Welcome back to
"The Liberty Insider."
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Before the break
with guest Dr. Ed Cook,
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we were talking
about his studies
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at Baylor University
in Church-State studies
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and I'm going to ask
the question again, because
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I don't think our viewers
all really understand it.
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Church-state studies,
what does that really involve?
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It's not just
religious liberty, is it?
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No, it's a-- much
broader than that.
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And, you know,
what I should say,
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before I
actually I went to Baylor
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I had taken several years
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and I tribute
to Liberty Magazine
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and your work there to
help give me a good foundation
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at religious liberty
lines before I went to Baylor.
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So I had a good foundation,
but when I was there at Baylor
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I actually had the
chance to amplify my studies.
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For example, there
was one class I took
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that was US constitutional
law, the history of it.
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And so
basically all of the cases
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dealing with
religious freedom issues
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from the 1880s
to the present time,
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we went through
and studied that,
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and looked at the dynamic
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between this
establishment clause
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and the free exercise clause.
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Another class that I
took was one dealing with--
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more religious
and historical classes
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going back to the time of
the protestant reformation,
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a class on Catholicism,
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another class on
modern Catholicism
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and Thomism in the 20th
century and its influence.
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Thomism? What is that really?
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I don't think many of
our viewers would know that.
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Yeah. The Thomism
is in Catholic parlance
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is the term they used in
referring to Thomas Aquinas.
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And so basically a lot
of his metaphysical concepts
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and how he understood the--
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what we would call the
transcendental dimension,
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or the realm of
God and how it relates
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to the temporal
sphere on the earth.
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And, you know, a lot
of his "Summa Theologica",
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what he wrote in Latin,
dealing with how he rationalize
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from a Biblical perspective
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and combined
with political thought
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from Aristotle
and therefore produced
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what the Catholic understands
as its political philosophy.
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So much of what
you do we could have
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extended discussion of
but I can't let that go by.
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Do you think from your studies,
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and of course you're studying
Baptist now with Catholics,
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but do you think the
Catholic understand so much
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of their philosophical backdrop
is from Aristotle and Plato
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and so on rather
than Biblical advices--
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You know, I think
that the way that Aquinas
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was able to synthesis
the political philosophy
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of these other Greek--
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And is exactly what
I think has happened.
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It's a synthesis. Yes and--
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And amalgamation of Christian,
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Jewish tradition
and some of these,
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you can even use
the extreme word,
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pagan, pagan view points.
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Yes, he was able to synthesis
all of that in such a way that--
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you know, the people
today for example Catholics
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as well as non-Catholics,
they pick up the books
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and his series
of volumes actually
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that he wrote,
"Summa Theologica."
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They will go through
and they will read that
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and there's a high
degree of rationality it,
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a logic, that he uses.
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And so one reads it on
its surface value and says,
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you know, it seems
like it irrefutable logic
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the concludes and succumbs to,
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but if one will
take the time to compare
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that closely to
Biblical passages
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and Biblical principles
there is areas of overlap,
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but there is also
areas of divergence.
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Yeah, not everything
that Plato and Aristotle
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said was wrong by any means,
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but they had a philosophical
overlay that went with it
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to determine their
line of logical enquiry
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and I've knew this
one I was in college.
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It--a lot of that was picked up
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by what became Roman Catholicism
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but these divergent
views within Christianity
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and really that's my
view-- that's my point.
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But that's a bigger discussion
and, you know, we're gonna--
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I'm sure in several programs,
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'cause I plan on
having you back again,
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we're gonna get on to analyzing
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some of the Roman
Catholic doctrine,
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because we're
picking on Roman Catholicism,
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but for better or
worse it's the mainstream
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that came down through the
ages representing Christianity.
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I don't think
necessarily the claims
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to authority there
always what they given us.
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But there's no
question that it's been
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the dominant tread of Christian
behavior through the ages.
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Let me share
this comment, Lincoln,
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that I think is
highly essential.
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Whenever-- not
only us or any person
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that wants to study and
dialog about church-state issues
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it is highly important that
one would recognize and state,
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"Okay, we're not an anti
whatever religion perspective
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just because we're going to talk
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about a
particular faith tradition
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and their understanding
of Church and State."
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And for example,
there is often times
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I'm on the internet
just doing searching
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and staying abreast of the field
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and I'll find
people that they say,
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well, you know, just
because you're making comments
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about Islam for
example they say,
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you are anti-Islamic,
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or anti-Semitic,
or anti-Catholic.
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And I said, no.
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Just because we're asking
questions to investigate--
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Or even disagreeing. Yes--
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We should have the--
this is what some people
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don't understand
on religious liberty.
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They've confused
religious liberty
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with basically either
ecumenism which is a common term
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or a negative way of
saying that syncretism.
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The true religious
liberty is that I grant you
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the right to believe something
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that I hold to be
patently wrong or even puerile.
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But I will defend-- Irrevocably.
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Yes. I will defend
your right to hold that view
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or no view at all if
necessary because we're all
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free moral agents to
choose or reject God. Correct.
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So on that
basis, but I don't see
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that I'm under obligation,
in fact it would be morally
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or mentally
dishonest to have a simpering--
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a simpering acceptance
of something that of inside,
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I think so, but I'm not
gonna tell you that. Sure.
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So--and particularly on
the Roman Catholic church
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with Liberty
Magazine we have articles
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on their believes now and then,
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because we're trying to
discredit their beliefs,
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but so many of the things that
the each catholic church holds,
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bear on church-state
issues and it in the very root--
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and I'll repeat it again, and--
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and it's maybe
most negatives for,
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I think Roman
Catholicism as it's evolved
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over the years has
inherently-- not in practice,
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because now they speak
very well of religious liberty,
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but structurally
is a mortal threat
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to religious
liberty in the United States
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under the model of
separation of church and state,
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because here is a church
that is a church on one side
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and is a state on the other.
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Yeah, and so,
you know, that some--
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It is the church-state
union in itself not just uniting
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with some government entity.
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Its Vatican State with
the ambassadors and so on.
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It functions in
the United Nations.
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No other church is
in the United Nation.
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It's there as a state.
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And, you know, they
have what they have.
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You know, I can't hold that
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against an
individual Roman Catholic,
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but we need to
understand when we're talking
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about church-state
issues the structurally
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we have a very
different animal here.
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Yeah, and I think that
that is something that,
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you know, as I
mentioned earlier one needs
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to understand the
philosophical foundations of--
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for example in this
case Roman Catholicism
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as well as other
religions, Islam included.
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For the sake saying when we get
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onto the table of
church-state relations
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and dialoging about
it we need to understand
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the perspective of each group
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for the sake of
being able to say,
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okay, is this actually
establishing religious freedom
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as the right for the individual
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to have the
freedom from coercion,
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the freedom to go ahead and seek
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and pursue truth and
finding it to embrace it.
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And so when one understands
that religious freedom
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from that perspective
one needs to say okay,
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what is this
group and this group
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and the other group,
what do they hold on the view
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to find out does it
harmonize with that or not.
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It's true. And religious
freedom is a nice term.
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It's like motherhood,
nobody is against motherhood.
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And I've never come
across a group or a country
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that's against
religious freedom.
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I've been to some that
deny religious practice
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like the communist--
philosophically. Who was it?
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Was a Karl Marx
that said religion
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is the opium of the
people. Yeah, exactly.
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So philosophically
there was a deep divide.
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But you would go
to a communist country
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and they would actually
have included in a charter
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or the constitutional guarantees
for the freedom of religion.
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But was within extremely sharp
restraints, narrow restraints.
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So price of the state
they didn't believe in--
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Based on that--
coming back to the point,
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it's not so much
the idea of saying
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does a group advocate
for religious freedom,
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it's the question
how to they define it.
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It's their philosophical
model. Absolutely. Absolutely.
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And with my
slow way of building.
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And so based on
that one has to say,
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we've got to open these
groups up for investigation,
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for dialog,
looking at their position
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as well as other positions,
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and how to all of these groups
come together at the table.
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And so in understanding
that philosophical view point
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that a group
brings I think history
00:09:07.52\00:09:10.96
through the ages
is-- very much informs us.
00:09:10.99\00:09:14.22
Now with the
Roman Catholic Church--
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and we'll have
another program on this,
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that's at least my plan,
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Vatican too changed
a lot of things. Yes.
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But in describing
that church I still think
00:09:22.19\00:09:25.26
we need to go back
further and bring you know--
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That-- look at
the larger picture.
00:09:27.36\00:09:28.73
We kind of know
everything before the 1960s
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when the Vatican
2 was brought forth.
00:09:31.70\00:09:33.07
In fact-- and
just a brief comment
00:09:33.10\00:09:34.96
I'll make on that, there are--
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there's at least one or
even two Jesuit scholars
00:09:36.57\00:09:40.00
that they argue
that point and they said,
00:09:40.03\00:09:41.94
when we look at Vatican
2 and how pivotal that was
00:09:41.97\00:09:44.58
we've got to
recognize that it's not isolated
00:09:44.61\00:09:47.21
into its own time frame
of 3 years from 1962 to 1965,
00:09:47.24\00:09:51.58
it's actually
something that is a long history
00:09:51.61\00:09:54.57
that ties up and
relates to that time period.
00:09:54.60\00:09:56.98
I think a few weeks ago
00:09:57.01\00:09:58.38
and I think I told you
this in private conversation,
00:09:58.41\00:10:00.56
I was at a meeting
00:10:00.59\00:10:01.96
at the Catholic
University of Washington
00:10:01.99\00:10:04.63
and it was on religious liberty
00:10:04.66\00:10:06.33
mostly talking
to Roman Catholics,
00:10:06.36\00:10:08.32
but I was lucky
enough to have been invited.
00:10:08.35\00:10:10.86
And Cardinal Dolan,
Archbishop of New York,
00:10:10.89\00:10:14.36
and the head of
the Catholic Bishops
00:10:14.39\00:10:16.34
of United States
gave a very good speech.
00:10:16.37\00:10:18.73
And in his speech he said,
00:10:18.76\00:10:21.16
Vatican 2 has changed our
views on religious liberty.
00:10:21.19\00:10:23.81
He said, in
previous ages we always held,
00:10:23.84\00:10:26.62
he said, that era has no rights.
00:10:26.65\00:10:29.85
And that was a
very honest recognition
00:10:29.88\00:10:31.75
of where they once were.
00:10:31.78\00:10:33.18
And, you know,
thankfully they've moved
00:10:33.21\00:10:35.10
with the times and we
hope that they continue
00:10:35.13\00:10:37.30
to move the right direction.
00:10:37.33\00:10:39.04
They may not but
we'll see on that.
00:10:39.07\00:10:41.13
But when you
talk religious liberty
00:10:41.16\00:10:44.02
it has to be everybody
has the unencumbered right
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to believe and
disbelieve as they want
00:10:47.89\00:10:50.19
and to speak as they
want about other faiths.
00:10:50.22\00:10:52.58
Correct. And, you know,
00:10:52.61\00:10:54.19
looking at that I
guess one would say,
00:10:54.22\00:10:55.77
you're kind of
encapsulating a bit of Vatican 2
00:10:55.80\00:11:00.37
and as you mention
what Archbishop Dolan,
00:11:00.40\00:11:03.49
even within the
Catholic church today
00:11:03.52\00:11:05.51
there is still
debate on the issue.
00:11:05.54\00:11:07.40
You know, there is division,
in other words, among Catholics.
00:11:07.43\00:11:09.32
I picked that up.
00:11:09.35\00:11:10.73
Even though
they've made a clear shift
00:11:10.76\00:11:12.15
as a church entity the
argument's not settled.
00:11:12.18\00:11:15.27
That's a correct statement
regarding modern Catholicism
00:11:15.30\00:11:18.23
and the division
that exist there.
00:11:18.26\00:11:20.54
You've got two groups
one that are progressives
00:11:20.57\00:11:22.82
and then those
that are traditionalist.
00:11:22.85\00:11:24.63
Traditionalist catholic
still believe that Catholicism
00:11:24.66\00:11:27.61
should be the established
religion of the state
00:11:27.64\00:11:30.94
basically establishing
a confessional state.
00:11:30.97\00:11:34.01
Progressive Catholics believe
that one needs to recognize
00:11:34.04\00:11:36.76
democracy that
exists in the world
00:11:36.79\00:11:38.79
and therefore advocate
for religious pluralism,
00:11:38.82\00:11:41.45
so people can
investigate the truth,
00:11:41.48\00:11:43.53
finding it,
embracing it, and following it.
00:11:43.56\00:11:46.17
And among these two groups
00:11:46.20\00:11:47.81
that's the current
position of Catholicism today.
00:11:47.84\00:11:52.15
It's been my
experience over the years,
00:11:52.18\00:11:54.50
well before I ever became
editor of Liberty Magazine
00:11:54.53\00:11:57.16
or did this program
that religious liberty
00:11:57.19\00:11:59.67
is something
that no one is against
00:11:59.70\00:12:02.11
and everyone speaks well off.
00:12:02.14\00:12:04.69
The problem is,
how do you execute it?
00:12:04.72\00:12:07.31
What do you mean
by religious liberty?
00:12:07.34\00:12:09.54
For the communist
religious liberty meant
00:12:09.57\00:12:12.00
constricting you to
the confines of a church
00:12:12.03\00:12:15.44
for one hour a week
and beyond that you say
00:12:15.47\00:12:18.02
nothing to your
children on to the community.
00:12:18.05\00:12:20.39
For others
religious liberty is my church
00:12:20.42\00:12:23.51
should do what it wants,
00:12:23.54\00:12:24.91
but other religions
should be restricted.
00:12:24.94\00:12:26.91
Even within my church,
00:12:26.94\00:12:28.89
the Seventh-day
Adventist Church,
00:12:28.92\00:12:30.78
I find that too
many leaders, pastors,
00:12:30.81\00:12:34.98
while they think well of
it, do not understand it.
00:12:35.01\00:12:37.82
And I think it's admirable
of our guest on this program
00:12:37.85\00:12:41.34
and others that they
actually study through
00:12:41.37\00:12:43.73
what religious liberty is
00:12:43.76\00:12:45.14
to have an
informed understanding
00:12:45.17\00:12:47.44
of the separation
of church and state.
00:12:47.47\00:12:49.62
How individual moral
autonomy is worked out.
00:12:49.65\00:12:52.60
How we have
respect for other believes
00:12:52.63\00:12:55.15
even as we hold deeply
ourselves that we know the truth
00:12:55.18\00:12:59.35
and we're going to
live that out in our lives,
00:12:59.38\00:13:01.42
but our prepared to if
necessary die to defend
00:13:01.45\00:13:05.32
someone else's right to
believe what we find prurient.
00:13:05.35\00:13:08.79
Religious liberty,
it's not just a term,
00:13:08.82\00:13:11.45
it's not something generic,
it's something particular
00:13:11.48\00:13:14.81
that we need to
study and adhere to.
00:13:14.84\00:13:18.58
For "Liberty Insider"
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:13:18.61\00:13:22.86