Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Bert Beach
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000203A
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00:23 Welcome to the "Liberty Insider."
00:25 This is a program that brings you news, views, 00:27 and up to date discussion on religious liberty events 00:31 in the United States and around the world. 00:33 My name is Lincoln Steed, Editor of Liberty Magazine, 00:37 and my guest on the program, 00:38 welcome, is Dr. Bert Beach, 00:42 longtime religious liberty leader 00:43 for the Seventh-day Adventist Church 00:45 and for many years heading up 00:46 the work of the General Conference Headquarters. 00:50 Thinking back on your experience and thinking to today 00:54 which the newspaper headlines are always shrieking 00:57 religious liberty concerns at us. 00:58 Are we better off today for religious liberty 01:02 than we once were or are things-- 01:04 have things gotten much worse? 01:07 Wow. It's a loaded question obviously-- 01:11 To looking toward the future of course, 01:13 it's a very difficult situation. We don't know-- 01:16 Past and present not, well-- 01:17 We're going to develop. 01:18 I always tell people somewhat humorously 01:22 that it is dangerous to prophesy especially about the future. 01:27 Because sometimes we make mistakes 01:29 when we talk about the thing. 01:31 Looking back, I think in many ways 01:34 the religious liberty situation is better, 01:38 at least on paper certainly than it was. 01:42 When I was a child in Switzerland, 01:45 which is a country of religious liberty, 01:47 you might say in a way, in general terms civil liberty. 01:52 I had to go to a Presbyterian School in Bern, 01:56 which was no longer Presbyterian really 01:59 but it had been founded by Presbyterians 02:01 and had some Presbyterian connection 02:03 like some of the universities and colleges in America 02:06 where it's very loose, 02:08 it has some connection with the reform church 02:10 and switch on which is a Presbyterian Church 02:14 founded by Zwingli and John Calvin and so on. 02:19 When I was there in school, 02:21 I had to go to that school 02:22 because if I went to the state school, 02:24 I was forced to be in school on Sabbath. 02:27 That's 6 day school days and those days in Switzerland. 02:31 And Seventh-day Adventists were forced to go 02:34 and send their children to school on Sabbath. 02:36 They were fined, sometimes they even went to prison 02:39 if they didn't send their children to school on Sabbath. 02:41 But in the canton of Bern 02:43 because one is kind of like the US. 02:46 Every state runs its own educational system 02:49 and the canton of Bern, they allowed private schools 02:53 to run their own system, if they wanted to have-- 02:56 let a person off on Saturday, they could do that. 02:59 So it cost my mother, my parents a considerable 03:03 about money to be going to this good school 03:05 it was an exclusive school, very good school. 03:08 I got very good education, good families and everything 03:11 but that was the situation. 03:13 Today in the canton of Bern, 03:15 they're full of freedom on education. But-- 03:18 In that same dynamic you spoke about 03:20 existed in the Soviet Union. Yeah. 03:23 Our members were penalized, some imprisoned, 03:25 the children taken away 03:26 because they would not send them to school. 03:28 So I think the fall of communism in 19--what is it? 03:34 '80. Around there. '80-- 03:36 '92, I think. '80s and '90s. Yeah. 03:39 The fall of communism in Eastern Europe brought up 03:42 a tremendous amount of religious liberty. 03:44 There's no question about it. 03:46 The second Vatican Council, which took place, 03:50 then ended in 1965 when the declaration passed 03:54 was very helpful in moving Catholic countries 03:58 into direction of religious liberty. 04:00 Opening them up for other religious-- 04:01 So when I arrived in Italy in 1952 04:06 to be principal of our school in Italy, my furniture-- 04:10 well, it was actually later when I got married. 04:12 My furniture stayed, in '54, stayed in customs for 6 months, 04:20 because they said, "Well, you're not really allowed to-- 04:22 you don't have the permit to live permanently in Italy." 04:24 I was only allowed for 3 months at a time. 04:27 Because of my religion, that was really the problem. 04:30 But as long as I behaved, they would renew it, 04:34 but if I did something they didn't like--- 04:35 They didn't give you your furniture. 04:36 They could just tell me goodbye. 04:38 But no furniture. 04:39 Later on, they actually gave me a permanent-- 04:42 kind of a permanent residence in Italy. 04:44 They finally decided, 04:46 "Well, this guy is not so bad after all." 04:47 And so on, but it was interesting. 04:49 They did not give me permanent residence. 04:51 All they gave me-- a statement that said, 04:55 "He has a permit for an undetermined time." 04:59 In other words, there was no-- 05:00 At their discretion-- They never-- 05:01 it never stopped as long as-- 05:03 but any time they could stop it 05:04 if they really wanted to, but they didn't. 05:06 But so I didn't have to renew it 05:08 every 3 months or so and so on. 05:10 There was two of our churches in Italy were closed 05:12 by the government and so on. 05:14 In Spain, I preached in churches in Spain 05:17 were you couldn't leave the church as a congregation-- 05:21 That was in the Franco era. 05:22 You could open the door, go out one, shut the door, 05:25 another one would go out and so on. 05:26 One by one, windows shut, so nobody would know, 05:29 I mean, there was church meeting there. 05:31 But this was under the repressive-- 05:33 This was under Franco and later on still and so on. 05:37 And that was the situation, 05:39 if an Adventist in Spain wanted to get married 05:42 and he had been baptized as a kid, as a catholic, 05:47 he had a very difficult time to get married without-- 05:49 he had to be married by a Catholic priest 05:51 and the Catholic priest would say, 05:53 "But of course I'll marry you, 05:54 but there's a mass also to connect it 05:56 with the marriage ceremony and all that." 05:58 So they waited some time several years to get married. 06:01 Well, sometimes they would go to France 06:03 or some other country 06:04 and try to get married there and so on. 06:06 So that was the situation. 06:07 So in that sense, we have a much better situation today 06:11 than we did, but I have noticed that even in Eastern Europe, 06:16 there was a kind of a Prague Spring you might call it, 06:19 you know, back in the late '80s and '90s, 06:23 where there was really almost 06:25 American type of religious liberty 06:27 you could do what you please. 06:28 It has slightly gone back a little bit. 06:31 It hasn't gone back to the Soviet system like before. 06:35 There's no persecution, our churches function-- 06:37 Well, it's gone back to before that. 06:40 It's gone back to the national established 06:42 church where the society-- 06:43 And the other church has privileges 06:45 that we don't have because they consider it 06:48 to be the national church. 06:50 Well, hasn't it gone back a little beyond on that? 06:51 It's gone back to where the entire society was presumed 06:54 to be a certain faith, because that was the national identity. 06:57 And if you are not of that faith, 06:59 there's actually overt prejudice in the village 07:02 perhaps against you. 07:04 Well, there is an increase 07:05 in what you would call "nationalism" 07:07 in some of these countries. 07:08 And of course some of those countries are new. 07:10 You have the Ukraine, you have white Russia. 07:14 They're independent countries now. 07:15 Well, how do they establish their character? 07:19 Well, it's nice to take one church 07:20 and say that's the church and so on to do that. 07:23 Wait, so we have liberty but it's not the full liberty 07:28 that we thought we might get. Yeah. 07:30 So in that sense it has gone back just a little bit. 07:33 Now in the U.S. 07:36 So far I think we have pretty good 07:38 religious liberty, I really think. 07:41 I can remember when I moved to the General Conference 07:45 of Seventh-day Adventists in 1980. 07:47 And I became Director of Public Affairs there 07:49 and stayed there for 15 years or more--20 years actually, 07:52 working at the General Conference. 07:54 That Montgomery County where we were, 07:58 they still had Sunday laws. 08:00 The malls were closed on Sunday. 08:03 Today they're open and so far-- 08:05 That's a victory for religious liberty that we can shop on-- 08:07 The State of New York I mean and state of-- 08:09 No, I'm being facetious but those were carryovers 08:13 from a church that did nothing but religious activity on Sunday 08:18 which was designated as holy. 08:20 So we have now and I would say in the US, 08:24 we can't say it's a bad religious liberty situation. 08:26 Now with the economy that we have with the recession, 08:30 we have a lot of Seventh-day Adventists 08:32 that have had trouble with Sabbath employment. 08:33 In the workplace. But think about it. 08:36 You know, I can go online and read any number of magazines 08:40 where people of faith are absolutely affronted that, 08:44 that they can't--the children can't indulge in church prayers, 08:51 not church-- school prayers 08:53 at the beginning through the assembly. 08:56 They're troubled that a certain judge a few years ago 08:59 wasn't able to put 09:00 the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. 09:03 The Ten Commandment displays 09:05 in public buildings are being set aside. 09:10 These people are troubled that religion is being cast down 09:15 and cast out of public places. 09:17 Is there a restriction on religious liberty? 09:19 There is no doubt that there is a growth, 09:21 statistics, and research by research organizations 09:25 show that America is becoming a little bit more secular. 09:30 Church going has gone down just a little bit. 09:32 Not overwhelmingly. 09:34 It's not like Europe, you know, where the churches are empty. 09:37 No, it's not that way. 09:38 But there is a growth of secularism. 09:41 You have also a more-- I was gonna say vicious, 09:45 that's not maybe not the right word, 09:47 but certain very strong attacks 09:53 of atheistic writers 09:55 against Christianity and all that. 09:57 By the way, I need to come qualify. 09:59 I was, I was setting it up and you gave part of the answer. 10:03 Many of the things that some faith groups in Australia-- 10:06 in the United States rather objecting to 10:09 and not really restrictions on religious liberty. 10:12 There are changes court mandated changes to bring us more in line 10:19 with the correct understanding of the First Amendment. 10:21 And of separation of churches. 10:23 Right. Yeah. 10:24 So they're red herring arguments 10:26 that religion is not necessarily being marginalized, 10:31 but it's being brought into line more. 10:32 But what you said is correct, that along with that, 10:36 we do have an increasing secularity 10:38 and which is regrettable, 10:40 but militant secularity is being used, used as often 10:43 the First Amendment as a weapon against faith. 10:45 Yeah. I think-- 10:46 It was Pope Benedict is constantly going on 10:50 about the threat from secularity. 10:52 I think there is also a problem that is happening now. 10:56 Increasingly, we see religious liberty rights 11:00 in conflict with other rights. 11:04 And that's coming more and more to the view. 11:06 For example, I think the whole gay issue could become 11:10 a problem for--of religious liberty not for the gays. 11:13 Because I don't think gay, being gay and practicing gay, 11:18 you know, rights is a religious liberty. 11:19 In itself it's not threat against the practice of faith. 11:21 It's a civil, it's a civil liberty, yeah. And that's-- 11:23 It's a sign of moral-- Yeah, but, yeah. 11:27 A moral shift away from a biblical viewpoint. 11:30 That's not a religious liberty. 11:32 It's part of secularism in a way and so on. 11:34 But if person doesn't want to have a gay-- 11:42 rent a gay--apartment to a gay, they will say, 11:45 "You can't do that. You have to rent it to anybody." 11:48 You know, it's-- they have the right practice. 11:52 And the person says, "Well, it's against my conscious." 11:54 Well, you know, things like that or employment. 11:57 There might be a problem with employment. 11:58 The church might say, well, we don't want to employ a gay 12:02 that is for--because it's against our teachings. 12:04 And they'll say, "Well, employment--" 12:05 In Canada, they're on the verge of--they'll be required. 12:08 Yeah, so that it becomes the religious liberty problem then. 12:11 Yeah. Yeah. So again, we were so better off overall. 12:18 Well, I would say if you go back 50 years or 100 years, 12:25 certainly we're much better off. 12:28 I'm not so sure that we're better off 12:29 than we were 10 years ago. 12:32 What I often present on this program, 12:36 not usually the better off, 12:37 but I think structurally there are certain forces 12:41 and tendencies and changed dynamics in place 12:46 that as they work through, 12:47 it's just going to tighten it up in very negative way. 12:50 Yeah, I think-- 12:51 But until it reaches a certain point of constriction, 12:54 the average person has no sense of restriction and perhaps, 12:59 in a certain superficial way, it may even be more free. 13:03 Well, exactly. 13:04 I think what you're saying is, that there are events, 13:08 there are thinking on the term people-- 13:11 the way people look and structures in society. 13:15 Weapons you might-- 13:16 not weapons in a sense of instruments that-- 13:20 that the government can use 13:22 that could restrict religious liberty that are in place. 13:25 They were not in place a few years ago. 13:27 And prejudice could turn against a minority. 13:30 We'll be back after a short break. 13:31 Stay with us as we continue our discussion 13:34 of are we better off or worse off 13:36 on religious liberty issues now? |
Revised 2014-12-17