Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Grace Mackintosh
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000225A
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00:22 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:25 This is a program that brings you news, 00:27 views, discussion, analysis of religious liberty events 00:31 around the world. 00:32 My name is Lincoln Steed, Editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:36 And my guest on the program is Grace Mackintosh, 00:40 Director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty 00:43 for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Canada. 00:45 That's her status but we'll leave 00:46 at that for the program. 00:47 Thank you. You're a lawyer. 00:50 And you're, I worked with you 00:53 and different regional directors around the United States 00:56 and Canada regularly on religious liberty events. 00:59 Great to have you on the program. 01:00 Thank you. 01:01 Religious liberty, we're dealing with it all the time. 01:04 But what does it mean? 01:07 Have you ever thought about that 01:09 we take it for granted? 01:10 And yet I know a lot of what you do 01:12 relates to legal interjections over this problem 01:16 with members or some others 01:18 that come to us from time to time. 01:20 You try to solve their legal problem 01:21 to practice their faith using the laws. 01:24 Other times, I know even our church 01:27 in essence lobbies its religious viewpoints 01:30 to the authorities. 01:32 Other times religious liberty is expressed 01:36 in the negative in different countries 01:37 that someone is persecuted by their neighbors 01:41 or their society, they stopped. 01:44 I hear every church talking about it. 01:46 I haven't yet visited a country 01:48 where they said they were against with religious liberty. 01:50 I remember sitting with Dr. John Graz 01:55 our world religious liberty leader. 01:58 And he and I were in Laos, communist country little, 02:03 quite a rigorous communist country. 02:04 And we sat and spoke with the minister 02:06 or the director of education for the country. 02:09 Oh, they're for religious freedom. 02:12 No problem he gave us a good assertion 02:15 of how they look for it. 02:16 And then he launched into 02:18 but we'll not allow naughty behavior, 02:21 that undercuts the government. 02:24 No suggestion. 02:25 Yes. 02:26 And this isn't to be very broad umbrella or roof brick. 02:28 And it turned out in Laos to give out 02:30 Christian literature in a village. 02:33 And if anyone reported you. 02:34 That's all it took. 02:35 If you were giving out literature 02:36 it was an offense against the state. 02:38 You go to jail for up to 25 years. 02:42 So you know, what does religious liberty mean. 02:43 Let's start it off. 02:45 How would you describe religious liberty 02:47 because I have come to believe it's a word 02:49 and a concept nobody is against. 02:51 It's like mom and apple pie. 02:53 All right. 02:54 Bur people mean many different things by it. 02:57 And sometimes-- I don't think that will happen today. 03:01 But you know, sometimes they're in the same 03:02 podium simultaneously and agreeing with each other 03:06 but they mean different things. 03:07 They mean different things and there is a conversation. 03:09 You know, there is dialog taking place globally. 03:11 Yeah. 03:12 And if you don't know what the words mean, 03:15 that are being used to outside the conversation, 03:19 and so I would say and answer to a question 03:23 that my definition of religious liberty 03:27 comes from the dissenters. 03:29 They dissented from the medieval church 03:32 and they are -- 03:34 It's with the-- of the reformation. 03:36 Of the reformation. Leaders of the reformation. 03:38 And their definition was freedom to seek truth 03:42 and the right to private interpretation 03:45 of the scriptures or you know their worldview 03:48 with respect to their relationship with God, 03:50 even if there's no relationship, if you're an atheist. 03:53 So it's the freedom to seek truth 03:56 and with no interference from the church or the state. 04:00 Those last two are very good points. 04:04 I don't know if you remember as a Canadian 04:06 but you watch you're pretty close to the US 04:09 and Canada and they are peering over the border. 04:11 Yes. 04:12 And early on in the Obama presidency 04:14 the president himself and a number of his cabinet 04:19 and other functionaries started using the term freedom 04:22 of worship. 04:23 Yes. 04:24 Instead of freedom of religion. 04:25 And it concerned many people. 04:27 And we don't really know even at this late point 04:28 whether they meant much by it. 04:30 But there's no question that one term versus 04:33 the other is very different. 04:36 Like freedom of religion covers those things 04:38 you would talk about. 04:39 The right to be free from restriction 04:42 from the state, from other churches, from society, 04:44 the right to worship, the right to practice, 04:48 the right to think and act. 04:49 But the freedom of worship can be as simple as that. 04:51 The communists were the keen ones on freedom of worship. 04:54 Yeah, we'll provide you with church from 9 to 10. 04:57 You know, Sunday or Saturday morning 04:59 whichever your proclivity. 05:00 You have this church we provide it for you. 05:02 You meet in there. 05:03 And you come there and do what you want. 05:05 You leave and you keep quite. 05:06 You know nothing beyond that. 05:08 Yes, no room for religion in the public square. 05:10 Yes, you can worship but you can't act on it. 05:12 You can't advance that with your children 05:14 or anyone else. 05:15 And you'll be penalized probably in your work 05:18 and so on but you can worship. 05:19 Yeah. 05:20 And then hopefully you will get tired of it 05:22 and you will die of and your children and others 05:24 would then live a religion free environment. 05:28 When seeking truth I think requires 05:31 airing ideas in the marketplace of ideas. 05:35 You know a term coined by 05:37 some of the enlightenment thinkers. 05:40 There's many reasons why I think we need 05:41 to redefine or not so much redefine but reexamine 05:44 our definition of religious liberty. 05:46 But I see in some of the development since 9/11. 05:50 Some very real restrictions on freedom 05:53 of conscience and freedom of religion. 05:55 In the war on terror and the way it's being pursued 05:57 and try to anticipate events and identify ahead of time 06:01 who might be danger to the state. 06:04 We're coming perilously close to thought crime 06:06 in my view where just to hold certain views 06:10 is seen as potentially dangerous. 06:14 Yes. 06:15 And of course they're usually religious views. 06:20 And the problem is that when you ask the state 06:25 or the church to interfere with differences 06:30 of opinion with respect to worldview. 06:33 Instead of creating tolerance, 06:35 it's the opposite. 06:36 It creates oppression and tyranny. 06:38 Yeah, now I see you leaving your iPad around there. 06:41 You've got something you want to share. 06:42 I do. 06:44 It's a quote by Madison 06:49 in his Memorial and Remonstrance, 06:52 but I have to tell you that-- 06:54 He was a Canadian. 06:57 Yeah, tell us about his past. 06:59 We've got people all over the world watching. 07:00 James Madison was one of the founding 07:04 fathers of the United States. 07:08 But more than that he was a vigorous exponent 07:11 of the separation of church and state. 07:13 He was involved with all of the other principles 07:16 in forming the government and so on. 07:18 But most particularly he was charged with 07:22 adding the amendments to the US Constitution, 07:25 the first ten I believe, yes 07:26 first ten amendments, the Bill of Right. 07:28 Those fundamental freedoms that are enumerated 07:31 at the end of the constitution which is a little more 07:33 obtuse than most people imagine. 07:35 But a wonderful exponent of religious liberty 07:38 in separation of church and state. 07:40 Yes. 07:42 So the quote all those, you were mentioning 07:43 Madison at the beginning. 07:44 Yes. 07:45 He says if all men are by natural 07:47 or by nature equally free and independent. 07:50 All men are to be considered as entering 07:52 into society on equal conditions. 07:54 As relinquishing no more and therefore retaining 07:57 no less one and other of their natural rights. 08:00 And above all they are to be considered as retaining 08:03 and equal titled to the free exercise of religion 08:06 according to the dictates of conscience. 08:09 And he goes on to say that historically 08:11 we have seen you know government 08:14 try to interfere by making 08:16 everybody believe one thing as a way 08:18 of lessening the conflict of different worldviews 08:23 and that is under the oppression and tyranny. 08:26 Yeah. 08:27 No, he was a powerful exponent for religious 08:30 freedom and not everything he said was fully taken to 08:34 heart in the United States. 08:35 Just one thing that strikes me, 08:36 he was against public money 08:41 used to pay teachers. 08:44 And you know we're on the edges of that one now. 08:47 Yes, we are with the voucher system. 08:49 Right and he was against chaplains in the senate, 08:53 in the congress which is well ensconced now. 08:57 And the Supreme Court kindly has said 08:59 that this sort of thing is ceremonial deism. 09:02 In other words religion deist but not much 09:04 significance to it anymore. 09:06 But I think he was very jealous 09:08 of the distinction. 09:10 And if you've been listening to him more 09:11 we'd a sharper line of separation. 09:13 Yes. 09:14 Ironically which many religionists 09:16 in the United States now say it's an unfortunate distinction. 09:19 They don't like that that divide. 09:21 But the divide had led to freedom. 09:24 Dissenting Protestants saw separation of church and state 09:28 as inseparable from the concept of religious freedom. 09:31 Absolutely. 09:34 While you were reading the other, 09:36 I noticed that you have more quotes 09:38 by Madison and now I'll read one. 09:40 Thank you. I need my glasses. 09:42 Madison wrote so much powerful stuff 09:44 on the separation of church and state 09:46 as well as religious liberty in general. 09:49 But this is what he writes here 09:51 and you can't say no to this. 09:52 I think he says, "Because experience." 09:54 Experience will teach us "witnesses 09:57 that ecclesiastical establishments." 10:01 And that's what they'd known in the old world. 10:03 That's a state church. 10:04 "Eccelsiastical establishments, 10:06 instead of maintaining the purity 10:08 and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. 10:13 During almost fifteen centuries 10:15 has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. 10:18 What have been its fruits? 10:19 More or less in all places, 10:21 pride and indolence of the Clergy, 10:23 ignorance and servility in the laity, 10:25 in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. 10:28 Enquire of the Teachers of Christianity 10:30 for the ages in which it appeared in its greatest lustre 10:34 those of every sect, point to the ages 10:36 prior to its incorporation with Civil policy. 10:40 Propose a restoration in this primitive State 10:42 in which its Teachers depended on the voluntary 10:45 rewards of their flocks." 10:47 And I'm sure he was writing here 10:49 about paying the teachers. 10:51 Yes. 10:52 That was one of his burden. 10:54 "Many of them predict its downfall. 10:56 On which Side ought their testimony to have 10:58 greatest weight, when for or when against their interest? 11:02 Exactly. 11:04 So you know now I mean he wasn't listen too 11:06 on that point. 11:08 But his statement of history is undeniable. 11:10 It is and I have heard it said that Catholics 11:14 and Protestants could say with the straight face 11:18 that they believed in religious liberty 11:20 that it was perfectly fine for the state 11:23 to legislate ceremonial ritual or religion, 11:27 because of their understanding of the natural law. 11:30 Everybody's conscience reveals to them 11:32 the same thing, so if you go against your conscience 11:35 you know it's wrong to do. 11:37 So the state can punish you. 11:39 Where as the dissenting Protestants 11:41 or the dissenters from the church 11:43 said yes there is a natural law, but because we're individuals 11:48 it's revealed. 11:49 That's what I was about to. I'm glad you got the point. 11:51 In each person and you can't legislate it 11:53 and you can't punish it. 11:54 My idea of what natural law requires 11:57 or expects that gonna be from different from yours. 11:59 Yes. 12:00 And we're all in different stages 12:02 in our spiritual growth. 12:03 A good point to get to it. 12:06 Many people are confused as they read in the Bible 12:08 in the Old Testament, where there is a theocracy 12:10 and God was directly ruling 12:12 and it wasn't separation of church and state. 12:15 The Bible is not against the society being directed 12:20 by religious mandate. 12:22 It's just against man deciding that. 12:24 Yes. 12:25 It was safe when the deities doing it 12:27 directly but God doesn't speak so directly now. 12:30 Exactly. 12:31 I mean and we know that there's many complicated 12:34 theological reasons for that. 12:35 But you can't allow some person whether 12:38 he is a president or a priest to tell you what God thinks. 12:43 Exactly. 12:45 That's the whole point of the Bible 12:46 and the reformation brought out to the floor. 12:48 That spiritual things are spiritually determined 12:50 and I have to search the scriptures to find 12:52 them for myself, not allow the state or even a church 12:56 with the state power to mandate it to me. 12:58 And I'm accountable as an individual before God 13:01 and what happens when the interpreter interprets 13:05 and legislates in the church and for the state 13:10 is that the interpreter becomes more powerful 13:14 than the original document. 13:16 And what did Wycliffe say "The boy be air long, 13:19 the boy behind the plough will know more." 13:22 He want it--you know the idea is that the Bible 13:25 is a document for everyone. 13:29 And who is John Wycliffe? 13:31 You can tell us. 13:32 He is the morning star of the reformation. 13:34 A great leader in England and really led the way 13:41 for the reformation 13:42 and true study of the Bible in England. 13:44 And of course his Wycliffe's translation 13:47 that was a big part of the reformation. 13:48 It's worth remembering. 13:50 The reformation, sociologically there were 13:52 things going on. 13:53 But as far as the reformation 13:54 that was purely and simply the availability 13:56 of the Bible in the common language. 13:57 Yes. 13:58 But that started things going. 14:00 As people read for themselves 14:02 what God expected. 14:03 And these are the roots of the theory 14:06 of the private interpretation. 14:09 You've the right to private interpretation 14:11 of the scriptures, you have the right 14:12 to private interpretation of the truth. 14:14 Absolutely. 14:15 We'll be back after a short break 14:16 to continue this discussion of what is religious liberty. 14:19 Why is it so important? 14:20 Stay with us. |
Revised 2014-12-17