Welcome back to
the "Liberty Insider".
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Before the break,
with guest Ed Cook,
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we were talking about many,
many things said the Walrus.
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Yes. To get poetic.
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But it was all devolving,
revolving around secularism,
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which Pope Benedict has
really picked on as his issue
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in his point of view-- Correct.
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The point I was
getting at is that, you know,
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we recognize from
a Catholic worldview,
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you've got the church
and you've got the state.
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And so, they don't believe
that there should be a third
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or even fourth
ideology that should exist.
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And so for that
reason, they believe
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that from American perspective
of the first amendment
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for government is to
partake a neutral role
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towards religion
neither for nor against.
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They would argue and
say that opens the door
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for secularism or in
religious indifference.
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And so, for Roman Catholics
I think that they're taking
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the approach now of
saying, we need to unify
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different
religious groups to present
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a united front
against secularism.
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And basically, contain
that and then they address
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the issue of separation of
the church and state. Okay.
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They're hacking
back to the long held
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Catholic view and even
the early Protestant view,
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that you had to acknowledge
God, you couldn't be secularist.
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And if you really think
about it, much of the early
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American experience
in the American papers
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was played out with that in mind
because it was not acceptable
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in early Americana,
or America, the colonies
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to be someone, a
disbeliever. Correct.
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It was acceptable to be idealist
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which was sort of deep
cover for a cynic. Yeah, yeah.
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And so people like
Thomas Jefferson and Franklin
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they had pass muster
on any form of orthodoxy
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that I can think of
and really a much closer
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to a secular free
thinking. Correct.
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But in that era,
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maybe we should get back
further in the Middle Ages.
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Yes, if you were a nonbeliever
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you were not only spiritually
cast in out of darkness,
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the law would come
down on you. Correct.
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Was not acceptable
to opt out of religion.
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And even
in--you know, in America
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up through the colonial era,
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you find that on many of
the statutes of the different
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colonies, they
required individuals.
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For example, you could not miss
the Sunday services at any time,
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if you did it was
once in a given month
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and you have to have a
good excuse from these.
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And if you follow their
logic through even on civil law,
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you swear on the Bible.
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A secularist or an atheist,
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he is not gonna
give you a valid honest,
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he can't be sworn in that sense.
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I mean it's not the
binding document to him.
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So they would suspect
under civil constraints,
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but I think you are right,
here the Roman Catholic Church
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is more and more
restating its chairmanship
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of all believers even though--
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They're trying to
redefine the playing field
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that's what they were doing,
you know, by simply saying--
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Even though they
accept that these are now not
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structurally part
of Roman Catholicism,
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but they are under our umbrella.
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But the umbrella
must be of faith,
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beyond that not
acceptable. Correct.
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And so what they are
doing is they're recognizing
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what the playing
field is in actuality
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from their premise
of their worldview.
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They were trying
to redefine it to say,
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instead of saying secularism
and then church and state.
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We need to contain secularism
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so it does not--and
so it's not antagonistic
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and undermines religion.
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And then once we've done
that, then we need to clearly
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define the role of church
and state in the modern society.
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Yeah. So there's a lot of play.
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Yes, definitely.
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So but where do you
think it's all heading
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with this attack on secularism?
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Do you think--that's one
question, but do you think
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that the attack on secularism
by American Protestantism
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is this in concept
with what Rome is saying,
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or they are just
two parallel tendencies?
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I look at that, not as
distinct or parallel tendencies.
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They're actually an overlapping.
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In other words, when one
goes back to the time period
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of the 60's, 70's,
when Roman Catholicism
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began to advocate for
social issues, and ethics,
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and so forth,
abortion, and other things.
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You found that many evangelicals
during the preceding
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two decades, they
began to unify more,
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envision with Roman Catholics.
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So due to that
uniting of purpose in society,
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you find that even
though they have some
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theological
differences they unite together
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in societal
purposes to establish laws
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that they feel, reflects
more of a Christian norm.
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And so based on that the idea
of antagonism towards secularism
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and viewing secularism as a
threat, you find that not just
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Catholics, but also evangelicals
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unite together
with them in that view.
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Do you think--well, I'm saying
something that's accepted,
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but what do you
think of the role
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of was it John Neuhaus
in "First Things" magazine?
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Do you think he was a
major player in bringing this,
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coming together or is that just
a political--was he rallying
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them to parallel
political action?
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I think that he was definitely--
he had definite impact
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and had influence in reaching
to out of the evangelicals,
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and in essence what he did
is he took a Catholic concept
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of how society
should be structured,
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and was able to present it
in language and with arguments
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they could
appeal to evangelicals.
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And so he did a great
effort in paving the way
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for that and bringing
about more of what we see today
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in that unified
effort among those groups.
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Now coming back
there to your question,
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before you asked that
you know, how do I see
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it playing out in the future?
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In essence I believe that
there is more and one can see
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this in the current
Supreme Court here in America,
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in the last 10 to 12 years,
there has been more of a shift
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to instead of taking a
neutral stand towards religion,
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there is more of a
leaning of favoritism
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towards religion in society.
Oh, I think it's very much.
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And I would say
that that is a reflection
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of how you find
in society itself,
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the picture
that's being portrayed
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that secularism is
this giant that is opposing
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and detrimental to religion.
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And therefore, government
needs to step in to help
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the religious group that is--
being persecuted in essence.
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I think I have
mentioned on this program.
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This is a good context.
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I listen to a lot of things
and a lot of Supreme Court
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arguments
whenever they broadcast it,
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which is not all the time.
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But I heard the
justices on a case that I forget
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riffing on for
about two or three hours
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and I sat transfixed
and something came up
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about church state separation.
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And you know, the majority
of them were Roman Catholics,
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but that's a big
misleading because they're not
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all of the same
political theological strap.
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But the significance, I think
is that they have a soft spot
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for religion, they
are hardly anti-religious.
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And so they started riffing
on about, was it acceptable
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for the state to build a
church for a given religion.
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I would think not myself
but I was shocked that they,
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I forget who introduced it.
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The justice that introduced
it, he said, yes, it's okay.
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Then the others chimed
in, yes, it would be, okay,
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as long as we built a
church for anyone else
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that wanted us
to build a church.
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And then they
started joking about it,
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then they went off
from the other topic.
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And every now and
again, they would hop
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back to this and laugh about it.
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And to me it was like a
wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
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It's all, okay,
as long as the state
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is evenhanded in a
support of religion.
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Let me interject on that,
that is one of the current
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trends in modern
church state relations,
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is that--there has
been a distinct period
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in American history,
where one can look at and say
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this was the separationist
time period and then a shift
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for a period of about 15
years where there was debate
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and discussion going on
at the intellectual level
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among justices, among
constitutional scholars,
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among historians that
were revising American history.
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And after that
we're now moving more into
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what is identified as in
accommodationist perspective
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where government
should not be recognized
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as neutral towards
religion, but actually
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proactive in
supporting religion.
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And again, I believe that
it comes back to the premise
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of what Catholics and others
have painted as the picture
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of secularism against
religion and therefore,
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there cannot be--government
can take a neutral role
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in other words, government
either has to be out avertly
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against religion
like in the totalitarian
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communist states, or
supportive of religion
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which is a Roman
Catholic concept.
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Yeah. And it's of course
it's a bit of, I don't know
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if the term is used
here "Hobson's choice."
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There's problems to go all one
way or all the other. Correct.
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I wouldn't want the US or any
other civil government to tilt
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against religion, but its a
little fraud when they tilt.
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Proactively supporting it.
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And perhaps some
of that tilt has been
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accelerated by the
fear of secularism.
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But to me at the same time,
it puts the light to the fact
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that secularism
is in the ascendancy.
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I just don't see it. Correct.
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I thick it's a straw man
argument that enables more
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of the same
religious control. Correct.
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You know, I would
reiterate the aspect
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that for the founding
Fathers they recognized
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a healthy separation
between both church or religion,
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and government or state,
and the middle ground being
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that government is to
take a neutral arbitrary role
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in regards to
religion in society.
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In other words,
neither against nor for,
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and each religion needs to
flourish or flounder on its own.
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Yeah. Leave it, leave it up
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to--if it's truly of
divine origin, it will flourish.
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If its not, it's going
to go in to extinction.
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But government should do
nothing to support either, or.
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That's the classic understanding
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of the framers
of the constitution.
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How much of that was in
form by luck and another thing
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is how much was
just an expediency
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of their own
deism, we'll never know.
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But they clearly
held that view. Correct.
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In fact, in my
view in many ways,
00:10:06.48\00:10:08.62
they were
thoroughly secular minded men,
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who were very
conversant in religious matters
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and the--we're
coming short on time,
00:10:14.67\00:10:17.25
but I do think that there's
a little bit to be discussed
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about what they thought
would happen to the state level.
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But federal government
absolutely, they didn't want
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religion in the purview
of that government body.
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That's true. So secularism,
00:10:27.98\00:10:30.64
are we going to count it out
or in, is it a remaining threat
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or you know, where do
you think we go from here?
00:10:33.57\00:10:37.38
Benedict's
continuing to rail against it,
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but do you think
it is a real threat?
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Personally, I don't believe
that it is a such a real threat,
00:10:41.80\00:10:45.22
as it's commonly posed to be
in discussions at the moment.
00:10:45.25\00:10:48.65
And based on that I
think, that it is actually more
00:10:48.68\00:10:51.62
of an opportunity
that religions can take,
00:10:51.65\00:10:54.19
to say that there is this threat
from secularism that gives them
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the avenue in, to began more
of a support from government
00:10:57.56\00:11:01.51
for religion and
therefore, it allows religions
00:11:01.54\00:11:04.94
that have government support
to become the dominant factor
00:11:04.97\00:11:08.46
in society and thus establish
a union of church and state.
00:11:08.49\00:11:13.68
We live in an era where
language is more often used
00:11:13.71\00:11:16.43
to deceive than to
eliminate an issue.
00:11:16.46\00:11:19.99
For example,
quantitative easing,
00:11:20.02\00:11:23.22
this is the test for today.
00:11:23.25\00:11:24.71
What does that mean?
00:11:24.74\00:11:26.29
I don't think anyone really
knows it's a made up term.
00:11:26.32\00:11:28.87
It may affect our
lives radically though.
00:11:28.90\00:11:31.45
Secularism, last time I
heard that topic discussed,
00:11:31.48\00:11:35.29
it was postmodernism
but that era has passed.
00:11:35.32\00:11:38.60
But now secularism, if
you listen to Pope Benedict,
00:11:38.63\00:11:41.63
if you listen to many Protestant
Christian radio stations
00:11:41.66\00:11:45.81
in the United States and
listen to the radical write,
00:11:45.84\00:11:48.24
secularism is the mortal enemy.
00:11:48.27\00:11:51.70
I am inclined to
think, that secularism
00:11:51.73\00:11:54.14
is most dangerous
because it's most defensive.
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None of us like to be laughed
at, or ignored in reality,
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secularism does
that to religion.
00:12:00.21\00:12:02.63
But the sticks and stones
really won't break our bones,
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it's the true antagonist
who very often is another
00:12:05.63\00:12:09.44
competing religion, or
someone within your religion
00:12:09.47\00:12:12.38
that has a
radically different viewpoint
00:12:12.41\00:12:14.43
they no doubt,
put up with yours.
00:12:14.46\00:12:16.31
We need to comprehend secularism
00:12:16.34\00:12:18.38
I think as a positive
area for evangelization.
00:12:18.41\00:12:25.35
We need to reach
out to secularism.
00:12:25.38\00:12:27.52
It is not the threat
the threat is "Godlessness,"
00:12:27.55\00:12:30.86
which can happen
within the churches easily.
00:12:30.89\00:12:34.15
For "Liberty Insider"
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:12:34.18\00:12:37.73