Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Bert Beach
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000201A
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00:22 Welcome to "The Liberty Insider."
00:25 This is the program bringing you discussion, 00:27 views, news, and general information 00:30 all on religious liberty events around the world 00:34 and in the United States as a particular. 00:36 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:40 And my guest on the program is Dr. Bert Beach 00:43 Welcome, Dr. Beach. Yeah. 00:45 You bring many, many decades of religious liberty experience 00:49 leading out in the world 00:50 headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church 00:52 for religious liberty. 00:54 You're really a product of the European system, aren't you? 00:59 You spent much of your formative years 01:01 and your work life in Europe. 01:04 I want to talk about structures for religious liberty. 01:08 In the United States we spend a lot of time 01:10 talking about the constitution and the First amendment, 01:12 separation of church and state. 01:15 That is not the only model, is it, around the world? No. 01:19 There are, I suppose, many models. 01:21 In fact, you probably could say theoretically 01:24 that every country has its own model. 01:28 I mean, though it's sometimes very similar 01:31 to what is in another country. 01:33 But I suppose you could say that the 200 nations in the world, 01:37 or whatever it is the figure. 01:39 It's more than over 200, I think, 01:41 recognized by the UN as countries. 01:44 Each one would have a little bit of a different model 01:47 from the others 01:48 even though some of the models are very similar. 01:52 When you say 200, you're not including 01:54 the south as a separate nation, are you? 01:58 You know, there's a Russian sociologist 02:01 or political scientist rather 02:03 that's positive that the United States 02:05 was split into three separate entities 02:08 in the next 10, 20 years. 02:10 But that's not happened here. 02:12 But in Africa and once in Latin America 02:16 things were separating at a great stake, 02:18 you could hardly keep track. 02:20 But as we said in an earlier program 02:22 or another program, most every country 02:26 even if they're very repressive, 02:28 theoretically grants religious freedom. 02:30 No one that I've can remember 02:32 is openly against religious freedom, 02:35 even in some of the more repressive 02:37 fundamental Islamic states. 02:39 They still talk a good game. 02:40 The only country that I know of, 02:43 that right now that I can think of, 02:45 that officially declared no religious liberty was Albania. 02:51 The country write in the constitution, 02:53 "No religion in this country." 02:56 If the children went to school 02:58 they would be interrogated sometimes by the teachers 03:01 to find out whether their home- 03:02 at the home the parents were praying and stuff like that. 03:05 This was under communism. Under communism. 03:07 Things have changed a little now-- 03:09 Enver Hoxha, the leader there before he fell 03:12 and died and so on. 03:14 And of course it's strange now, 03:15 we have the Seventh-day Adventist Church 03:18 in Albania and other churches. 03:20 So it's a different situation. 03:21 So most countries have some statement 03:25 in their constitution guaranteeing 03:27 some form of religious liberty, 03:29 even though sometime it just kind of giving lip service 03:33 and in practice it doesn't work. 03:35 Well, even in Saudi Arabia, you know, they've got 03:36 some generalized statement 03:38 even though it's a capital offence to change your faith 03:41 from Islam to anything else. 03:43 And even though recently, 03:44 and I think we discussed it on a program, 03:46 the grand mufti in Saudi Arabia went public and said 03:51 that all the Christian churches-- 03:53 and there are some expatriate guest worker churches, 03:56 that they should all be destroyed. 03:58 But yet, you know, it's a benign statement, 04:01 "Yes, we believe in religion." 04:03 But in the United States 04:04 it's separation of church and state. 04:06 And as Alexis de Tocqueville-- 04:08 remember that French commentator-- De Tocqueville. 04:12 Yeah, my pronunciation is not French enough. 04:18 But, you know, he--he toured the US 04:20 in the aftermath of the French revolution 04:22 and so he had these sort of revolutionary views 04:25 in mind still, but he looked at the US as this new experiment. 04:28 And he was quite impressed with religious freedom in the US, 04:31 remember that? And he said that-- 04:34 already then most people said 04:36 that the dynamic of religion in the United States was 04:38 because of this separation of church and state. 04:41 Well, let's put it this way, separation of church and state 04:46 if practiced in a truly 04:51 separation-of-church-and-state way is of course a good thing. 04:55 You can have separation of church in the constitution 04:58 and still not have religious freedom. 05:00 And the most glaring example of that would be the soviet union 05:05 which said the separation of church and state, 05:08 and by that they meant that the church is separated 05:12 from the state and can do nothing to control the state 05:15 or telling the state what to do. 05:18 But the state could tell the church what to do. 05:21 So separation of church, it was really a separation 05:24 of the church from the state-- Well, of course-- 05:26 But not--but not the state from the church. 05:29 And of course in the United States 05:31 it's a two headed religious liberty concern, 05:34 separation of church and state and then free exercise. 05:38 You have to have the free exercise, 05:40 an unhindered practice of your faith. 05:43 Just to separate is a structural thing but-- 05:45 And if you look at the history of the old soviet union 05:48 and look at the French revolution 05:50 and look at the American model-- 05:53 the French revolution came about some of similar time 05:56 as the American model, 05:58 also kind of a form of separation of church and state, 06:01 but a hostile separation. 06:03 The state was hostile to the church. 06:05 And they did not want the church 06:07 to have influence the on the state. 06:09 So in France till today 06:11 there's a very strong separation of church and state. 06:14 But it is a little bit hostile, 06:17 not like it was at the time of the French revolution, 06:20 but a kind of a-- maybe you can say hostility 06:23 but a kind of a-- Suspicion? 06:25 Secularism, a secularism. We have a secularism-- 06:28 Well, laicité is the term there, isn't it? 06:30 Laicité? Laicité and so forth. 06:33 Now, in the soviet union, it was as I indicated-- 06:36 and also a hostile separation. 06:39 The Russian Orthodox Church had been very-- 06:41 You know, I was gonna bring that up. 06:43 That was not by chance in Russia or in France, 06:46 they had had abusive clerical systems-- Exactly. 06:49 That had joined with the power of the state 06:51 and ground down the peasants. Of course. 06:54 The reaction of separation of church and state 06:57 in those countries was because of the bad influence 07:01 in a way of the church over the years 07:03 and its involvement in the politics of the country 07:06 and they didn't want that anymore. 07:08 You remember in Russian history, I mean, in our late stage 07:12 the name is pretty much a hip-hop tune, but Rasputin. 07:17 I mean, this satanic, diabolical monk 07:20 that had ingratiated himself into the royal family. 07:23 But that was typical of the eastern orthodox priests 07:25 in Russia whether the Tsar like all the European monarchs 07:31 claimed divine right to rule then brought the church leader 07:37 to implement through the churches what he was saying 07:41 and acting abusively. 07:43 No wonder the peasants rose up and killed the emperor 07:47 or killed the Czar and chased 07:49 the--many of the church leaders away, 07:52 and in France the same thing. 07:54 Now, you have other models that are--tha you find in 07:58 let's say in Britain which has no separation of church and 08:02 state and yet there is religious liberty in Briton. 08:05 Churches can practice, the Protestant churches, 08:08 the Methodist Church, Baptist Church, 08:12 Seventh-day Adventist Church are free to act. 08:15 But the Anglican Church in Briton 08:18 has kind of a state status. 08:20 And the Archbishop of Canterbury 08:23 and the bishops are appointed by the Queen and so forth. 08:27 And so it gives them a kind of a better status in a way. 08:33 Well, it's kept them alive. 08:34 And kept them alive too 08:36 because you know interestingly enough in Briton 08:38 even though there is that model of the state-church, 08:43 the state-church is not financed by the government in Briton. 08:47 I thought there were government levies in England to-- No, no. 08:50 The government-- the state-church, 08:52 it has lot of income from its past properties 08:55 and so forth and then of course whatever the church 08:57 can get from offerings and all that. 09:00 But the church is not paid by the state. 09:02 And that's one reason why the cathedrals in Briton 09:05 are having a very hard time right now 09:07 and there's a whole effort like for example 09:10 in Briton saying these cathedrals are really monuments 09:14 that belong in a way to the state. 09:17 They belong to the church- 09:18 of course they belong to the church. 09:20 They are part of the church. 09:21 There's the cathedral or abbey and so forth. 09:23 And--but they're not financed by the state. 09:26 So there are some people that are saying 09:28 that the state should provide money 09:31 for the maintenance of these historical, 09:34 architectural marvels, that should-- 09:37 that would go to pieces if they weren't upheld. 09:40 Well, it's a seductive argument. 09:43 But in England, even though they have a state church, 09:46 its establishment in that sense, 09:48 I sometimes think that England has become in its own way 09:52 what the supreme court in the United States 09:55 have said characterizes 10 commandment monuments 09:58 old ones on public grounds 10:00 and so on the pledge of allegiance, 10:03 they call that ceremonial deism which is religion, 10:07 removed off its meaning 10:09 and become sort of a just a marker of society. 10:13 Kind of a civic-- A heritage, a heritage. 10:15 And I think England is that way 10:17 because I can't-- you lived there for a long time 10:22 but I, you know, from all my visits 10:24 and knowledge of England, 10:26 I don't see much practical evidence 10:28 of the state becoming very day-to-day 10:30 involved in religious matters. 10:32 It's just, you know, 10:34 the over-lordship of the Queen-- 10:37 It's kind of a ritual... --the head of the church. 10:39 Ritual. A ritual situation. 10:40 But religiously, but the religious life is not-- 10:42 monitored by the state. But kept the status when-- 10:43 when-- the Queen is coronated and so on, 10:47 the archbishop of Canterbury plays a role 10:49 and she appoints the archbishop theoretically, 10:53 even though it's actually a commission that recommends-- 10:58 I think a commission of about 20 people. 11:00 And it recommends to the prime minister two names. 11:04 And the prime minister can accept any one of the two 11:07 or even refer and say, 11:08 "I don't accept any of these two. 11:10 Would you go back to the drawing board 11:12 and see if you can come up with some other names." 11:14 So far it's never happened, I think. 11:15 Prime minister accepts one and then he gives that 11:18 one to the Queen and the Queen nominates the one. 11:21 I'm sure anyone that's watched this program a little, 11:24 knows that I have a great burden on Oliver Cromwell 11:26 in the civil war in England. 11:29 I believe, in its own way, that wasn't just a civil war. 11:34 That was a religious shaking off of the shackles of the past 11:37 and they've never gone back to the old models. Yeah. 11:40 And so in a certain de facto way I think the day-to-day feel 11:46 in England is very much separation of church and state 11:48 even though they have this ceremonial vestige 11:50 of the church, you know, waving the-- 11:52 Other churches are free to proclaim, 11:56 to have their churches, full liberty and so forth. 11:59 And of course we have the Scandinavian model 12:01 over in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, 12:05 and Nordic model including-- 12:07 Even though they are mostly protestant 12:08 they've become very antagonistic to establish church state-- 12:11 Where the church is united to the state 12:14 even thought I think it is now in Sweden 12:17 they have actually separated recently. 12:20 The church is no longer a state-- 12:22 Yeah, Sweden, we've had some-- 12:23 But Norway and Denmark and I think Finland are still 12:28 to some extent united, 12:30 even though they're getting more and more separation. 12:32 Well, those Scandinavian countries 12:34 are becoming very secular 12:36 and there's an increasing antagonism to church activity, 12:40 not just to establishment, and that's its own problem. 12:43 But they're flying apart at the speed of light. 12:46 It is a mixed bag around the world, isn't it? Yeah. 12:49 There's no evidence that we're moving toward 12:51 a common model of religious freedom. 12:54 And the United States system I think has worked very well, 12:57 but it's not spreading. 12:58 I think well, I think it's spreading in a way 13:02 that you find it in constitutions now. 13:05 You find constitution-- like Italy recently-- 13:08 Or even Australia. 13:09 Voted separation of church and state which-- 13:12 and that's really influence of the United States 13:14 after World War II. Absolutely. 13:16 Well, we'll take a break right now. 13:18 We'll be back in a few minutes to continue this discussion 13:21 of models of religious freedom around the world. |
Revised 2014-12-17