Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Ed Cook
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000194B
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00:06 Welcome back to the "Liberty Insider."
00:09 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine 00:11 and to reintroduce my guest, Dr. Ed Cook. 00:14 And before the break, you and I were really getting into it 00:18 and coming at it from different angles 00:20 talking about Vatican II, 00:22 this second ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church 00:25 which claims to apply to all Christendom. 00:29 But Vatican II was different in many ways 00:33 from some of the others and certainly the most recent, 00:36 it reconfigured the Roman Catholic Church 00:39 and how it related to religious liberty. 00:40 There were other things discussed, 00:42 that central document, what was it "Dignitatis Humanae." 00:45 Yes. The dignity of man. 00:48 And they really expressed it in a way 00:50 that's now thoroughly agreeable to anybody 00:52 that's working with religious liberty. 00:54 Correct. Before the Roman Catholic Church's 00:58 "error has no rights." 00:59 Now, everybody can believe, 01:01 we will defend everyone's right. 01:03 I think that, for one to understand 01:05 a little bit more of the-- I guess, again their viewpoint 01:09 in their rational way of understanding it, 01:11 the way they led up to the document is that-- 01:13 its correct that prior to Vatican II 01:15 it was the concept of "error had no rights." 01:18 During the discussion of Vatican II, 01:20 and since that time they say that's true, 01:23 but the human person does have rights 01:26 and so in the era of civil rights that has been, 01:29 you know, advocated strongly especially here in America 01:31 during the 1960's, the civil rights movement. 01:34 The Catholic Church associated and identified some with that 01:38 and wanted to use a language that could meet 01:41 the understanding of the masses basically. 01:43 And so doing that, the church says, yes, 01:45 we will ground the right to religious freedom 01:49 from the civil perspective and in the understanding 01:51 of the dignity of the human person. 01:53 So you don't think there necessarily 01:56 was a deep-seated philosophical shift, 02:00 it was an expression of convenience. 02:04 I look at the document itself basically, 02:06 like I would explain it, 02:08 you've got so many different branches 02:10 that tie into the concept of religious freedom. 02:12 And what the church simply did instead of focusing 02:15 on the pure theological religious perspective. 02:18 They're shifting now and looking at the political dimension, 02:20 the aspect of civil rights. 02:22 So in essence it's not so much 02:24 that the church is denying the aspect of the theological, 02:27 but they're simple emphasizing the political and the civil. 02:30 Yeah, I see with the way you say. 02:31 Yeah, and we couldn't expect the Catholic Church anymore 02:34 than the Seventh-day Adventist Church, 02:36 to say that it's no longer holds the truth. 02:40 Yes. You're right, so they've reserved that. 02:42 And as you were getting into that, 02:45 I was going to and I will now pop you the question. 02:48 A recent document out of Iran called "Unicity of Salvation," 02:54 I think is rather jarring in comparison to Vatican II. 02:58 Correct. And based on the response, 03:01 basically, "Unicity of Salvation," 03:02 it argues in that document 03:04 that the Catholic Church is the sole depository of truth. 03:07 Individuals seeking the way of salvation 03:09 need to learn of Catholicism and embrace it. 03:12 And the reaction of the Protestant body 03:14 at the time that it was announced was very strong. 03:17 Yes. Okay. 03:18 Yeah, and basically, they felt that 03:20 after 30 some odd years from Vatican II, 03:24 what Protestants thought was progress. 03:26 They said, with this one document, 03:27 it looks like we're now retrograding, 03:30 going back to even prior to Vatican II. 03:32 So it's exactly what you were saying, 03:35 that even though with "Dignitatis Humanae" 03:38 they express the rights of the individual. 03:40 They were reserving their church 03:43 and their beliefs as the only valid truth. 03:46 Correct. And so they're re-expressing it, 03:48 but it was shocking I know 03:50 and it was quite blunt in the way it expressed itself. 03:53 It says, the separated churches, Protestant churches 03:56 are only churches at all sin the views of Rome 03:59 as they share the common Eucharist. 04:01 Correct. 04:02 And those that don't are not churches in their definition. 04:08 That's interesting to say the least. 04:10 I think they're looking at the-- some of those documents 04:14 like "Unitatis Redintegratio" basically is the aspect 04:20 of re-establishing and how do we identify 04:23 these that are non-Catholic. 04:24 What's that Latin name, 04:26 because I'm not even familiar with that word? 04:27 Yeah, it is that in essence it's talking 04:29 about the unity of the idea of non-Catholics, 04:34 in other words, how can we unify the Christian body? 04:36 What was the second word term? Redintegratio basically-- 04:40 What's the literal meaning of that word? 04:42 The literal meaning is something that basically is identifying 04:45 or looking at the aspect of how to re-establish 04:50 the aspect of unity and re-establishment-- 04:51 Sounded like denigrate was hidden in there. No. No, no. 04:55 I used to be an English major 04:56 and I know the Latin roots pop up in English all the time. 04:59 No, it's not referring to that, 05:01 its how to unify those that are non-Catholic, 05:04 bring them back in essence, 05:05 how to have a unified Christian body 05:07 is what is this arguing for. 05:08 Now, you know, we all want a unified Christian body. 05:10 I would hate to get the idea across in this program 05:13 in discussing another church, the Roman Catholic Church 05:16 that we sort of knocking it down and saying that, 05:18 you know, their claims to create uniformity 05:22 in Christendom are wrong. 05:24 Those claims are fine, they're biblical. 05:27 It's just that, how do you attain that uniformity. 05:30 You can't attain it on false claims 05:34 or doctrine that's unacceptable to someone 05:37 who thinks that they see 05:38 otherwise in the Bible, right? 05:40 Yes. And for example, let me just 05:41 give a little explanation on that point so that, 05:44 you know, we can understand that obviously 05:47 from the Catholic perspective like I referred to earlier, 05:50 the idea of a desire for a unified Christian body, 05:53 one can find that in John Chapter 17, 05:55 Christ prayer before you know, He was betrayed-- 05:57 Whole prayer was about unity. 05:58 Unity among them as God in Christ are unified as one. 06:03 Okay, from a Protestant perspective, 06:04 we would say, well, what goes back 06:07 to the roots of the break between Protestants and Rome? 06:10 And when we look at scripture, 06:11 we understand that Christ is the truth, John 14:6. 06:15 Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. 06:17 No man comes to the Father except through me." 06:19 In John 17:17 Jesus said, "That God's word is truth." 06:23 So when we understand 06:24 that truth is found in Christ and in the word of God. 06:27 We've got to go back and say, does that truth harmonize 06:30 with what any other not just Catholic, 06:32 but any other Christian body is claiming? 06:34 If it does, we could say, yes, 06:36 we can unite together in fellowship as brethren. 06:39 We're united on the common platform of truth. 06:42 But if there are divergences from what scripture teaches, 06:45 we've got to maintain our allegiance to God. 06:47 Absolutely. But we don't have to have an unchristian, 06:52 uncharitable relationship with those people 06:54 and that's what some people don't understand. Correct. 06:56 And going back to what I said in another program, 06:58 I guess it was, in a meeting recently 07:01 with Roman Catholics at Catholic University 07:04 discussing religious liberty. 07:05 They're fellow Christians concerned about upholding 07:10 the right to proclaim the Lord and they speak of Jesus. 07:14 I take them at their word. 07:16 We have huge doctrinal differences 07:17 but they're fellow human beings 07:19 and we all want the same thing. 07:21 Perhaps, we've got understandings 07:23 that leads us the wrong way to accomplish that, 07:26 but we need to be charitable to fellow human beings. 07:29 You talk about the Reformation and something just hit me. 07:34 Sometimes, I think when we talk about the reformation, 07:38 we actually, inadvertently muddy the issue, 07:39 because much of the reformation where-- 07:43 you know, implies the reforming of Christian doctrine, 07:47 but much of it was going a separate way 07:50 on very particular things, 07:52 some of which were not transcended truth. 07:57 What I would rather define the difference, 07:59 it's not necessarily just at the reformation, 08:02 but to go back and to find 08:03 at what points did Roman Catholic Church 08:07 which for better or worse, 08:09 was shepherding through the main body 08:11 of believers through the centuries. 08:13 At what point, did that mainstream thinking 08:17 of how the church operated and what it was about? 08:19 Did it skew from what the Bible laid out? 08:22 What the apostles and the record of Jesus' ministry? 08:28 And it's very easy to show 08:29 that through the centuries, it went wrong. 08:31 It went wrong even before Rome entered the scene. 08:36 Well, it was about the second century 08:38 they were starting to allegorize 08:40 the very plain words of scripture 08:42 and Jesus' predictions of His second coming and so on. 08:46 And I think I should remember the teachers, 08:48 but they were a few that rose up in Christendom saying 08:50 well, that's all sort of a-- just a spiritual picture. 08:53 It says this-- Origin, origin. 08:54 Yeah, origin. But, you know-- 08:56 it's just inside your mind. 08:57 It doesn't mean anything about the real world. 09:00 So Christianity was skewing off over the centuries. 09:05 Roman Catholicism I think formalized some of that 09:08 and the reformation fixed some of it, 09:10 but its not as simple, it's just separating from Rome, 09:13 what Luther did because he differed with the Pope. 09:15 We know that Lutheranism still carries 09:17 many of the same forms and ceremonies of Romanism 09:21 which would make it more easy to rejoin. 09:24 You know, I think that one of the factors, 09:26 that one has to understand that historical overview 09:29 that you've given is that, 09:31 there have been when one studies Christian history, 09:33 there are times when you had voices that were divergent, 09:37 they were in the minority. 09:38 You know, at many times there was just one individual, 09:41 a group of individuals, 09:42 but during that historical time period individuals 09:44 that were questioning the status quo of the day. 09:48 For example, back in the early 1300's, 09:50 you had John of Paris, 09:52 that began to conceptualize of a modern secular state, 09:56 where you didn't have a dominant religion 09:58 that was guiding and controlling civil power. 10:01 Which is quite a leap, 10:02 because they hadn't seen anything quite like that. 10:04 Correct. In the 1400s, you had John Wycliffe 10:07 that began to advocate going back to scripture-- 10:09 The "Morning Star of the Reformation." Yes. 10:11 And then leading up into the early 1500s, 10:13 you had individuals like Luther 10:15 going back to study the scriptures. 10:17 He was influenced by John Huss and others. 10:19 So there are individuals 10:21 that prior to the reformation itself, 10:24 began to question some of the status quo. 10:27 And the reformation itself, if one can imagine 10:29 it might just be the peak of the mountain top, 10:31 leading up to that point. 10:32 When it came out and stood distinct 10:34 as there is definite differences here 10:36 and leading to two different paths. 10:38 Yes, so there were currents of events, 10:40 and maybe the catalyst in itself is not so important. 10:42 But it laid bare an increasingly divergent 10:45 or developing viewpoint. 10:47 You know, it's very interesting to study Vatican II. 10:51 We hope that the good parts of it continue 10:53 because its lead to some good relationships 10:57 between churches and particularly 10:58 with the Roman Catholic Church. 11:00 But where do you think its going in the immediate future, 11:02 Vatican II, is it secure? 11:05 Vatican II is something that-- you know, as I see it, 11:08 it established the link between 11:10 the church and the modern world. 11:12 There are questions within the Catholic Church 11:14 regarding the direction of Vatican II, 11:16 is leading the church. 11:17 And those are things that currently Pope Benedict 11:19 is trying to resolve within the church 11:22 to provide more unity in the church. 11:26 One of the most moving films that I think, 11:28 I've ever seen was "The Passion of the Christ" 11:31 by Mel Gibson, producer. 11:34 As we all know, that became a very successful movie, 11:37 but there's something troubling about that movie 11:39 because the Producer of it, 11:40 Mel Gibson a committed Roman Catholic. 11:43 He and his father and many others 11:45 we find out are adamantly opposed to their churches 11:49 betrayal of its foundational beliefs at Vatican II. 11:53 I think for many people before 11:54 that they didn't really know of Vatican II. 11:56 This huge church conference in the 1960's 12:00 that among other things developed 12:02 a definitive progressive viewpoint on religious liberty, 12:06 so progressive that today, 12:08 I can hear a cardinal only a few weeks ago, 12:11 talking about religious liberty 12:12 and the Catholic commitment to this saying, 12:14 well, before Vatican II 12:16 we use to hold that "error has no rights." 12:20 And it's a little ironic that Mel Gibson, 12:22 apart from being arrested and saying 12:23 drunken things about other faiths, 12:26 that Mel Gibson and those like him, 12:28 some with influence, some with money 12:31 are adamantly determined to turn their church back 12:34 to what we Protestants know was a persecuting church 12:38 that had no understanding of religious liberty 12:40 as the Bible advances it. 12:43 Presently, we're under a good model 12:45 and a good relationship with Roman Catholicism. 12:47 But we must pray that Vatican II holds. 12:52 For "Liberty Insider" this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2014-12-17