Welcome back to
"The Liberty Insider."
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Before the break
with guest Bert Beach
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we were talking about
models of religious liberty
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or church-state models
around the world, weren't we?
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And they are varied-- I mean,
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we'll just really
look at the basic models.
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There's the
United States system,
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separation of church
and state, first amendment.
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There's England,
an established church
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but in many ways a hands-off
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approach to most
religious activity by the state.
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What about the Middle East?
That's a mixed bag, isn't it?
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Sometimes very
problematic. Well, it is.
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It is a mixed bag and a
very difficult situation
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because it's in
the midst of a turmoil,
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changing situation and
it's very difficult to predict
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what's going to be the status
of religious liberty tomorrow.
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I'm personally
very concerned about it.
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I mean, there was considerable
influence in some extent
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in the Middle East
of what you might call
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a secular form of government.
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You take Turkey. Yeah.
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When Turkey became independent,
or actually changed regime,
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when the falling
of the Ottoman Empire
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after World War I,
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Ataturk established a
really a secular state.
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But he did it by
force of personality--
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Exactly. And in
some way force of arms.
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And with the army. So
he had a secular state yet
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with Islam having a
dominant influence in society,
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socially-- but
technically speaking
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it was an in--it was
separation of church and state.
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Now, the new regime in Turkey
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is getting less and less
secular and more and more--
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Islam having more
and more influence.
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Erdogan the prime
minister is an Islamist--
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Exactly so...
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Who stated openly that he
wants to steer his country
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back to an
Islamic point of view.
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It's still freedom but
it's tightening up, isn't it?.
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But... It's freedom
up to a certain point.
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For example, our churches
had a hard time owning property
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in the country in the past
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and the Orthodox
Church has a seminary
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on one of the islands
there off--outside of Istanbul
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which they like to
call Constantinople.
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And it's still not open.
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It has been closed for
several decades and so forth.
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So there are our
problems. Then you have Iraq.
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Well, Iraq--Saddam
Hussein was a despot
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but he was a kind of a
secular despot to some extent.
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At the end of his life
he tried to be more Muslim
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in a way to get the
support of the Islamists.
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But he was a
secular and there was
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a certain amount
of religious liberty.
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The Ba'ath Party was a
secular socialist regime--
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Yeah, exactly.
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Which in order to keep Islam
in particular out of power,
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granted full
freedom to all religions--
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Exactly. Exactly.
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And so there is
a situation now--
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you see even now in Egypt,
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the Islamists seem to be
getting more and more control
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and you wonder what
the outcome will be,
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probably the outcome in Libya.
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I'm not clear at all what's
gonna happen in the long run.
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I'm worried that the regime
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that comes on after
the fall of Gaddafi,
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may be better in some things
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and probably will be
better in many things
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but when it comes to religious
liberty for Christians,
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I'm not so sure that
the regime will be better,
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it might be worse.
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Well, the regime of Gaddafi
was not an Islamist regime. No.
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He was in fact--
like many leaders
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he started off very
enlightened and populist
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in turn to
self-interest and oppression
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but it was never a
religious regime. Right.
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But in Europe--
get back to Europe
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where you spent a lot of time.
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We talked about England
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but a lot of Europe
was catholic dominated,
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certainly all of it
before the reformation.
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So before the
reformation over many centuries
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the catholic church
had inculcated itself,
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installed itself sort of
in the--next to the throne.
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Quite literally, sometimes
the cardinal would stand
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next to the king
and whisper in his ears,
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"Do this. Act this way," right?
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"Or else the pope
will disapprove of you."
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Yeah, exactly.
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And the rulers would work--
of Briton, France, and Germany--
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They would work them
against each other, yeah.
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And Spain would try to
get the pope on their side,
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you know, and all
that kind of stuff.
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So that--of course that with
the reformation that changed.
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With the
reformation it broke that hold.
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And the result of
the reformation really
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was a policy in Europe
which in order to stop the war--
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you had all these, you know,
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the 30 years war
and the religious wars.
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In order to stop
the religious wars
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they accepted the concept
of, "Who's rule, his religion."
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"Cuius regio, eius
religio." Something like that.
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In other words, who has the
power is who is in government.
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The religion of that country
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will be the
religion of the ruler.
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This is a very
ancient principle.
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So if you-- and the idea was
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well, if you didn't like
that then immigrate and go--
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and so you had people living
from Prussia going to Russia,
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going to US and so on.
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You had this departure
while in the early days
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it wasn't US yet
but that came later.
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But the idea is the
ruler decided the religion.
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That was the policy
for-- That is the earliest--
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It continued under reformation,
under Lutheranism in Germany,
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a certain amount of
state-church influence.
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In other words some parts
of Germany were Roman Catholic,
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other parts were Lutheran. Yeah.
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And the others were just--
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they were free to some extent
but not full religious liberty
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and certainly didn't have
the status of the state-church.
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And in fact in Germany today
still people can pay their taxes
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to the state-church
through the government.
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Which is a whole
different program.
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We need to talk about-- And
in Switzerland too actually.
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Yeah. In Switzerland--
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State levies to
support churches.
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And of course
there are lot of people
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saying now we should stop that.
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There's
churches-- people should pay
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their money to
the church directly
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not through the--
taxes through the state.
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And--but--
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Oh, it's
particularly honors to somebody
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who is forced to pay that
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and then maybe
belongs to a minority church
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where they are paying to support
that so it's double billing.
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Well, if you don't
belong to the state church,
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you don't pay the tax.
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But some churches
are not recognized.
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I read in-- No,
but some people are--
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If you're in a
church that's not recognized
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you will be counted
and you have to pay.
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In fact, and that's where--
Taxation without representation.
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That's part of
what I would consider
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the very distasteful aspect.
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I mean, you can see the
aspect of a person paying
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through the state
the taxes if he wants to.
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He is a member of the church,
he should support his church.
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And if he pays
through the state, well,
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you know, you can
say that to some extent,
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even though of course
I'm opposed to that idea.
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But if it's the church itself
kind of almost forcing people
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to pay through
the state and people--
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the only way they can
avoid it is by resigning.
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You have to resign from
the membership of the church,
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you're no longer
a Roman Catholic.
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You should say, "I'm
no longer a Lutheran."
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Then you don't have to pay it.
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And then they still
want to go to church maybe
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but not pay the
tax. Well, that's--
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But that's not-- that's a very--
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Social baggage but
little how I expect--
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That's a very improper
way of handling things.
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But you mentioned
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the religion of the
country being that of the ruler.
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But that's a very old principle.
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Wasn't it Clovis,
king of the Franks?
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When he was
baptized a Christian,
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France became Christian.
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When--uh-- in the year 1000,
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the Tsar, the ruler of Moscow--
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'cause that's really
how-- the Tsarwas originally--
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Oh, yeah. It's an old system.
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He was baptized and
Russia became Christian.
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But it was
adjusted kind of so that--
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'cause it was really
the whole area would be one.
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But these--in Germany
there were so many local rulers
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that it became
smaller and smaller groups.
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Right, yeah.
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So where does
that-- well, I know one
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we haven't mentioned and
we need to on this program,
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particularly
with Liberty Magazine
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primarily distributing
the magazine in Canada
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or in the United States,
two very fraternal countries
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but very different
on church-state models.
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Separation of church and
state in the United States.
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I don't really think you
could characterize Canada
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as separation of
church and state.
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It's more a matter
there of equal treatment.
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In some ways,
particularly in Quebec
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the Roman
Catholic Church is favored.
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And so the subsides and
concessions given to them,
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you could ask
that the same thing be
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given to your or
any other religion.
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But they're not going to
disestablish any time soon.
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Well, not very much.
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I mean, there is an
effort, a little bit, in Quebec.
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I think people are
becoming more secular
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and some of the people, as
society becomes more secular
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they are not willing to
give money to the church.
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And in fact-- it's
very interesting in France,
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even though there is secularism,
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the catholic schools
are paid by the state,
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they get state subsidy.
It's very strange, in a way.
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And in the area of
Alsace-Lorraine or Alsace,
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there's a Lutheran church there
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because Germany
dominated that part for a while,
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you know, after or
between 1870 and World War I.
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Then after World War I
it became French again.
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Well, even the German
shepherd is an Alsatian.
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So they have-- the
German they give money
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so in Alsace-Lorraine
the church president
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and his staff are paid
by the French Government.
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Interesting. In
the rest of France
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they would be
appalled at the thought.
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Well, the world is full of
a hodgepodge of arrangements
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that have
historical antecedents,
00:10:19.17\00:10:21.81
sometimes the whim of
the people or the rulers
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and it's another way of
saying religious freedom
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is not a given
around the world, is it? No.
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Religious freedom has many
threats, may complications,
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but we shouldn't I think say
that only one system will work.
00:10:35.44\00:10:40.17
Only one system will--
not only one system will work.
00:10:40.20\00:10:43.78
I think it's wrong to say that.
00:10:43.81\00:10:45.27
But I do think that
separation of church and state
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is the best guarantee,
00:10:48.84\00:10:50.37
even though it's
not a perfect system
00:10:50.40\00:10:52.19
it has problems in
other parts of the world.
00:10:52.22\00:10:54.92
And I think we
should be aware of that--
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even though we say
separation of church and state
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it may not always be
handled in a perfect way,
00:10:59.81\00:11:02.93
but it's the best
system we have found so far.
00:11:02.96\00:11:07.00
What is the correct
model for religious liberty?
00:11:09.84\00:11:13.92
I'm put to mind of
Moses standing before Pharaoh,
00:11:13.95\00:11:17.73
a living god according
to his people, surrounded by
00:11:17.76\00:11:20.49
all of the
pantheon of gods of Egypt,
00:11:20.52\00:11:23.89
many and varied and
incredible accepted power.
00:11:23.92\00:11:30.05
And Moses stood in front
of this demigod and he says,
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"You must release my people
to go 3 days into the wilderness
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to worship god or else--
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or else your
kingdom will be destroyed,
00:11:39.21\00:11:40.97
or else the hail will fall down,
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the water will be destroyed,
00:11:43.26\00:11:45.25
the life of Egypt,
and your very first born."
00:11:45.28\00:11:49.41
And they were
liberated and began a great trek
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that ended by in Canaan.
00:11:52.32\00:11:54.91
But that's not the
model for us today.
00:11:54.94\00:11:58.02
In a secular society, in
a post reformation society,
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where we're struggling for
the acceptance of all people
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that understand what
it is to worship god.
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It's enough to
create as it's often said,
00:12:07.32\00:12:11.07
that level playing
field to keep those forces
00:12:11.10\00:12:14.56
that would compel us
to a false worship at bay
00:12:14.59\00:12:17.74
and to allow everybody
to use their conscience
00:12:17.77\00:12:20.55
to seek out god and worship him.
00:12:20.58\00:12:23.51
That is the model.
00:12:23.54\00:12:25.07
Whether it's a constitutional
one like in the US,
00:12:25.10\00:12:27.76
whether it's a benign
ruler in another country
00:12:27.79\00:12:30.59
more used to tribalism,
00:12:30.62\00:12:32.00
whatever the situation, we must
be free to worship god freely.
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For "Liberty Insider"
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:12:40.35\00:12:43.35