Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Bert Beach
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000201B
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00:06 Welcome back to "The Liberty Insider."
00:08 Before the break with guest Bert Beach 00:11 we were talking about models of religious liberty 00:13 or church-state models around the world, weren't we? 00:16 And they are varied-- I mean, 00:18 we'll just really look at the basic models. 00:21 There's the United States system, 00:22 separation of church and state, first amendment. 00:25 There's England, an established church 00:28 but in many ways a hands-off 00:30 approach to most religious activity by the state. 00:34 What about the Middle East? That's a mixed bag, isn't it? 00:37 Sometimes very problematic. Well, it is. 00:38 It is a mixed bag and a very difficult situation 00:41 because it's in the midst of a turmoil, 00:43 changing situation and it's very difficult to predict 00:46 what's going to be the status of religious liberty tomorrow. 00:50 I'm personally very concerned about it. 00:53 I mean, there was considerable influence in some extent 00:57 in the Middle East of what you might call 00:59 a secular form of government. 01:01 You take Turkey. Yeah. 01:02 When Turkey became independent, or actually changed regime, 01:08 when the falling of the Ottoman Empire 01:10 after World War I, 01:13 Ataturk established a really a secular state. 01:17 But he did it by force of personality-- 01:19 Exactly. And in some way force of arms. 01:21 And with the army. So he had a secular state yet 01:27 with Islam having a dominant influence in society, 01:32 socially-- but technically speaking 01:35 it was an in--it was separation of church and state. 01:39 Now, the new regime in Turkey 01:42 is getting less and less secular and more and more-- 01:46 Islam having more and more influence. 01:48 Erdogan the prime minister is an Islamist-- 01:50 Exactly so... 01:52 Who stated openly that he wants to steer his country 01:55 back to an Islamic point of view. 01:58 It's still freedom but it's tightening up, isn't it?. 02:00 But... It's freedom up to a certain point. 02:06 For example, our churches had a hard time owning property 02:08 in the country in the past 02:11 and the Orthodox Church has a seminary 02:13 on one of the islands there off--outside of Istanbul 02:18 which they like to call Constantinople. 02:22 And it's still not open. 02:23 It has been closed for several decades and so forth. 02:26 So there are our problems. Then you have Iraq. 02:28 Well, Iraq--Saddam Hussein was a despot 02:33 but he was a kind of a secular despot to some extent. 02:37 At the end of his life he tried to be more Muslim 02:40 in a way to get the support of the Islamists. 02:44 But he was a secular and there was 02:46 a certain amount of religious liberty. 02:48 The Ba'ath Party was a secular socialist regime-- 02:51 Yeah, exactly. 02:52 Which in order to keep Islam in particular out of power, 02:57 granted full freedom to all religions-- 02:59 Exactly. Exactly. 03:00 And so there is a situation now-- 03:02 you see even now in Egypt, 03:05 the Islamists seem to be getting more and more control 03:10 and you wonder what the outcome will be, 03:13 probably the outcome in Libya. 03:15 I'm not clear at all what's gonna happen in the long run. 03:18 I'm worried that the regime 03:20 that comes on after the fall of Gaddafi, 03:24 may be better in some things 03:27 and probably will be better in many things 03:29 but when it comes to religious liberty for Christians, 03:32 I'm not so sure that the regime will be better, 03:34 it might be worse. 03:36 Well, the regime of Gaddafi was not an Islamist regime. No. 03:40 He was in fact-- like many leaders 03:43 he started off very enlightened and populist 03:46 in turn to self-interest and oppression 03:50 but it was never a religious regime. Right. 03:53 But in Europe-- get back to Europe 03:55 where you spent a lot of time. 03:58 We talked about England 04:00 but a lot of Europe was catholic dominated, 04:03 certainly all of it before the reformation. 04:06 So before the reformation over many centuries 04:10 the catholic church had inculcated itself, 04:12 installed itself sort of in the--next to the throne. 04:17 Quite literally, sometimes the cardinal would stand 04:20 next to the king and whisper in his ears, 04:21 "Do this. Act this way," right? 04:23 "Or else the pope will disapprove of you." 04:25 Yeah, exactly. 04:27 And the rulers would work-- of Briton, France, and Germany-- 04:32 They would work them against each other, yeah. 04:34 And Spain would try to get the pope on their side, 04:36 you know, and all that kind of stuff. 04:38 So that--of course that with the reformation that changed. 04:40 With the reformation it broke that hold. 04:42 And the result of the reformation really 04:45 was a policy in Europe which in order to stop the war-- 04:49 you had all these, you know, 04:51 the 30 years war and the religious wars. 04:54 In order to stop the religious wars 04:56 they accepted the concept of, "Who's rule, his religion." 05:02 "Cuius regio, eius religio." Something like that. 05:05 In other words, who has the power is who is in government. 05:12 The religion of that country 05:13 will be the religion of the ruler. 05:15 This is a very ancient principle. 05:16 So if you-- and the idea was 05:18 well, if you didn't like that then immigrate and go-- 05:21 and so you had people living from Prussia going to Russia, 05:25 going to US and so on. 05:27 You had this departure while in the early days 05:29 it wasn't US yet but that came later. 05:32 But the idea is the ruler decided the religion. 05:37 That was the policy for-- That is the earliest-- 05:39 It continued under reformation, under Lutheranism in Germany, 05:43 a certain amount of state-church influence. 05:47 In other words some parts of Germany were Roman Catholic, 05:51 other parts were Lutheran. Yeah. 05:52 And the others were just-- 05:55 they were free to some extent but not full religious liberty 06:00 and certainly didn't have the status of the state-church. 06:03 And in fact in Germany today still people can pay their taxes 06:10 to the state-church through the government. 06:13 Which is a whole different program. 06:14 We need to talk about-- And in Switzerland too actually. 06:17 Yeah. In Switzerland-- 06:18 State levies to support churches. 06:20 And of course there are lot of people 06:22 saying now we should stop that. 06:24 There's churches-- people should pay 06:25 their money to the church directly 06:27 not through the-- taxes through the state. 06:30 And--but-- 06:31 Oh, it's particularly honors to somebody 06:33 who is forced to pay that 06:35 and then maybe belongs to a minority church 06:37 where they are paying to support that so it's double billing. 06:40 Well, if you don't belong to the state church, 06:43 you don't pay the tax. 06:46 But some churches are not recognized. 06:48 I read in-- No, but some people are-- 06:49 If you're in a church that's not recognized 06:51 you will be counted and you have to pay. 06:53 In fact, and that's where-- Taxation without representation. 06:57 That's part of what I would consider 06:58 the very distasteful aspect. 07:01 I mean, you can see the aspect of a person paying 07:05 through the state the taxes if he wants to. 07:08 He is a member of the church, he should support his church. 07:11 And if he pays through the state, well, 07:13 you know, you can say that to some extent, 07:15 even though of course I'm opposed to that idea. 07:17 But if it's the church itself kind of almost forcing people 07:22 to pay through the state and people-- 07:25 the only way they can avoid it is by resigning. 07:27 You have to resign from the membership of the church, 07:30 you're no longer a Roman Catholic. 07:31 You should say, "I'm no longer a Lutheran." 07:33 Then you don't have to pay it. 07:35 And then they still want to go to church maybe 07:36 but not pay the tax. Well, that's-- 07:38 But that's not-- that's a very-- 07:39 Social baggage but little how I expect-- 07:41 That's a very improper way of handling things. 07:43 But you mentioned 07:45 the religion of the country being that of the ruler. 07:51 But that's a very old principle. 07:52 Wasn't it Clovis, king of the Franks? 07:54 When he was baptized a Christian, 07:56 France became Christian. 07:58 When--uh-- in the year 1000, 08:02 the Tsar, the ruler of Moscow-- 08:07 'cause that's really how-- the Tsarwas originally-- 08:09 Oh, yeah. It's an old system. 08:10 He was baptized and Russia became Christian. 08:12 But it was adjusted kind of so that-- 08:17 'cause it was really the whole area would be one. 08:19 But these--in Germany there were so many local rulers 08:23 that it became smaller and smaller groups. 08:24 Right, yeah. 08:27 So where does that-- well, I know one 08:29 we haven't mentioned and we need to on this program, 08:32 particularly with Liberty Magazine 08:34 primarily distributing the magazine in Canada 08:36 or in the United States, two very fraternal countries 08:39 but very different on church-state models. 08:42 Separation of church and state in the United States. 08:46 I don't really think you could characterize Canada 08:49 as separation of church and state. 08:51 It's more a matter there of equal treatment. 08:56 In some ways, particularly in Quebec 08:58 the Roman Catholic Church is favored. 09:00 And so the subsides and concessions given to them, 09:06 you could ask that the same thing be 09:08 given to your or any other religion. 09:11 But they're not going to disestablish any time soon. 09:14 Well, not very much. 09:16 I mean, there is an effort, a little bit, in Quebec. 09:19 I think people are becoming more secular 09:21 and some of the people, as society becomes more secular 09:25 they are not willing to give money to the church. 09:27 And in fact-- it's very interesting in France, 09:29 even though there is secularism, 09:32 the catholic schools are paid by the state, 09:35 they get state subsidy. It's very strange, in a way. 09:38 And in the area of Alsace-Lorraine or Alsace, 09:44 there's a Lutheran church there 09:47 because Germany dominated that part for a while, 09:50 you know, after or between 1870 and World War I. 09:55 Then after World War I it became French again. 09:59 Well, even the German shepherd is an Alsatian. 10:01 So they have-- the German they give money 10:04 so in Alsace-Lorraine the church president 10:07 and his staff are paid by the French Government. 10:09 Interesting. In the rest of France 10:11 they would be appalled at the thought. 10:15 Well, the world is full of a hodgepodge of arrangements 10:19 that have historical antecedents, 10:21 sometimes the whim of the people or the rulers 10:25 and it's another way of saying religious freedom 10:28 is not a given around the world, is it? No. 10:31 Religious freedom has many threats, may complications, 10:35 but we shouldn't I think say that only one system will work. 10:40 Only one system will-- not only one system will work. 10:43 I think it's wrong to say that. 10:45 But I do think that separation of church and state 10:48 is the best guarantee, 10:50 even though it's not a perfect system 10:52 it has problems in other parts of the world. 10:54 And I think we should be aware of that-- 10:57 even though we say separation of church and state 10:59 it may not always be handled in a perfect way, 11:02 but it's the best system we have found so far. 11:09 What is the correct model for religious liberty? 11:13 I'm put to mind of Moses standing before Pharaoh, 11:17 a living god according to his people, surrounded by 11:20 all of the pantheon of gods of Egypt, 11:23 many and varied and incredible accepted power. 11:30 And Moses stood in front of this demigod and he says, 11:33 "You must release my people to go 3 days into the wilderness 11:36 to worship god or else-- 11:39 or else your kingdom will be destroyed, 11:41 or else the hail will fall down, 11:43 the water will be destroyed, 11:45 the life of Egypt, and your very first born." 11:49 And they were liberated and began a great trek 11:52 that ended by in Canaan. 11:54 But that's not the model for us today. 11:58 In a secular society, in a post reformation society, 12:02 where we're struggling for the acceptance of all people 12:04 that understand what it is to worship god. 12:07 It's enough to create as it's often said, 12:11 that level playing field to keep those forces 12:14 that would compel us to a false worship at bay 12:17 and to allow everybody to use their conscience 12:20 to seek out god and worship him. 12:23 That is the model. 12:25 Whether it's a constitutional one like in the US, 12:27 whether it's a benign ruler in another country 12:30 more used to tribalism, 12:32 whatever the situation, we must be free to worship god freely. 12:40 For "Liberty Insider" this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2014-12-17