've been Sabbath school editor 00:52 for the Seventh-day Adventist Church 00:53 of the Bible lesson courses that go out to all the membership, 00:58 and as we said on another program, 01:01 we pointed out-- this puts you 01:03 in the gun side's of many, many people. 01:05 Everybody has an opinion on the doctrine 01:08 and Bible study of the Church. 01:12 You've done a few programs with me, 01:14 but not till now have you done 01:15 what I have done regularly with Liberty. 01:19 You grab a paper and this is actually yesterday's 01:23 but I picked it up on the way through to film this program 01:26 and as I opened the paper I was struck because 01:29 I nearly realized that there are things 01:31 that relate to Religious Liberty. 01:33 Any newspaper taken at random will do that. And this-- 01:36 No, no, it's not surprising I mean 01:38 'cause, you know, it's funny. 01:39 Even though we supposedly live in this post-modern era 01:44 and we're socially fit with our Smartphones 01:48 and all our technology and lot of pendant years ago 01:53 we're predicting religion which has fade away-- 01:56 But is dead in the 70s, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. In 60's. 01:58 And it's amazing, but I think that's because 02:02 linking the religious questions go to the heart 02:05 of the fundamental questions about 02:07 who we are as human beings-- 02:09 Absolutely and destiny, who we are 02:10 and what it's all about, meaning above. 02:13 Yeah, yeah. And all the technology in the world 02:15 doesn't change, well nothing in fact it's when-- 02:18 I even just got my, I downloaded this morning. 02:20 I ordered it a while back and I noticed that it came 02:23 on my iPad a book called, something called, 02:26 "the quest for immortality." 02:27 And the point of the book was that struck my interest 02:30 was this person was arguing that the whole point 02:34 of civilization is to try to give people immortality 02:38 and it gonna be very interesting to see where that goes. 02:41 Because they've been trying to have it 02:43 doing a very good job, that's for sure. 02:44 But it might have been that there's a sort of 02:46 culprit immortality, that there is 02:48 monuments to human progress-- 02:49 Oh, yeah, to keep going on. And actually concrete. 02:52 Ah, may be on one level, but on the immediate 02:55 its sustention is normal individual level. 02:59 I think civilization diminishes in some way as the individuals. 03:02 And if you think of all the wars go, 03:03 how much permanent people they ended their mortality, 03:05 you know, their mortality came to them a lot quicker 03:08 then they might have otherwise. So, so-- 03:10 Now let's move on. But again there is no question. I can't-- 03:12 But--but it always in this state, we believe it would. 03:15 But I noticed on the third page, but it actually was banded 03:19 on the front, interesting case of the largest 03:22 student religious group at Vanderbilt University, 03:25 it says they're leaving campus in a dispute 03:27 over the schools non-discrimination policy. 03:30 Hold on. We don't want discrimination, do we? 03:31 I know. I know. Oh, yeah. 03:33 It's a policy that busts student groups. Listen to this. 03:35 This is--viewers will not believe this that 03:38 "bar student groups from requiring their leaders 03:41 to hold specific beliefs." 03:43 This is a Catholic religious club and they're not allowed 03:47 to specify that they're president in another 03:50 office folders be catholic Christians. 03:53 Yeah. See this is where I think you're taking 03:55 this whole idea of non-discrimination to the-- 04:01 To--to, it would be ridiculous. 04:02 Yeah, a ludicrous, you know, it's just the human nature. 04:06 You eat somewhere that a little salt is good for you. 04:09 So that might go for a little salt is good for you 04:12 that must be pouring the salt on that will be better for you. 04:16 And you know, we've talked before on the show 04:18 it's where do you draw the line here. 04:21 How do you do that? But to me it's absurd. 04:25 You got a catholic group and they want to keep 04:29 their leaders, Roman Catholic, it's a scary precedent. 04:34 Well, on one level you could say this is one of those 04:36 whacky stories that the newspapers are full of them. 04:38 I mean there are others. They're not Religious Liberty. 04:40 This is Vanderbilt University. We're not talking about this. 04:43 But this follows on 2010 Supreme Court case, 04:46 Christian legal society versus Martinez. 04:49 They upheld campus nondiscrimination rules. 04:53 Oh, they upheld them, huh? So that's where this comes from. 04:56 Oh, yeah. What was the-- 04:57 You could not bend that the Christian club 05:00 had to admit non-Christians and atheists. 05:04 Well, then all right, but here again okay. 05:08 Okay, then you could say playing the devils are advocate here. 05:13 Well, nobody is forcing you to have your club on campus. 05:16 Nobody is forcing you, have your own club. 05:19 Have it off campus. Bring in who you want. 05:21 Keep out who you want. So-- 05:23 That is what's happening and that's-- Yeah, yeah. 05:26 I think this is significant. 05:28 They're fleeing that environment. 05:29 Yeah, yeah. Well-- Where they're being forced to compromise. 05:32 Yes. Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. 05:33 You know, as we've said before if you're going to be, 05:36 you don't live in isolation. 05:39 And if they wanted to use the campus building, 05:41 maybe they wanted the campus electricity. 05:44 They wanted to use the campus toilets. 05:46 They wanted to use the campus police. 05:48 They wanted--you know, I don't know all the details here, 05:51 but when you decide you're gonna be part of 05:56 something larger, you have to play by the rules. 05:59 And if the rules are idiotic which, you know, 06:01 again you wonder what kind of extreme thing, 06:05 there is always a tendency, somebody does something 06:08 they seems to make a law, a rule to bade it, 06:10 you know, some extreme thing 06:12 and then something more moderate. 06:13 I mean, I don't think it's too much for a Catholic organization 06:16 to want Catholic people leaving it. 06:18 But if you don't like it then you leave. 06:21 This is the next thing for the Supreme Court case 06:22 that required the membership can't be exclusive. 06:24 Yeah, yeah. But you totally lose control of your membership, 06:28 if it's opened up to contrary viewpoints and those people 06:32 then take the office within it, I mean, 06:34 then how could you be a Christian at all? 06:36 Well, all right, it is-- If it's occupied by atheists, 06:39 the offices are held by atheists then it's a mockery of-- 06:42 Well, time to take your club and go somewhere else. 06:46 That's what they're being forced to, that's the bottom line. 06:48 And it does follow a similar model at least in my view. 06:52 We were running an article from New York where 06:56 a number of churches were meeting on 06:58 school properties after around weekends. 07:00 But they've been expelled. 07:02 They've said the Church counted out 07:04 it's property to be used by a church. 07:06 The school can allow its property, yeah. 07:07 Well, the state camp. Yeah, yeah. 07:09 So you have the school camp, but the state doesn't want 07:12 to be supporting religion, but you have to rent 07:14 those same properties out to strange and wonderful groups 07:18 that have nothing to do with government dimes. 07:20 Sure. So you can make an argument 07:22 that this is restricting religion. 07:24 Because on an open mark why couldn't 07:26 they rent it just as well as anyone? 07:28 Well, you could argue, you could argue well 07:31 this is simply what the establishment clause 07:34 as has been interpreted. 07:36 Because, you know, we said before you go back, 07:37 I think we talked once before that the whole purpose 07:40 of the establishment clause originally was to tell States 07:44 that the Federal government will leave 07:46 your established churches alone. 07:48 But since, you know, over the years 07:51 of Supreme Court jurists prudent establishment clause 07:54 has come to mean something else, 07:55 which I think is in many ways is very good. 07:58 But if we are going to have a non-establishment of religion, 08:01 we are going to keep the government as much as possible 08:04 from promoting a religion then as absurd 08:08 as that might sound on the surface, 08:10 we can run it to the American atheists' society. 08:13 You know, we could, you know, ran it to the-- I don't know, 08:17 any one of whole bunch of secular things, 08:20 but the moment its religious is know, 08:21 you're violating church and state, 08:23 well to a degree but this is what, you know, 08:26 in a sense you could say "we made our bed now live in." 08:29 What's interesting, you know, it just hit me 08:31 even though I'm hearing you, you're talking about this, 08:33 the Supreme Court, I think, have been fairly rigorous 08:36 on maintaining separation of Churches, 08:38 very rigorous and in some cases to the point of ridiculousness. 08:41 Well, you know, lot of times let me, 08:43 it sometimes it can sound that way, it sounds that way. 08:47 You know, they can--to have, you know, 08:49 the famous court where they're allowed to give 08:50 the religious school money for books, but not maps. 08:54 Or computers, but what about books 08:55 that have maps in it and so on. 08:57 And I think even the justices would admit at times-- 09:00 It's threatening the new. It's hairy. 09:02 It's difficult because it does not 09:04 clear cut wall of separation. 09:06 But the point I was trying to make is to put, 09:08 I don't have a great challenge 09:10 with most of the court decisions-- 09:11 They have been quite good over the years, 09:13 but flow destination was a disaster. 09:15 The Conservative, politically active religion 09:17 has themselves have gone another direction 09:19 where they're now openly just-- 09:21 Yeah, oh, yeah. Dismissive and just despise 09:24 the concept of separation of churches. 09:26 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's something must happen 09:28 because they're not even in parallel at a distance. 09:31 They're just diverging. It's been--I really think 09:33 in a lot of cases it's been misinformation on their part 09:36 disingenuous on their part, they don't understand-- 09:40 Sure. It's not always been good and some of the things 09:44 do seen pretty absurd, but all in all, 09:47 but there is a reason that America is the most highly 09:52 "religious people of the industrialized world." 09:57 I mean look at Europe. My goodness, Europe today 09:59 and they have State churches and they pay 10:01 there is no such thing as separation of Church and State 10:04 over there and they don't have anyone near 10:07 the vibrant kind of Christianity that you find in America. 10:11 I've thoughts on Europe, I think we're seeing in recent years 10:14 with the societal struggles between immigrants 10:17 with another culture and another religion. 10:20 We're seeing a revision to the religious identities of Europe. 10:24 Even these people lives don't exist before. The power-- 10:27 Oh, yeah. It's culture. Ceremonial deism-- 10:29 Paper sea as well as Lutheranism and so on 10:31 and political power I think has radically increased 10:34 in recent years because of this dynamic. 10:35 Another article here that-- now this one 10:39 "Romney and the Evangelicals," an interesting tie-up. 10:41 I mean obviously you see it everyday, 10:43 but here the newspaper is discussing the dynamic 10:47 of those with political aspirations over the Angelicals, 10:50 how they're bringing themselves into line. 10:53 Well, I-- The reminiscent to the series. 10:54 I tend to think at this point, they are, 10:56 most of them they're antipathy 10:59 to Barrack Obama is greater than-- 11:01 That's what it says. Antipathy towards the-- 11:02 The end they would because of it, they don't, 11:04 I share most of these people probably just hate the fact 11:10 that Romney is a Mormon, okay and most Evangelicals 11:15 don't even consider Mormonism a Christian religion. 11:18 Which is I brought to hold that view, 11:20 but here on the separation of church, 11:22 no religious tests couple about the fall of vilified freeze. 11:25 Yeah. That's not the point. 11:26 Nobody is saying Romney can't run. That's not the issue. 11:29 Romney's got the right to run and so on 11:31 and I have never heard any of them saying-- 11:32 "they have the right not to vote for" 11:33 "They have the right not to vote for." 11:35 So I think that's going to be interesting how that plays out 11:38 because as I said they desperately want Obama out, 11:42 but I think a lot of them are very bummed out at the fact 11:47 that their candidate now is a Mormon and I-- 11:50 I think that Romney probably, if I were him 11:52 I would just not even bring it up, 11:54 I would downplay it because 11:55 they don't have anywhere else to go. 11:57 Because I am not convinced to Romney's playing the right, 12:01 but I think once he is in he is not going to be 12:03 a whole lot different than Obama, if he wins. 12:05 He is not going to be a whole lot different at all. 12:07 Well, I wish in the United States, 12:09 I wish people look at the party position more than 12:11 the candidate who'll tell loads of fancy tales. 12:14 Yeah, yeah. At the end of the day, he exemplifies 12:16 what the body of his party holds at that point. 12:20 Now certainly, well, depends which state he is in. 12:23 Well, with Romney, you know, it depends who he is talking to. 12:26 Romney talks to this one. 12:27 This way he talks and this been one of the big, 12:30 I mean he is a guy that he said he's gonna rescind 12:35 ObamaCare if he gets in, you know, 12:36 ObamaCare was based on what Romney did 12:39 in Massachusetts and my understanding of the irony 12:41 is he is running away from it, but from my understanding 12:44 the Romney Care in Massachusetts is working quite well. 12:47 I think it's done quite well. 12:49 You know, this whole debate even though it's not 12:50 a Religious Liberty forum I think and someone coming 12:53 from another country, living most of my life here-- 12:55 So, I'm essentially an American. 12:56 I do think Christian charity wouldn't be far wrong. 13:01 We should be concerned about providing 13:03 for people in that community. 13:04 We will be back after the break to discuss the headlines 13:08 and some of the ramifications for Religious Freedom. Amen. |
Revised 2014-12-17