Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Bert Beach
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000199B
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00:06 Welcome back to "The Liberty Insider."
00:08 Before the break with guest Dr. Bert Beach, 00:11 the ambassador for Religious Liberty, 00:14 we were tracing your career 00:17 and how you really got into Religious Liberty 00:19 at the world headquarters level. 00:21 And I'd made an allusion to a very contentious period 00:26 within the Adventist church 00:27 when some leaders trying to reconcile 00:30 our beliefs with Protestantism 00:32 or evangelicals made compromising statements. 00:37 And I mentioned that that was unfortunate 00:40 but that what you did setting up interchurch dialog 00:43 is not at all the same, isn't it? 00:45 This is basically diplomatic context way, 00:48 you're explaining yourself 00:51 so that you can work cooperatively 00:53 in certain countries for Religious Liberty 00:55 to make friends and influence people basically, right? 00:59 And also, Lincoln, it's very important to make sure 01:03 that others have a correct understanding 01:05 of what we stand for and what we believe 01:08 because in my contacts with others, 01:10 I've had very strange statements. 01:12 You know, I had a leading Baptist theologian 01:15 come to me once and say, 01:16 "Well, now your name is Seventh-day Adventist. 01:18 So that means you expect the second coming of Christ 01:21 on the seventh day?" 01:23 And I said, "Well, no, not at all and so forth." 01:26 Or another one says, "Your name is Seventh-day Adventist, 01:28 so the Sabbath and the Second Advent 01:31 that's the center of your belief?" 01:33 And I said, "Well, your name is Baptist, 01:36 so baptism is the center of your belief?" 01:39 "Oh, no, it's salvation in Christ." 01:41 "Well, it's with us also salvation in Christ." 01:43 So you have to explain these things. 01:45 I mean, Apostle Peter 01:47 I think makes very clear in his first letter. 01:49 He says, "When people ask you for a reason for your faith, 01:53 be always ready to do it." 01:55 Now some people are ready to do it 01:57 by kind of pontificating when they talk to people 02:00 or telling them you're wrong and I'm right and so forth. 02:04 I think Peter says, "Do it with humility." 02:08 He says, "Do it with respect and do it with honesty," 02:12 he says, "with a good conscious, so honesty." 02:14 So when we have a conversation with people 02:17 and we've had conversations with other churches 02:20 dealing with theology, explaining to them 02:21 what we believe regarding Christ, 02:24 the salvation, the Bible, our approach to life 02:28 and Religious Liberty and these issues, 02:31 we try to make it clear where we stand 02:34 and then we listen to them also 02:36 because conversations means not only talking, 02:39 it also means listening. Absolutely. 02:41 And some people have a hard time listening. 02:44 And so we've presented our viewpoint. 02:46 We try to do it humbly. 02:48 We try to do it with respect and to do it honestly. 02:52 I've always believed that this is a wonderfully-- 02:57 well, it's a wonderful dynamic, 02:59 not to be confused with the compromising tendency 03:02 that I think of on at least that one occasion I referred to. 03:05 But I know over the years, 03:06 you know, different people have sniped at you 03:08 and the department for doing this 03:10 but they don't understand it. 03:11 So I'm really glad you explained that. 03:13 And we are still doing that and I hope we do more of it. Yeah. 03:17 Well, of course, you know, 03:20 the priority of our church is, of course, the Bible. 03:27 And the Bible teaches us 03:28 that the plan of salvation is the important thing, 03:31 salvation of people. 03:33 So evangelism is the first priority of our church 03:38 and I agree with that. Yeah. 03:39 But in order to get an atmosphere, 03:42 in order to better evangelize perhaps, 03:45 we need also to explain to people what our beliefs are 03:49 and meet with theologians, people that- 03:52 and have an understanding of other people's beliefs 03:54 because I must confess that sometimes, 03:57 we present the beliefs of other churches 04:00 not always quite accurately. Incorrectly. That's true. 04:01 We present them in a kind of a, well, unfavorable way, 04:07 let's put it that way. And not quite completely-- 04:10 And probably inaccurate. Appropriately. 04:12 I think knowledge about other faiths-- 04:14 And so for example, 04:16 if people talk about Seventh-day Adventists 04:19 and they only quote what our people said in the 19th century, 04:25 you know, we get upset about that 04:27 because we say, our theology has better explanations today. 04:31 It has evolved. 04:32 We have a better understanding of the truth, 04:34 of the fundamental beliefs, 04:36 the 28 fundamental beliefs of our church. 04:38 So we want them to quote what we're saying today 04:41 from our magazines, from our books and everything. 04:44 Well, sometimes when we talk about other churches, 04:48 I don't need to mention any church by name, 04:50 we quote maybe only documents 04:52 that were voted maybe 200 or 300 years ago. 04:55 And we don't say what they are saying today. 04:58 So you're building an image that may not reflect 05:02 reality completely, maybe partly true, yes. 05:05 Yeah, we need to. 05:06 Well, we need to have a full knowledge, 05:08 not just a passing opinion. 05:10 And I know Seventh-day Adventists 05:12 have suffered from a success in a certain area. 05:15 You know a health message, 05:16 I think we got that across in previous generations, 05:19 and the message many people have, 05:20 "Well, Seventh-day Adventists, oh, they don't eat meat 05:22 and they're vegetarians and they don't eat--" 05:26 This was incorrect. 05:27 But I heard someone say, "Well, they eat peanut butter." 05:30 You know, that's not a very good definition. 05:33 So I think you've done a great service over the years, 05:35 dialoging with many different churches. And also it's helped-- 05:39 And making friends along the way. 05:40 And in my book here, 05:43 I mentioned dozens and dozens of top people 05:46 in the world in religion and so on 05:47 that are friends of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. 05:50 That doesn't mean that they agree 05:51 with us on everything. 05:53 But one thing I noticed 05:54 in interchurch relations with other people, 05:57 the most important thing is not necessarily 05:59 that they agree with you on everything 06:01 but that they trust you. 06:04 If they trust you, you are in a much stronger position 06:08 to be able to present your views and to present arguments 06:11 and explain why you do certain things, 06:13 why you don't do other things, 06:15 why you don't become members of maybe ecumenical organizations 06:19 and bodies and they understand. 06:23 But if you don't present it to them in a correct way, 06:25 they have a wrong understanding. 06:26 So today, our church as a result of the contacts 06:30 I think what we made 06:31 is considered by other denominations 06:33 to be a Christian world communion. 06:38 That's not the same as saying 06:40 you are a sect acting kind of cruelly 06:44 and not always completely honestly in some corner. 06:49 Now for many years, 06:50 you were Secretary General 06:52 of the Christian World Communion, weren't you? Yes. 06:54 What is that organization, can you explain that-- 06:55 Well, it's a meeting really rather than-- 06:58 Sort of a round table, isn't it? It's a round table. 07:01 It meets every year and it's representative 07:06 of about 20 world bodies 07:09 that are considered to be world Christian bodies. 07:12 Now it's interesting to note 07:14 that most churches in the world are not world churches 07:18 and people sometimes don't realize it. 07:20 Obviously, the Roman Catholic Church is a world church. 07:23 Salvation Army is a world church. 07:25 Seventh-day Adventist Church is a world church. 07:28 But the Baptists basically are national churches 07:32 or even local congregations very often. 07:34 Pentecostals tend to be also more localized. 07:37 And the Methodists are local churches. 07:41 The Anglicans have the Anglican Communion. 07:43 But the Archbishop of Canterbury 07:45 is only administratively in power, 07:49 you might say, in the area of Canterbury. 07:52 So you're talking administrative control. Yeah. 07:55 I mean, all of these churches you mentioned 07:57 have members scattered around the world. 07:59 Members scattered around--but their structure is not global-- 08:00 They may have very similar doctrines-- Yeah. 08:03 But they don't have any organization 08:05 except these bodies called like the World Methodist Council, 08:10 the Lutheran World Federation, 08:11 and so on that brings them together. 08:13 And, yes, these bodies are the ones that meet every year. 08:16 And I was secretary of that. 08:18 They had me secretary of that for 32 years. 08:22 And I know that, that was-- 08:24 And I thought it was a contribution 08:25 we can make to show that we're willing to cooperate 08:29 and meet with other people and discuss things with other people 08:32 always keeping very strongly to our own beliefs. Very good. 08:37 In all the years that you were leading out 08:42 dialogs with these other churches 08:44 and of course in the department 08:45 where there were crises that came along from time to time, 08:48 what one incident, for example, sticks with you? 08:51 Was there, you know, 08:53 a moment when everything sort of focused on the need 08:55 to communicate and to intervene? 08:57 What crisis situation do you remember 09:00 for example in all those years? 09:01 Well, obviously, communism, Eastern Europe. 09:05 There is problems in Eastern Europe. 09:07 We have very often discussed that. 09:08 In fact, I would bring other people into the meeting. 09:11 I would suggest in preparing the agenda for the next meeting 09:15 that we have a discussion of Religious Liberty 09:18 on the agenda to discuss. 09:19 And sometime I would talk to Dr. Rossi 09:21 who was living in Switzerland at the time. 09:23 And some of the meetings, about half the meetings, 09:25 usually, took place for several years in Switzerland. 09:28 And so we had him come in. 09:32 And he was our Religious Liberty man 09:33 for the Euro-African Division at that time 09:36 and an expert for the UN and all that. 09:38 He would come and present the situation in Eastern Europe 09:41 that was going on in communist company, 09:44 in Soviet Union and so forth. 09:45 So do you think the discussion 09:47 and the pressures brought to bay by our church 09:49 and others on Religious Liberty issues 09:51 had anything directly to do with the reformulating 09:55 of the communist hold on Eastern Europe? 09:59 Directly, I would say it would be hard to show exactly. 10:03 I mean, sometime it's claimed that, 10:05 you know, the pope had such an influence in Poland 10:09 and so forth that caused the communism to fall. 10:11 I don't think that's exactly the way it was. 10:13 It was not that simple. 10:15 But, of course, people everywhere have a yearning 10:17 for freedom in general 10:19 and religious freedom in particular, don't they? 10:21 Absolutely, I think it's a basic human right. 10:24 And people need liberty to express themselves. 10:29 If a person is restricted, be it in the home, 10:32 be it in school, be it anywhere, 10:35 it will not be very successful. 10:37 People have to be able to do their thing, 10:40 of course, within reasonable conditions. 10:44 It's been my pleasure to discuss with Dr. Bert Beach 10:48 a little of his life story as recently published in his book. 10:52 It does have the wrong title. 10:54 When I first heard about the book being published, 10:56 I said it should be titled "Give him a medal." 11:00 The reality is that Dr. Beach 11:02 has done so many leading edge things over the years 11:05 and one of the things that got the most blowback 11:07 from those unaware of the dynamic 11:10 of what we do in Religious Liberty 11:12 was he visited a pope in Rome 11:15 and gave him a little keepsake of the visit. 11:19 There are always exchanges of gifts. 11:22 What is important as I look at Dr. Beach's life 11:25 and exemplified in that one contact, 11:27 he always witnessed powerfully 11:30 to what we believe as Seventh-day Adventist 11:32 to what Religious Liberty inherently is 11:35 not from just history but from the Bible. 11:38 And if you do and look through that book, 11:41 you'll see that over the years in contact after contact, 11:46 in situation after situation, Dr. Beach projected 11:50 an Adventist view of Religious Liberty 11:52 that we can be thankful for. 11:55 Of course, there are great heroes of faith in our churches, 11:58 in other churches and in other times. 12:00 But in the Religious Liberty area, 12:02 when I look at what Dr. Beach 12:04 and some of his contemporaries did, 12:07 it was a golden era of representing to prince 12:12 and prelate what the principles of Religious Liberty are 12:17 and should be and will forever be 12:19 because they are biblically based. 12:21 That's an important point to get across. 12:23 There is a logic for it. 12:25 But at the end of the day we believe in Religious Liberty, 12:28 because we have been liberated from sin 12:32 by the Lord Jesus Christ. 12:35 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2014-12-17