Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Bert Beach
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000204B
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00:07 Welcome back. Continuing the discussion with guest
00:09 Dr. Bert Beach. We were talking about countries of interest, 00:13 dangerous opportunity. Things are very difficult in many 00:16 countries. Have been in the past. Some of those have 00:19 improved and others that were not so much a problem have 00:22 gotten worse. It's a dynamic situation, isn't it? And at any 00:26 given time there are many problem areas. Did you read the 00:30 Pugh Form Report recently? 00:35 Pointing out that Christianity was the most persecuted religion 00:38 in the world. As I remember they said that 70% 00:42 of the world's population lives under a situation where there 00:45 are severe restrictions on religious freedom. Not all of 00:49 those people recognize it because if you live in a 00:51 majority country where any minority is openly persecuted 00:57 you feel fine. But two-thirds of the world are really in bad 01:02 situations on religious liberty. But can you think of another 01:07 country that's worrying to you? Well before we take that tack 01:12 because I want to talk in the little brief time that's 01:14 slipping away by the moment I want to talk a bit about the 01:17 Arab spring and what that represents in a larger thing. 01:20 But we're talking about personal problems that people may have. 01:24 You know the country is large but the situations involve 01:27 individuals don't they? Very often they are in the work 01:31 place. Have you got any advice that you would give someone 01:35 that may see that there's a possibility of problems on 01:39 Sabbath accommodation or respect for their religion either here 01:43 where there's legal support or elsewhere. 01:46 I'll give you just one little example, one experience. 01:48 Years ago I was in Italy and one of the students at our school 01:53 was doing his military service. He had been a student. He called 01:59 me up on the telephone and said that next Saturday they have 02:04 practice working there in the regiment where I'm doing my 02:08 service and they won't give me the Sabbath off which they've 02:12 always done in the past. So can you intervene and do something 02:16 for me. So I called Dr. Rossi who was religious liberty 02:19 director in Rome at the time of the Italian Union. I went over 02:23 there to the regiment and asked to see the colonel in charge. 02:27 So the colonel was there and the captain of the company was 02:32 there. We talked to them and I and Rossi made the appeal for 02:38 the conscience of an individual who wanted to not have to go 02:43 to serve in a military activity on the Sabbath. He wanted to be 02:48 free to go to his church and so forth. The colonel at a certain 02:52 point said you know we can't give him the Sabbath off because 02:57 next Saturday we're having practice with grenades and it's 03:01 a very important thing. I mean if you don't do it right you'll 03:04 blow yourself up or blow up the other people. So he has to be 03:07 there for that and so forth. We can't do anything about it. 03:12 Then the captain said this. I said to myself, You know, Lord, 03:15 do something because this is not going the right way. I'm not 03:20 succeeding here. And the captain said, You know colonel it's too 03:24 bad that we can't do something for this soldier because he's 03:29 the best soldier in my company. And the captain was like when 03:34 the wind changes on top of the house, just out of the blue. 03:39 I didn't say anything. Didn't do anything. The colonel said, Well 03:42 of course. In Italy we respect human conscience. You know we 03:48 give privileges for this student Why did he do that. Because he 03:53 was the best student. So I always tell people if you have a 03:59 job and you're working, if you are a good employee it will be 04:03 much easier to get Sabbath privileges. If you're a student 04:07 in school and you have problems and you're the last in the class 04:11 or failing and then you say I want to be free on Sabbath the 04:15 teachers in the school will not be very encouraging maybe where 04:21 they have school on Saturday. So be good in your work, have 04:27 a good character and be faithful and reliable because you're 04:31 as asset to them and so they will want to have you and not 04:36 just say well you know I want to be a conscientious objector. 04:40 You also want to be a conscientious worker. 04:43 Good point. I must remember that; not just a conscientious 04:47 objector but a conscientious worker. Very good. 04:50 We only have a few minutes left but enough, I think, to delve 04:55 into it. The Arab spring. I remember when it developed, 04:58 what is it, a year or nearly two years ago probably. It began 05:03 really with persecution against Christians in Alexandria, Egypt. 05:08 Everyone sort of dates it from this young man in Tunisia who 05:13 burned himself to death. That literally set it on fire. 05:16 But the early warning signs of agitation were a sharp uptick 05:20 in attacks on Christians in Alexandria and Cairo as I 05:24 remember. There's no doubt that in Tunisia 05:27 and in Egypt, in Libya you had dictators; you had people of 05:32 almost absolute power running the country and people wanted 05:37 a little bit more democracy. And of course the U.S. supports 05:42 democracy, so we supported these movements and maybe we should 05:46 have investigated a little bit more whether these movements 05:50 are just against that type of dictatorship and wanting to 05:55 institute through democratic efforts another type of 06:00 institution and direction and government which will not be 06:04 democratic finally. It will be an Islamic state. 06:08 Well in our own way we've developed a western ideology 06:12 that is fluid as the communist one. You remember the communists 06:17 operating on the dialectal materialism from Marx and Ingles 06:21 They believed that society had to develop through feudalism 06:26 and all the rest, then capitalism and naturally 06:28 capitalism would be replaced by communism. We tend to believe 06:32 that if you pull a false system democracy will emerge. I think 06:35 it's just as false. It doesn't automatically emerge when the 06:38 people rise up. Yeah, you have all the 06:41 independent countries in Africa, well not say all; I may be 06:44 exaggerating a little bit. But the great majority of these 06:48 independent countries have not formed really what you would 06:52 call a mature democracy. It has democratic aspects a little bit 06:57 but elections are still a little... 06:59 Well the society is still structured along tribal and 07:02 ethnic loyalties and that is a poor match. But you mentioned 07:07 the dictators. We did support certain dictators, Mubarak for 07:11 example and I remember a lot of the history there and he didn't 07:15 just sort of pop up out of nowhere. 07:18 Well he was a general in the army. 07:20 Right and he followed on from Sadat who tilted very favorably 07:24 to the west, who was assassinated by the Muslim 07:28 league or the Muslim brotherhood rather. 07:31 An acquaintance of mine was assassinated with him. 07:33 Really? No it's fashionable now to put down sort of put down, or 07:39 it has been for the last few months, to put down Mubarak's 07:42 comments about the Muslim brotherhood as paranoia. To me 07:45 it was based on solid fact. His associate Anwar Sadat was killed 07:50 before his eyes by a radical violent faction of the Muslim 07:54 brotherhood. The western world now is fighting against Al Qaeda 07:59 the cofounder of which, Dr. Imam Al Zar Waheri, came out of 08:03 the Muslim brotherhood. I think Mubarak had it straight. His 08:07 methods were autocratic and he, without support, became 08:11 increasingly so. But I think it's been naive, hasn't it, to 08:15 presume that out of this nurturing of the Muslim 08:18 brotherhood that was repressed to release it that it will turn 08:22 into a benign democracy. I'm sorry to hold forth. I want to 08:27 let you answer. I think you're right. I think 08:29 we have to be careful. You can overthrow a regime, which was 08:35 not good, and get another regime which may not be much better or 08:40 may even be worse. So I'm not that optimistic right now. 08:45 I wish I could be, I'd like to be. I'd like to see the new 08:50 president in Egypt be democratic and for religious liberty and 08:55 succeed. I'd be happy if he did. But you know there are a lot of 08:59 pressures on these men and from their background and from others 09:04 as so forth. Well the best I can say for 09:06 Mussi is you now he was an engineering student in the 09:10 United States and let's hope he saw good things here; not 09:13 prejudice and not models that he would regret. 09:16 Well you see if somebody comes to America and visits America 09:20 and if you want to concentrate on immoral things and watch, 09:25 there are a lot of immoral things going on in America. 09:27 And a person can say, well our women here are much more covered 09:31 they're much more protected, they behave better and whatever 09:36 you want to call that system. In America people don't dress 09:40 properly, they are immoral, they live together, they don't get 09:45 married and all that. True for a straight-laced Muslim 09:48 background exchange student it could be a little off-putting. 09:53 You can look at America and be very critical if you want to and 09:58 yet there are great things in America, wonderful things. 10:01 But we do hope and we're running out of time and I hope that one 10:07 good element of these bad regimes in Syria and in Egypt 10:11 comes to pass, because by my observation, as in Iraq, those 10:15 regimes that try to distance themselves from favoring any one 10:19 religion and consequently gave relatively equal treatment to 10:22 Christians, Muslims and all others and so I think that it 10:26 was not by chance that in the rebellions almost the first act 10:29 against the government was to attack the religious minority. 10:32 So we can only hope as they reformulate that they 10:34 reestablish this respect for all religions. Of course Islam is 10:40 going to get automatic respect. But Christians need to be 10:42 reinstated in that process. 10:43 And I think we should pray for the Christian churches in the 10:46 Middle East because they are about ready to go out of 10:49 existence. They are migrating. Christians are leaving. 10:53 You've been to the Middle East many times so have you got a 10:59 final word on what you see in that area? 11:02 Well I'm hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. 11:05 We never know what the situation is. I think we should be careful 11:11 I hope that the situation will improve, that we'll get some 11:14 democracy going and some religious liberty in that part 11:18 of the world. But God has to intervene for it to happen. 11:22 Sometimes imprisonment works very much to the glory of God. 11:27 I'm put to mind of Paul and Silas in Philippi. Because of 11:32 their good actions and delivering a young girl of a 11:35 spirit that was troubling her and upsetting the public good 11:39 it was said, they were put in jail. And there in the middle of 11:42 the night an earthquake released them. It's not really clear 11:46 whether the earthquake was God's providence or just a natural 11:49 occurrence but they could have run free at that point. But 11:53 instead they and the other prisoners stayed put. The jailer 11:56 came along ready to kill himself in anticipation of being killed 12:00 for losing his prisoners and Paul says, Don't harm yourself, 12:05 we're all here. The result of that wonderful witness in that 12:09 moment of crisis the jailer, his family and many others in that 12:13 city were converted. Just so today. While persecution is 12:18 rampant and increasing and we discussed even this Adventist 12:24 leader in Togo. Many times such bad experiences lead to good 12:30 and powerful witness for the truth. That happens today as 12:36 much today as it did years ago. 12:38 For Liberty Insider this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2014-12-17