Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is the
program that brings you
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up to date news
and views, discussion
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and information on
religious liberty issues
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in the United States
and indeed around the world.
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These are interesting times
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and this is an interesting topic
and I'd like you to join me
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for discussion with
Tina Ramirez, my guest.
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Welcome Tina.
Thank you, Lincoln.
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It's good to be here with you.
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We could talk
about many, many things.
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But let's talk
about religious liberty
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and how we get
young people in particular
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to buy into an appreciation
of religious liberty.
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You know, it's the first freedom
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has been said in
the United States.
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If you don't
believe in religious liberty
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or don't understand that,
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all civil liberties are at risk.
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How do we get young people,
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the new
generation to buy into this?
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That's a really good question.
I know that it concerns you.
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I think its a
million dollar question.
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It is. And we need
to look for that answer.
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Yeah, I mean it's,
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it's obvious
that we have a problem
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because the
studies have shown recently
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like the Barner Group
study most recently that
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religious liberty is not a
major issue for young people.
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And they are involved in
so many social justice issues,
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why not religious freedom?
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They are involved
in clean water projects
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and addressing the
AIDS problem in Africa
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and development relief work
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and orphan care and adoptions
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and just about
everything, anti-trafficking.
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But religious freedom
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just isn't an issue of
social justice concern really.
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Now, you know, I have--
I like to think I'm young
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but I'm probably not young
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by any young
person's estimation anymore
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but I remember what it was like.
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And I believe that
young people are easily
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and naturally fired up
to optimistic endeavors.
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I mean, you know,
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you still have
illusions about life.
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You have
aspirations, you have big goals
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and you see life in
black and white terms more.
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And so this is the age group
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that naturally
should be inspired to,
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you know, to join
the ranks of those of us
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defending religious liberty.
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And for some
reasons they haven't.
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It's not just religious liberty.
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I know and in other groups
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that you meet within
different church groups
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and I'm Seventh-day Adventist.
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It's like my church.
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Our young people they might
not have left the church per se
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but they haven't bought
into any number of programs.
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It's just-- it's not
just religious liberty.
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They don't seem to be
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involved in the
faith particulars
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certainly not in doctrine.
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They're not
organizationally oriented.
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Ah, they like the
social aspect of it.
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And they do
answer to certain causes
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but religious liberty
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and other things seem
to slip through the cracks.
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Yeah, it's true.
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I think that
there is a change though
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in this new
generation of youth under 25.
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They make up about 50%
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of the world's
population right now. It's true.
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So not just in America
but all over the world,
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we see a youth bulge
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and if we can't inspire them
to care about religious freedom,
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then all of those
people that are persecuted
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around the world aren't
going to have supporters
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or people that are spokespersons
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for them in the
future, advocating for them.
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But not only
that, like you've said
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people are not
as actively involved
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maybe in their churches or
they're leaving their church,
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they think they can
do church on their own.
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There's movement away
from church and religion
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in a traditional
sense unfortunately.
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And so without that
community then you have--
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there's a lot of
changes happening.
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And so we have to find
ways of addressing that
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to make sure that
individuals of faith
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understand the cost of
their faith of living it out
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and if the importance of being
to freely express their faith
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in public as well as in private.
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But really in public because
that's where the issues are.
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And even as you're explaining
this something hit me--
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for many years I
have been talking about
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and studying a trend
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in conventional churches
toward congregationalism.
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Decentralization where it's just
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the church sort
of govern itself.
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But what we're really
seeing with the young people
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is the next step
from congregationalism
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it's sort of an individualistic
approach to faith.
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Yeah, there is
definitely a movement away
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from the
traditional church structure.
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But with that it comes
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a movement away from
the community as well
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which when we're dealing
with people around the world
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that are really
suffering for their faith.
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Community is one of the
most important things for them.
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So they know
they're not standing alone
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when they're suffering so much
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and dying and
suffering you know for their--
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When their faith is a
life and death choice,
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they want to know
that they are not in alone
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that somebody's
remembering them.
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Let me throw something in.
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I'm sure you've thought about it
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but probably not ready yet,
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weren't heading that
way in our discussion.
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You know, we need
young people to be involved
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in religious
freedom defending it.
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But let's look at
some parts of the world
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like the Palestinians
in occupied territories
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as well as even in Boston,
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we've seen young people
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motivated enough to either
set a bomb and kill themselves.
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Or to strip a bomb on themselves
to give their very life.
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Ah, I think in a extremists
tortured version of a faith
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but you must accept there's
some sort of idealism there.
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What got them into
that which is a wrong end
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but why they and
not a young person
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say in a western Christian
or even secular context,
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why couldn't they
defend this high value.
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What is that this young people
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would have been
co-opted into something.
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I mean we definitely
see many trends in the world
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but I think of its core,
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the world is
becoming more global
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and part of that is that
people that are in societies
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where they feel like
their religion is under threat
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can become more extreme.
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That's not always
the case but it can be
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and so tendency was some
extremists is ways to their--
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but in the US, what we see is
a growing secularists mentality
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and a strong cultural pressure,
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sway over the
young people in America.
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That even though
they're globally minded,
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they're engaged in
what's happening internationally
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to some extent
and social justice.
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They don't always know
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it's easier to deal with
issues like clean water and AIDS
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and people out there
that aren't sensitive issues.
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But when it comes to an
issue of faith and of religion
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and of certain moral
absolutes that gets really murky
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because it's something
that challenges the culture
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and for most young
people they don't want to
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challenge the culture to
join-- They want to fit in.
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Right and so to
join the bandwagon on
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and you take trafficking
campaign when it's cool.
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You know, that's simple
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but to standup for
traditional marriage
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or to standup for the
rights of life against abortion,
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which is really
what's related to this
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whole healthcare mandate.
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To standup for things like that,
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when they've been so acclimated
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or you know within
the culture to say,
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well, everything is okay
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and it's okay for
that person to do that.
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They haven't been--
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they've just been
raised in different era
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where they're taught that
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you have to be
everything is relative
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and you can't
have a more absolute.
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Maybe I'm missing
part of what you're saying.
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You're saying that young people,
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we're primarily talking about
American I think-- Right, yeah.
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In this situation that
they really won't break
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from the group for what
other young people are thinking
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and if other
young people are moved
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to on water
projects and that's fine.
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But they
wouldn't take on a project
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that the rest of
the group did not.
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Well, I think that what you--
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I think those are
all great projects.
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But the issue is that
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they're not in anyway
morally controversial.
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No, no, so is the
peer pressure so strong.
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Are they really under
peer pressure to conform
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and that it's an acceptable
channeling of their idealism
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to do these particular
projects you talk about.
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But beyond that they would
have to break with peer pressure
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and they're not going to do it.
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I--what I would say is that for
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I don't think
that religious freedom
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has been presented in a
way that there would be.
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So you think it's an educational
problem more than a social.
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Well, there is--I think there's
a number of issues there.
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But I think that the
there is a great need
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to have a
social justice movement
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focused on
religious freedom in a way
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that engages young people
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so that they don't feel like
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it's the
stepchild of social justice.
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But it's something
that culturally relevant
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that everybody
can get onboard with.
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And to do that I
think that you need to
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get away from focusing on.
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Essentially what
you need to do is
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you need to fight
religious oppression.
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Everybody is against the
oppression through religion
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and through etiologies
that are imposed on people.
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And all young people
will get behind this idea of,
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yeah, we want to
be free to standup
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for whatever we want to be
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and whatever we want to believe.
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But to ask them to
defend a religious person
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who doesn't want to take
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contraception or
aborficients drugs
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that might be a
little bit harder for them.
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That's something or
to get them on board
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to say opposing gay marriage.
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That's going to be
a lot harder for them
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even if they're
religiously inclined.
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Then it is going to be
for them to get onboard
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with just opposing
religious oppression generally.
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So I think that it's simply that
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we don't have anyone engaged
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in the religious freedom space
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that is speaking in a way
that young people will want
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to be involved in
that kind of issue.
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And it's not that
they aren't interested
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because I have met
so many young people
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that they're already
engaged with the world.
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There's obviously
a limited interest
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amongst them for
religious freedom
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but if it was
presented in the way
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that they felt was something
that was relevant in the world
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and that they could get behind
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and then it wouldn't just
be them as religious people
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but that the whole world is
behind, I think that we'd see
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a different, a
different shift in.
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Yeah, we need to find
the answer and I think. Yeah.
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Yeah, obviously you thought
long and hard about this.
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But it's problematic to me
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and I don't claim
to know the answer.
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Within the
Seventh-day Adventist church,
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we're trying very hard, in fact
my associate Melissa Reid is
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I assigned her to take on
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our new North American
Religious Liberty Association
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which is a membership
approach to religious liberty.
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And we're trying to
focus on the young people.
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And so this is
a direct challenge
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that we're facing, didn't we?
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Haven't really
netted through it.
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We're trying to and we've
already done one pilot case
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where we take young people
from academy or high school.
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They raise some money
to be part of an expedition
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from their area to Washington
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to meet politicians,
to he would get lectures
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and meet people
involved in religious liberty
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to sort of mentor
them into it. Yeah.
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But that's a very isolated
group but this is the whole,
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I don't really know what
captures their imagination.
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I fear-- what I
tell you what I fear
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that younger generation
whether they're Adventists,
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Catholics or just
neutral on religion.
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I fear they're not
really tied to absolutes
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and I don't really think
religious liberty can flourish
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well if you believe
that, you know, I'm okay,
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you're okay it
doesn't really matter.
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You know
whatever is okay with you
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but I'm not going to
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put myself up to
stand for this particular.
00:12:06.63\00:12:09.04
Yeah, and I think--
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Then it's just sort of
an airy-fairy approach.
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And that's a moral
problem that our churches
00:12:12.52\00:12:14.41
and our
communities need to be stronger
00:12:14.44\00:12:16.52
and standing for what is truth.
00:12:16.55\00:12:18.34
Because ultimately persecution
00:12:18.37\00:12:20.14
is a result of people
standing out for a standard
00:12:20.17\00:12:22.41
that the world doesn't like
00:12:22.44\00:12:23.75
and that they find offensive
00:12:23.78\00:12:25.07
and they want
to challenge. Yeah.
00:12:25.10\00:12:26.46
But if young
people in our churches
00:12:26.49\00:12:28.27
aren't standing
up for what is true.
00:12:28.30\00:12:30.36
Then they're never
going to really suffer
00:12:30.39\00:12:32.47
anything for their faith.
00:12:32.50\00:12:34.53
But we should as people of faith
00:12:34.56\00:12:37.54
have some kind of resistance,
00:12:37.57\00:12:39.26
if we really are
living and speaking truth.
00:12:39.29\00:12:42.17
That's--I mean
that just should be
00:12:42.20\00:12:43.86
a natural a part of we are.
00:12:43.89\00:12:46.13
Yes, you know, Paul in
I think it's in Hebrews
00:12:46.16\00:12:49.71
where he talks about the
faithful through the ages
00:12:49.74\00:12:52.11
that suffered and took
consequences for their faith.
00:12:52.14\00:12:56.05
You know, and there's
a classic phrase there.
00:12:56.08\00:12:58.86
It says that-it
says, "They were burned,
00:12:58.89\00:13:00.88
they were killed, they
were sword into." Yeah.
00:13:00.91\00:13:03.72
And it says,
"refusing to accept release."
00:13:03.75\00:13:06.85
And I don't think
young people as a category
00:13:06.88\00:13:09.78
and by on my observation
00:13:09.81\00:13:10.91
quite understand
what's going on there.
00:13:10.94\00:13:13.28
There's always an escape
if you want to compromise
00:13:13.31\00:13:16.02
or if you want to fit in.
00:13:16.05\00:13:18.21
But if someone
that's determined, refuse
00:13:18.24\00:13:21.30
I believe this
and you say this, no.
00:13:21.33\00:13:24.70
I'm going to be
faithful to this.
00:13:24.73\00:13:26.90
That takes in
certain inflexibility
00:13:26.93\00:13:28.44
and I think
you've touched on that,
00:13:28.47\00:13:29.90
that young
people are not inclined
00:13:29.93\00:13:32.32
that way anymore as a category.
00:13:32.35\00:13:34.73
They had not
been trained that way
00:13:34.76\00:13:36.42
and it comes a
bit with experience
00:13:36.45\00:13:41.11
and a mindset the
maturity brings to you.
00:13:41.14\00:13:43.69
But there's something going on
00:13:43.72\00:13:45.01
and, you know, both of us are
just fishing toward it but it--
00:13:45.04\00:13:49.83
Yeah, if we
don't' solve this soon,
00:13:49.86\00:13:52.02
there's going to
be a major problem.
00:13:52.05\00:13:54.62
We need to take
a break right now.
00:13:54.65\00:13:56.36
We'll be back in a movement
00:13:56.39\00:13:57.77
and call us if
you have the answer
00:13:57.80\00:14:00.37
but we're looking for the answer
00:14:00.40\00:14:02.17
of engaging young people in
defending religious liberty.
00:14:02.20\00:14:05.82
We'll be right back.
00:14:05.85\00:14:06.94