Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), John Graz
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000182B
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00:06 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider
00:08 before the break with guest, Dr. John Graz. 00:10 I was talking about the Seventh International 00:13 Religious Liberty Conference of Congress 00:15 in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, 00:18 fantastic event 900 participants. 00:23 Participants. Yeah. 00:24 I was trying to think how to characterize them 00:26 because they were government leaders, 00:28 they were church leaders, they were-- 00:31 N.G.O.'s, experts. N.G.O.'s. 00:33 University Professors. Procumbent of activists 00:36 and people that are involved in religious liberty. 00:39 Some people might ask not just why we, 00:43 we were on beach there. 00:45 Yeah, yeah. Beautiful environment but-- 00:46 You know, I want to answer 00:48 the question about the beach. 00:49 You know, when you organize a congress 00:52 you have to find a place where you can 00:54 have minimum cost of transportation] 00:57 it means if you can find a place where the hotels 01:00 are very closed to the center, to the conference center, 01:04 that's a very good. 01:05 And you don't find easily that. 01:07 If you go to the-- we went to capital city 01:10 and you know people who'd have to walk or take the bus, 01:13 the metro to go the meeting, 01:16 but they are we had everything on the same place. 01:18 And beautiful convention center. Everything. 01:20 And beautiful convention center. 01:21 And to hold out all of these people you don't... 01:23 And the price was fabulous too, 01:24 it means you know, when you have 01:26 all these factors together you don't hesitate. 01:29 Yeah, no, no, it was perfect. 01:31 But lets talk about not just why on the beach, 01:34 and why such a nice environment. 01:36 Some people might ask even why such a conference? 01:39 Yeah, that's good a question. 01:41 I know one person made a comment that I thought 01:43 was interesting they said, you know, 01:45 what is it really accomplished. 01:46 There is no one really going out doing something 01:49 at a local level as result and I think 01:51 that misses the point of a global conference. 01:54 Absolutely, you know-- you know every time 01:56 we can see that, every time we have a congress, 01:58 we have an increasing of activities about 02:02 religious freedom after the Congress. 02:05 It means even if you don't have a decision 02:08 we had a decision during the festival of 02:10 religious freedom which was just after the Congress 02:14 where everyone present about 2000 people you know take, 02:18 took a commitment to be an ambassador of religious freedom. 02:23 It means you prepare really the ground 02:25 and many-many people you know after came to me 02:27 and they say can you visit us because 02:29 we want to have a regional congress. 02:31 We want to have a local congress they show 02:35 something they can duplicate to organize. 02:38 It's a catalyst, an international catalyst 02:40 that works its way up in a local region may be 02:44 through localized training session where people 02:48 then go out and contact legislators 02:49 or local community in different ways. 02:52 We can't expect a global event to do that, 02:55 but it has an incredible potential to catalyze and-- 02:58 Absolutely, we had more than the seven, yeah, 03:01 we have seven division or regional president. 03:06 They have to set-- Set a first time seven. 03:08 And the Adventist several leader, 03:09 we are all though we had also all the leader you know 03:12 when they came back to the, you know, what most of them 03:15 you know came to me know and say we want to do 03:17 something like that you know, you know region, 03:20 we want to have exposure, we want because they saw 03:23 that might its an event where you can put together 03:27 religious people and people from government 03:30 and they can talk. 03:31 Or you can put together people from the government 03:33 and university teacher or professor and they can talk 03:38 about what about what, about religious freedom 03:40 which is a very important opportunity. 03:43 The congress create an opportunity, you know, 03:45 to increase the work about religious freedom 03:49 and of course to promote the concept 03:51 at the level of government. 03:53 When government officials come they see 03:57 they are welcome and they have to explain 04:00 what they are doing in their country 04:02 and they are listening to the other people. 04:05 And they are listening religious leader talking about 04:07 the problem of religious freedom. 04:08 So self reinforcing, isn't it? 04:09 You know it gives something-- something new for them. 04:13 They don't have a lot of opportunity 04:16 to attend such a meeting. 04:17 You can read in the news how many congress 04:20 about religious freedom with these dimension 04:24 have been organized in the world in 2012. 04:28 Your right. There--there are reasonable members 04:30 of localized ones but I think internationally not many. 04:34 Even-- even between-- 04:35 Probably on--on one hand you could number them I know. 04:38 And not these dimension, you know, 04:40 I have never seen and when I ask you know, 04:42 I have friend with many religious leader. 04:45 I said, to them why you did not organize such a big event 04:49 for religious freedom because you are in favor. 04:51 Why do you-- you don't plan to have, 04:54 they smile and they say, hey, it's not so easy to do 04:57 even if they are represent million and million of people. 05:00 They have million members. 05:01 They don't do that, of course, you know, 05:04 next year the catholic church will organize big meeting. 05:06 We will see that it will be interesting in commemoration 05:11 of the "Edict of Milan" and they will have, 05:14 they plan to have five or six huge meeting. 05:17 "Edict of Milan" Yeah, Edict of Milan. 05:18 yeah, that was the first document 05:21 and the first Edict about religious freedom. 05:24 And they plan to have huge--concert, 05:27 we will talk about probably one day but you know, 05:31 they may, they have the potential to do 05:33 even with may be 100 or 200 or may be one million people 05:37 and we will be very happy. 05:39 You know, if you had one million people 05:42 saying we love religious freedom. 05:44 We want to definite to keep it, 05:46 but the congress is different than the festival. 05:49 Festival is a mass meeting the congress 05:51 is a selected group of parties. 05:54 It's a specialist, government and religious. 05:56 And we had from almost every countries of Inter 06:01 and the Central America represented by 06:05 the minister of religious affairs from the government. 06:09 Now there was putting them together. 06:11 You can imagine after you visit the countries 06:14 and you talk with the government 06:16 and they remember the congress you organize 06:19 they look at you in the different way. 06:21 This connection stay with you and this is jumping a little bit 06:23 in another program I would like to talk about 06:25 liberty dinner that we recently had, 06:27 and I noticed there for the third time, 06:30 I think it was the second time. 06:32 We had the ambassador from East Timor, you remember. 06:37 Yeah, we visited East Timor. 06:38 We visited the president and--and then leadership. 06:41 The ambassador form Libya to this time. 06:43 But--but because of that visit some years ago, 06:46 now the ambassador keeps up in contact with us. 06:48 And so I am sure with this conference 06:50 when this governmental representative are there, 06:52 now we are in they radar, they are in our circle. 06:55 And you know, already people talk about 06:56 the next congress and the next congress because 06:59 every five years we have congress, you know, 07:02 and have also to say that we have a little budget to do that, 07:05 its not you know million coming from gift and so no, no, 07:10 we do that with a very small amount of money. 07:16 We try to do our best fortunately 07:18 the general conference help us and sometime we have 07:21 some help but not a lot-- not a lot. 07:23 It means already having such a big event. 07:26 It's already in itself a miracle. 07:29 Well, money is necessary, but I think 07:31 what really makes it happen, motivated activsts 07:34 at all levels and we need to work with this network. 07:37 And, you know, now we talk about 07:38 the Adventist church is involved. 07:42 They are supporting with, you know, 07:43 the association and some other, 07:45 you know it give another image about the Adventist church. 07:51 You know people use to see the Adventist church 07:53 as a proselytizing specially in Latin America doing that also, 07:58 of course, building school and building hospital, 08:00 but they don't really expect the Adventist church 08:04 on the field of human rights and religious freedom. 08:08 They believe that we are weak on that and suddenly 08:10 they discover that we are able as a church as, you know, 08:14 someone say that we are small church 08:16 and some we are able to become to be the champion 08:21 on defending values a Christian values 08:23 but the human right values for all not just for us for all. 08:29 And you can be sure that it makes a difference 08:32 and I remember one of my good friend 08:35 who was a leader in France and in Europe 08:37 in Christian leader was a president of 08:39 the European conference of Christian churches 08:43 and he wrote a book, no a book was written about him. 08:48 It was interview and he said, in the book, he said, 08:51 you know I admire the Adventist church because 08:55 they are defending religious freedom for all. 08:58 Saying that writing that in Europe, you don't know 09:02 European contacts were, if you're small church 09:07 you're very often assimilated or confused 09:11 with cult and sect, that's a fabulous. 09:14 Well, we need to be recognized as defenders not because 09:18 we're Adventist but because we believe in the Bible, 09:20 it's just thoroughly biblical. 09:22 Yeah, yeah exactly when people ask us why are you 09:25 defending religious freedom. 09:26 You know I take the Bible and I said, 09:28 yes of course, you have humanistic 09:31 tradition but we're defending religious freedom 09:34 for all not because there is humanistic tradition 09:38 but because it's a gift from God. 09:40 It's a gift from God from the beginning 09:43 and you open the book of the Bible 09:45 the first pages of the Bible and you have the freedom 09:49 of choice as a gift of God. 09:51 And we believe that this gift is not just for us 09:53 that it's a gift for everyone. 09:56 And one thing that, two things that impress me 09:58 with this conference as it began 10:00 you had Denton Lotz, 10:02 he is the president of the IRLA. 10:04 Right? Yeah. 10:06 He gave a presentation and then ambassador Cipal. 10:09 The first U.S. ambassador for religious freedom, 10:13 now there's been two after him. 10:15 In their presentation they both emphasized 10:18 what you and I've just been talking about 10:19 the spiritual religious motivation that lies behind 10:23 the religious liberty initiative and I thought 10:25 that was very appropriate for the conference. 10:28 Yeah, because you know, very often we think that 10:31 human right has nothing to do with religion 10:34 and we portray the religious organization are against 10:38 human rights but we have to show that, 10:40 that's not true and we have a long tradition and for us, 10:44 I often say that you know, religious freedom is a gift 10:48 from God but also it's a prophetic mission 10:50 from the Advent for the Adventist church. 10:53 We receive the banner of religious freedom, 10:56 you know Ellen White say, 10:57 From the pioneers, from the reformers. 11:00 From the reformers and from-- she said that 11:02 the pioneer of the gospel church, 11:05 you know, the banner, and on the banner you have 11:08 the truths but not only the truths, 11:11 the truths and religiously liberty. 11:14 And there is no other, I think there is no other, 11:17 church or religious organization 11:19 who can which have such commitment for religion. 11:24 We may forget time to time 11:26 but really the commitment, the tradition. 11:28 And it's the interrelated. 11:29 Tied up with there, prophetic view point but 11:31 The origins of the church, the experience that are... 11:34 And we'll do that until the end. Until the end. 11:37 Yes it's important for us to have meeting 11:40 like a congress of religious freedom. 11:42 And we have that every five years 11:45 and we have to continue and this is why we plan 11:47 already and know the congress for 2015, 11:52 no, no, exactly 2017. 11:54 And I just would like you to think about us 11:57 and to pray for these big events. 12:02 There's something that I want to share with anyone 12:04 that's ever traveled or wanted to travel. 12:07 The beach at Punta Cana, 12:08 Dominican Republic is exemplary. 12:11 The water is so crystal clear and inviting, 12:14 it would take a stronger will in yours or mine 12:17 to stay away from it, but let me also share 12:20 with you the fact that the biggest yet ever 12:24 Religious Liberty Congress run by 12:26 the International Religious Liberty Association 12:28 held at Punta Cana was almost exclusively 12:32 conducted indoors and I never saw any of our 12:35 attendees swimming in that beach. 12:39 I'm sure many of them wish too but all of them 12:42 were compelled to come and join in those meetings, 12:45 to participate in other discussion and to find skills 12:49 that they could use to go back to their 12:51 different countries and to spread the word 12:53 that religious liberty is God's way. 12:56 Religious liberty is the way of human progress, 13:00 that religious liberty is the way to protect 13:02 the dignity of human kind. 13:05 It was a privilege to participate in such an event. 13:08 It wasn't immaterial that the beach was wonderful 13:11 and adverting but it was central that 13:13 the principles of religious freedom 13:15 were inspiring and encouraging to all. 13:19 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2014-12-17