Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), John Graz
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000184B
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00:06 Welcome back.
00:07 Before the break, I was talking with guest Dr John Graz 00:11 about the festivals of religious freedom 00:14 that have been conducted all over the world. Yeah. 00:16 And you were going to give us really 00:18 a summary of the rational behind this. 00:21 You know, the purpose of the festival is to have 00:24 as many as people we can together 00:28 in a stadium or public square and so on. 00:32 A big mass of people to send a message 00:35 which is thank you God for religious freedom. 00:38 It means we love religious freedom. 00:40 And thank you the government 00:42 which protect our religious freedom. 00:44 It means there are two aspects. 00:46 One toward God, we glorify God. 00:49 We say that religious freedom is a gift from God. 00:53 And the other side is we recognize 00:55 the importance of the government 00:57 And we are really grateful about the government 01:02 which protects religious freedom. 01:03 It's very against dynamic I think. 01:05 It means it's a good dynamic, very simple 01:07 and you can invite people from different religions. 01:10 It means they are very happy to be here 01:12 and also to say we support religious freedom, 01:15 it means you give them great opportunity. 01:18 And of course people are very happy to speak 01:21 on before you know, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000. 01:26 What's the largest number you've any of these-- 01:28 Forty five thousand twice, you know, 01:30 in the Luanda, Angola and in Lima, 01:32 Peru for the first world festival of religious freedom. 01:35 That's a lot of people. 01:37 And in this case, you know, 01:38 we had no problem to have minister of government 01:40 probably one day we can have the head of state, 01:42 because they are very surprised. 01:45 And now the problem you have is to make sure that people 01:48 will not speak to 30 minutes or we're not confused, 01:52 you know, the meeting we finally elect the world meeting 01:54 but that's something you have to make sure. 01:57 But the program has to be very attractive. 01:59 It means the best meeting we had, you know, 02:02 we had a very big orchestra, 02:05 choir of children and so on 02:07 which gives really a strong message about 02:10 we love religious freedom. We want to keep it. 02:12 It's very reinforcing, isn't it? It's positive reinforcement. 02:15 Yeah and you'll show what does it mean 02:16 to have religious freedom,you know, 02:18 because if we--you did not have religious freedom. 02:20 Couldn't do it. You will not have 02:22 all these choir, all these-- 02:24 what people are doing in this society 02:26 to have this society and so on. 02:28 It shows that hey, look we are doing that in the society. 02:32 We are useful for you, why? 02:35 Because we have religious freedom, and we want to keep it. 02:38 This is why, you know, one of my dream 02:40 will be to have not just only 50 or 40,000 people, 02:45 but 100,000 people one day. And I hope that it will come. 02:52 You know, you have almost every week in the stadiums, 02:56 many stadiums are full. 02:57 Football stadium, yeah, they're about the same number. 02:59 Almost every week around the world 03:00 to just to look at the people playing 03:03 football or soccer or baseball and so on. 03:06 I think when there is something 03:07 so much important like religious freedom. 03:10 We should really put people together. 03:13 we should really have such a big crowd and to say, 03:18 "Yes, we love religious freedom." 03:20 And you've had them all over the world now, 03:23 but not yet a major one in the United States. 03:26 And so that's the next challenge,isn't it? We need to-- 03:29 Still one of our dream, but I have to say that, 03:31 you know, we have to recognize that 03:33 in many places in the world, they are very well-organized. 03:38 They know how to held big meeting like, you know, 03:41 in Peru, you were not first, 500 buses came, 03:45 you know, they filled the stadium. 03:47 I went to one event in Peru years ago. 03:50 Yeah, years ago. And there were about 03:52 4 or 5,000 people at that meeting. 03:54 Yeah, yeah, but you know, when you see the stadium-- 03:56 when I saw the stadium empty, 03:59 the first time I reorganize a mass meeting. 04:02 I'd say my Lord, you know, that--you know, 04:05 I want to be full of praise, but that would be impossible, 04:08 but anyway if we have half, we will be happy. 04:11 And you know, there is a promise that 04:13 I will never forget.When we start with this festival, 04:16 I read the Bible in Deuteronomy 04:19 Chapter 28, you know, and God said, 04:22 "I will make you the head and not the tail 04:25 if you'll obey my commandments. " It say, 04:28 "We try to obey you commandments." 04:30 Now there is a blessing. I have no right 04:33 to see little things when the promise of God is big thing. 04:39 You know, we are the one who reduce thing. 04:41 The promise of God is fabulous. The blessings are fabulous, 04:45 but we think small. We want to stay small and I'll say, 04:49 you know, religious freedom is a huge--it's a big value. 04:53 It's so important. We have no right to think small. 04:57 We have no right to be happy with a meeting with 25 people, 05:00 with 30 people. 05:03 We need to see bigger because this is-- 05:05 This is a huge event. You know, 05:07 this is a religious liberty program, 05:09 but you know, just you've given me the chance again. 05:11 It's central to Seventh-day Adventist 05:14 and a Christian viewpoint of serving God. 05:17 Will liberate it from sin and now we're sharing 05:20 that liberation to the wider audience. 05:23 And in the civil world as Hillary Clinton said at 05:27 our Liberty dinner some years ago. 05:29 You can tell in a country, the state of 05:31 their civil libertiesby their religious freedom.You're right. 05:34 So it's integrally tied up to just human freedom 05:37 around the world. Exactly and this is 05:39 why you attract-- We shouldn't be embarrassed 05:40 about promoting religious freedom. No. 05:41 It's central. It's one of the best way 05:43 to deal with the governments, 05:45 with officials, and human right. 05:48 You show that you are interested by something 05:50 which is essential not just for us, but for all. 05:54 And you see the blessing of God. 05:55 And I think we'll see miracle because you know, 05:58 for us this kind of meeting should be also 06:02 glorification of God, you know, 06:04 because it comes from God. 06:06 We don't say that religious freedom just come from men. 06:09 Men's did a lot of thing for our religious freedom, 06:12 and we have to be grateful to them. 06:14 This is why in our congress and in our festival, 06:17 we also thanks people who'd give their life for our freedom. 06:22 And we have to thank to the country 06:24 which protect our freedom. 06:25 Imagine that you say that we want to thank God 06:28 and we want to thank the country. 06:29 We want to thank all those who died for our freedom, 06:33 and you have just 25 people. What would be the message? 06:36 The message will be that religious freedom 06:38 is not important. And people who die for them, 06:41 you know, people will say they die for nothing. 06:43 Look, they are even not happy to be together. 06:46 This is why we have to transform in the mass meeting. 06:51 We need to have time to time mass meeting. 06:54 And I have to say that, you know, 06:55 when I was in the Philippines, 06:58 I had the visit of the Union President, 07:00 the leader of the church for region. 07:02 And he said, "We are interested about festival." 07:05 And my colleague there said 07:07 "In 2014, we'll have three important festivals." 07:11 Then in Africa, Lusaka, they say, 07:13 "We want to have the big one." Then in Cameroon, 07:16 they want to have their big festival. 07:17 And next year our congress plus the festival. 07:20 Then in South America, next year 2013, 07:24 we will have the second world festival 07:26 of religious freedom in Sao Paulo. 07:28 And go on and go on, we have more and more 07:31 people Mexico, Chiapas-- Yeah, the Chiapas one I thought. 07:34 Chiapas where people were persecuted during 30 years. 07:38 Now they have freedom and they want to say, 07:40 "Thank you God for the freedom we have for religious freedom." 07:43 And of course if you say we are creating evenement to evenements 07:47 to say thank you God and you have just 50 people 07:51 that means that you don't believe, he go what does. 07:54 This is wonderful. You know, I am hesitating to say this, 08:00 but I think in your position, you're going to be remembered 08:03 as the leader in the religious liberty 08:06 that really got these festivals going. 08:10 It's been-- you know 08:11 that was I just-- Growing macro of what you are doing there. 08:13 You know, Lincoln, the first meeting 08:15 I was invited when I was nominated at the GEC, 08:20 General Conference, the first meeting as a religious leader. 08:23 The first meeting I was invited in Romania 08:27 and I used to go to Romania as a youth leader and we used to have 08:31 5,000, 6,000 people sometime 10,000 people. 08:36 And they say,"This afternoon, we will have all the church 08:38 together and we will have a meeting on religious freedom." 08:42 And I thought that, "Man, that's may be 1,000 or 2,000." 08:47 And we had 30 people. 08:50 And I said that, that was all the churches. 08:52 They say, "Yes." I say, 08:53 "But why did we have just 30 people?" They said, 08:57 "But you know, religion freedom doesn't attract 08:59 a lot of people." And I say, "We cannot be happy with that. 09:03 If we are happy with that, we miss our mission. 09:06 We have to be able to mobilize people, not everyday. 09:09 You know, this is what I said in a country. 09:11 You've to do that once a year or not once a year. 09:14 Once every five years, but a big one, 09:17 and once a year, you have an event that would be good, 09:20 but don't give up, don't say that it's impossible, 09:24 it will not work. It's just a matter of faith. 09:26 And one day what I dream 09:28 used to have all religion together. 09:31 And, you know, the festival give 09:33 a fabulous image for the Adventist church 09:37 because we organize first, you know, when we organize 09:40 a meeting with 4,000 people-- Well, we need to be the head, 09:42 not the tail. Yeah, you know, 09:44 you organize a meeting with 40,000 people. 09:46 You know what does mean? 09:48 You are able to do that.You have the capacity to organize. 09:51 You'llshow to the public you are not crazy people. 09:55 You are able to do big things. And we share things-- 09:57 And we share. And come over there. We are not 09:59 not sort of--another sort of a creature 10:03 We share this can same value. 10:05 We share the same value with others. 10:07 We invite other to be there. We are not, 10:09 you know, exclusively invite them. 10:12 You mentioned it in passing, but I want to pick up on, 10:15 you used to be a youth leader and I think it's very important 10:18 to involve the younger generation in this. 10:22 Young people have energy, they have vision 10:24 and we need to give them the idea that religious liberty 10:27 is something that concerns them. Yeah. 10:28 So it's--I think it's inspired to bring together the youths 10:31 in religious liberty the way you use them. 10:33 You're also involved in our festival. 10:34 You remember in Santo Domingo, the youths were everywhere. 10:37 Absolutely. Seventy, sixty, seventy percent 10:40 of the people are young people in our festival. 10:43 And you probably can remember the quote, 10:45 writing to Seventh-day Adventist, 10:46 years ago Ellen White, 10:48 said something about an army of our youth rightly trained 10:53 will then I forget what he said next, 10:55 but some of the effect that they will finish the work, 10:57 will change the world. Absolutely. 11:00 You know, when I read Patriarchs and Prophets, 11:03 it give a such encouragement for young people taking 11:06 the Bible example. And that's create 11:09 an event where young people can be associate, 11:12 not only but musician, expert, artist. 11:16 You know, you remember the festival in Santo Domingo 11:19 they play, you know, they divide the Bible in several section-- 11:23 There were dramatic representations-- 11:25 And they play their Bible-- The stories, 11:26 they were preaching there. 11:28 In about religious freedom, that was just fabulous. 11:30 Yeah. You know, I-- 11:31 Take the story that they told was of the children of Israel 11:34 leaving Egypt. Liberation, 11:36 that's a story of religious liberty. 11:39 It's not just a concept. It's a reality. 11:41 It's something that's happening in our life. 11:43 This is why you know, I believe that the festival-- 11:46 these opportunity which is given to have 11:49 people together as many as we can hope. 11:53 And to say strongly, we believe in religious freedom. 11:57 We love religious freedom. We want to keep it. 11:59 But more than that, we wanna imagine that a stadium with 12:04 50,000 people saying that thanks God for religious freedom 12:09 and thanks our country for protecting 12:11 our religious freedom. 12:15 A few years ago, with quite a few thousand other guests 12:20 I was in a great stadium in Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia 12:24 as they celebrated several decades of their independence. 12:29 It was a memorable occasion. Tens of thousands of people 12:33 in the audience and several thousand in the great circle 12:38 there performing and giving a display of national unity. 12:42 There were human waves that rolled across the whole expanse. 12:46 There were musical groups that filled 12:49 the stadium with their music. 12:50 It was overpowering. 12:53 That was for a national identity. 12:55 That was for a political purpose. 12:57 But to do something similar for religious freedom, 13:00 to have a festival of praise, 13:02 where 50, 60, 70,000 even people gather together to praise God 13:09 and to praise their society for the ability to live in freedom. 13:13 To practice their faith publicly is the stupendous event 13:17 That's what's being done more and more around the world 13:21 In the plan that our religious liberty department 13:24 has implemented to raise an awareness for religious freedom. 13:31 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2014-12-17