Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is a program
that brings you news,
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views, discussion, analysis
of religious liberty events
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around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
Editor of Liberty Magazine.
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And my guest on the
program is Grace Mackintosh,
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Director of Public
Affairs and Religious Liberty
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for the Seventh-day
Adventist Church in Canada.
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That's her
status but we'll leave
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at that for the program.
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Thank you. You're a lawyer.
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And you're, I worked with you
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and different regional directors
around the United States
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and Canada regularly on
religious liberty events.
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Great to have
you on the program.
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Thank you.
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Religious liberty, we're
dealing with it all the time.
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But what does it mean?
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Have you ever thought about that
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we take it for granted?
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And yet I know a
lot of what you do
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relates to legal
interjections over this problem
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with members or some others
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that come to us
from time to time.
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You try to solve
their legal problem
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to practice their
faith using the laws.
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Other times, I
know even our church
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in essence lobbies
its religious viewpoints
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to the authorities.
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Other times
religious liberty is expressed
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in the negative in
different countries
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that someone is
persecuted by their neighbors
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or their society, they stopped.
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I hear every
church talking about it.
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I haven't yet visited a country
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where they said they were
against with religious liberty.
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I remember
sitting with Dr. John Graz
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our world
religious liberty leader.
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And he and I were in
Laos, communist country little,
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quite a rigorous
communist country.
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And we sat and
spoke with the minister
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or the director of
education for the country.
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Oh, they're for
religious freedom.
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No problem he gave
us a good assertion
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of how they look for it.
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And then he launched into
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but we'll not
allow naughty behavior,
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that undercuts the government.
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No suggestion.
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Yes.
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And this isn't to be very
broad umbrella or roof brick.
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And it turned out
in Laos to give out
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Christian
literature in a village.
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And if anyone reported you.
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That's all it took.
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If you were
giving out literature
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it was an offense
against the state.
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You go to jail
for up to 25 years.
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So you know, what does
religious liberty mean.
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Let's start it off.
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How would you
describe religious liberty
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because I have come
to believe it's a word
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and a concept nobody is against.
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It's like mom and apple pie.
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All right.
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Bur people mean many
different things by it.
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And sometimes-- I don't
think that will happen today.
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But you know,
sometimes they're in the same
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podium simultaneously
and agreeing with each other
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but they mean different things.
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They mean different things
and there is a conversation.
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You know, there is
dialog taking place globally.
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Yeah.
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And if you don't
know what the words mean,
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that are being used to
outside the conversation,
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and so I would say
and answer to a question
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that my definition
of religious liberty
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comes from the dissenters.
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They dissented
from the medieval church
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and they are --
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It's with the--
of the reformation.
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Of the reformation.
Leaders of the reformation.
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And their definition
was freedom to seek truth
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and the right to
private interpretation
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of the scriptures or
you know their worldview
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with respect to their
relationship with God,
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even if there's no relationship,
if you're an atheist.
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So it's the
freedom to seek truth
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and with no interference
from the church or the state.
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Those last two
are very good points.
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I don't know if you
remember as a Canadian
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but you watch you're
pretty close to the US
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and Canada and they are
peering over the border.
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Yes.
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And early on in
the Obama presidency
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the president himself
and a number of his cabinet
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and other functionaries
started using the term freedom
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of worship.
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Yes.
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Instead of freedom of religion.
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And it concerned many people.
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And we don't really
know even at this late point
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whether they meant much by it.
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But there's no
question that one term versus
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the other is very different.
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Like freedom of
religion covers those things
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you would talk about.
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The right to be
free from restriction
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from the state, from
other churches, from society,
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the right to worship,
the right to practice,
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the right to think and act.
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But the freedom of worship
can be as simple as that.
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The communists were the
keen ones on freedom of worship.
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Yeah, we'll provide you
with church from 9 to 10.
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You know, Sunday
or Saturday morning
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whichever your proclivity.
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You have this church
we provide it for you.
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You meet in there.
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And you come there
and do what you want.
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You leave and you keep quite.
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You know nothing beyond that.
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Yes, no room for
religion in the public square.
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Yes, you can worship
but you can't act on it.
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You can't advance
that with your children
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or anyone else.
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And you'll be
penalized probably in your work
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and so on but you can worship.
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Yeah.
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And then hopefully
you will get tired of it
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and you will die of and
your children and others
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would then live a
religion free environment.
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When seeking
truth I think requires
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airing ideas in the
marketplace of ideas.
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You know a term coined by
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some of the
enlightenment thinkers.
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There's many
reasons why I think we need
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to redefine or not so
much redefine but reexamine
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our definition of
religious liberty.
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But I see in some of
the development since 9/11.
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Some very real
restrictions on freedom
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of conscience and
freedom of religion.
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In the war on terror and
the way it's being pursued
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and try to anticipate events
and identify ahead of time
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who might be
danger to the state.
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We're coming perilously
close to thought crime
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in my view where
just to hold certain views
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is seen as
potentially dangerous.
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Yes.
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And of course they're
usually religious views.
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And the problem is
that when you ask the state
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or the church to
interfere with differences
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of opinion with
respect to worldview.
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Instead of creating tolerance,
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it's the opposite.
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It creates
oppression and tyranny.
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Yeah, now I see you
leaving your iPad around there.
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You've got
something you want to share.
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I do.
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It's a quote by Madison
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in his Memorial
and Remonstrance,
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but I have to tell you that--
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He was a Canadian.
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Yeah, tell us about his past.
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We've got people all
over the world watching.
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James Madison was
one of the founding
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fathers of the United States.
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But more than that he
was a vigorous exponent
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of the separation
of church and state.
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He was involved with
all of the other principles
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in forming the
government and so on.
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But most
particularly he was charged with
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adding the amendments
to the US Constitution,
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the first ten I believe, yes
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first ten
amendments, the Bill of Right.
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Those fundamental
freedoms that are enumerated
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at the end of the constitution
which is a little more
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obtuse than most people imagine.
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But a wonderful
exponent of religious liberty
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in separation of
church and state.
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Yes.
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So the quote all
those, you were mentioning
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Madison at the beginning.
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Yes.
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He says if all
men are by natural
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or by nature equally
free and independent.
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All men are to be
considered as entering
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into society on
equal conditions.
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As relinquishing no
more and therefore retaining
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no less one and other
of their natural rights.
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And above all they are to
be considered as retaining
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and equal titled to the
free exercise of religion
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according to the
dictates of conscience.
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And he goes on to
say that historically
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we have seen you know government
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try to interfere by making
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everybody believe
one thing as a way
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of lessening the
conflict of different worldviews
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and that is under the
oppression and tyranny.
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Yeah.
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No, he was a powerful
exponent for religious
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freedom and not everything
he said was fully taken to
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heart in the United States.
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Just one thing that strikes me,
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he was against public money
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used to pay teachers.
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And you know we're on
the edges of that one now.
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Yes, we are with
the voucher system.
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Right and he was
against chaplains in the senate,
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in the congress which
is well ensconced now.
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And the Supreme
Court kindly has said
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that this sort of
thing is ceremonial deism.
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In other words
religion deist but not much
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significance to it anymore.
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But I think he was very jealous
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of the distinction.
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And if you've been
listening to him more
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we'd a sharper
line of separation.
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Yes.
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Ironically which
many religionists
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in the United States now say
it's an unfortunate distinction.
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They don't like
that that divide.
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But the divide
had led to freedom.
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Dissenting Protestants saw
separation of church and state
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as inseparable from the
concept of religious freedom.
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Absolutely.
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While you were
reading the other,
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I noticed that
you have more quotes
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by Madison and
now I'll read one.
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Thank you. I need my glasses.
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Madison wrote so
much powerful stuff
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on the separation
of church and state
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as well as
religious liberty in general.
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But this is what he writes here
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and you can't say no to this.
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I think he says,
"Because experience."
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Experience will
teach us "witnesses
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that
ecclesiastical establishments."
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And that's what they'd
known in the old world.
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That's a state church.
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"Eccelsiastical establishments,
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instead of
maintaining the purity
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and efficacy of Religion,
have had a contrary operation.
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During almost fifteen centuries
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has the legal establishment
of Christianity been on trial.
00:10:15.21\00:10:18.31
What have been its fruits?
00:10:18.34\00:10:19.63
More or less in all places,
00:10:19.66\00:10:21.25
pride and
indolence of the Clergy,
00:10:21.28\00:10:23.29
ignorance and
servility in the laity,
00:10:23.32\00:10:25.36
in both, superstition,
bigotry and persecution.
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Enquire of the
Teachers of Christianity
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for the ages in which it
appeared in its greatest lustre
00:10:30.33\00:10:34.00
those of every
sect, point to the ages
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prior to its
incorporation with Civil policy.
00:10:36.60\00:10:39.98
Propose a restoration
in this primitive State
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in which its Teachers
depended on the voluntary
00:10:42.39\00:10:45.12
rewards of their flocks."
00:10:45.15\00:10:47.08
And I'm sure he was writing here
00:10:47.11\00:10:49.17
about paying the teachers.
00:10:49.20\00:10:51.64
Yes.
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That was one of his burden.
00:10:52.73\00:10:54.28
"Many of them
predict its downfall.
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On which Side ought
their testimony to have
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greatest weight, when for
or when against their interest?
00:10:58.84\00:11:02.57
Exactly.
00:11:02.60\00:11:04.09
So you know now I
mean he wasn't listen too
00:11:04.12\00:11:06.29
on that point.
00:11:06.32\00:11:08.06
But his statement of
history is undeniable.
00:11:08.09\00:11:10.25
It is and I have
heard it said that Catholics
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and Protestants could
say with the straight face
00:11:14.68\00:11:18.52
that they believed
in religious liberty
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that it was
perfectly fine for the state
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to legislate
ceremonial ritual or religion,
00:11:23.96\00:11:27.87
because of their understanding
of the natural law.
00:11:27.90\00:11:30.93
Everybody's
conscience reveals to them
00:11:30.96\00:11:32.86
the same thing, so if you
go against your conscience
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you know it's wrong to do.
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So the state can punish you.
00:11:37.60\00:11:39.48
Where as the
dissenting Protestants
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or the
dissenters from the church
00:11:41.70\00:11:43.56
said yes there is a natural law,
but because we're individuals
00:11:43.59\00:11:48.22
it's revealed.
00:11:48.25\00:11:49.72
That's what I was about
to. I'm glad you got the point.
00:11:49.75\00:11:51.46
In each person and
you can't legislate it
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and you can't punish it.
00:11:53.85\00:11:54.88
My idea of what
natural law requires
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or expects that gonna be
from different from yours.
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Yes.
00:11:59.77\00:12:00.80
And we're all
in different stages
00:12:00.83\00:12:02.64
in our spiritual growth.
00:12:02.67\00:12:03.71
A good point to get to it.
00:12:03.74\00:12:06.28
Many people are confused
as they read in the Bible
00:12:06.31\00:12:08.69
in the Old Testament,
where there is a theocracy
00:12:08.72\00:12:10.82
and God was directly ruling
00:12:10.85\00:12:12.76
and it wasn't
separation of church and state.
00:12:12.79\00:12:15.90
The Bible is not against
the society being directed
00:12:15.93\00:12:20.74
by religious mandate.
00:12:20.77\00:12:22.28
It's just against
man deciding that.
00:12:22.31\00:12:24.43
Yes.
00:12:24.46\00:12:25.69
It was safe when
the deities doing it
00:12:25.72\00:12:27.51
directly but God
doesn't speak so directly now.
00:12:27.54\00:12:30.45
Exactly.
00:12:30.48\00:12:31.92
I mean and we know that
there's many complicated
00:12:31.95\00:12:34.20
theological reasons for that.
00:12:34.23\00:12:35.57
But you can't
allow some person whether
00:12:35.60\00:12:38.50
he is a president or a priest
to tell you what God thinks.
00:12:38.53\00:12:43.74
Exactly.
00:12:43.77\00:12:45.24
That's the whole
point of the Bible
00:12:45.27\00:12:46.47
and the reformation
brought out to the floor.
00:12:46.50\00:12:48.10
That spiritual things
are spiritually determined
00:12:48.13\00:12:50.45
and I have to search
the scriptures to find
00:12:50.48\00:12:52.78
them for myself, not
allow the state or even a church
00:12:52.81\00:12:56.32
with the state
power to mandate it to me.
00:12:56.35\00:12:58.65
And I'm accountable as
an individual before God
00:12:58.68\00:13:01.62
and what happens when
the interpreter interprets
00:13:01.65\00:13:05.48
and legislates in the
church and for the state
00:13:05.51\00:13:10.84
is that the interpreter
becomes more powerful
00:13:10.87\00:13:14.38
than the original document.
00:13:14.41\00:13:16.56
And what did Wycliffe
say "The boy be air long,
00:13:16.59\00:13:19.77
the boy behind the
plough will know more."
00:13:19.80\00:13:22.91
He want it--you know
the idea is that the Bible
00:13:22.94\00:13:25.16
is a document for everyone.
00:13:25.19\00:13:29.36
And who is John Wycliffe?
00:13:29.39\00:13:31.03
You can tell us.
00:13:31.06\00:13:32.48
He is the morning
star of the reformation.
00:13:32.51\00:13:34.87
A great leader in
England and really led the way
00:13:34.90\00:13:40.98
for the reformation
00:13:41.01\00:13:42.31
and true study of
the Bible in England.
00:13:42.34\00:13:44.52
And of course his
Wycliffe's translation
00:13:44.55\00:13:47.30
that was a big
part of the reformation.
00:13:47.33\00:13:48.78
It's worth remembering.
00:13:48.81\00:13:50.04
The reformation,
sociologically there were
00:13:50.07\00:13:52.01
things going on.
00:13:52.04\00:13:53.10
But as far as the reformation
00:13:53.13\00:13:54.16
that was purely and
simply the availability
00:13:54.19\00:13:56.34
of the Bible in
the common language.
00:13:56.37\00:13:57.84
Yes.
00:13:57.87\00:13:58.93
But that started things going.
00:13:58.96\00:14:00.09
As people read for themselves
00:14:00.12\00:14:01.97
what God expected.
00:14:02.00\00:14:03.74
And these are the
roots of the theory
00:14:03.77\00:14:06.71
of the private interpretation.
00:14:06.74\00:14:09.21
You've the right to
private interpretation
00:14:09.24\00:14:11.27
of the
scriptures, you have the right
00:14:11.30\00:14:12.52
to private
interpretation of the truth.
00:14:12.55\00:14:14.28
Absolutely.
00:14:14.31\00:14:15.55
We'll be back
after a short break
00:14:15.58\00:14:16.77
to continue this discussion
of what is religious liberty.
00:14:16.80\00:14:19.65
Why is it so important?
00:14:19.68\00:14:20.88
Stay with us.
00:14:20.91\00:14:22.45