Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break with
guest Grace Mackintosh,
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we were talking
about religious liberty,
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which we're always
talking about on this program.
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But I've had a burden of late
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that while we
talk about it freely.
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And I've never been
anywhere where somewhere said
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they're against it.
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But part of the
challenge is that
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it means different things to
different people. That's right.
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And even someone who
doesn't have a clear meaning,
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that's a problem,
because they can't
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really defend it adequately.
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For some people it means
their freedom to practice
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what they want,
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but they're not overly
concerned with other people.
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For some people it
means that the state
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should support their religious
viewpoint. That's wrong.
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For other people
religious freedom
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is sort of a societal as we
have said on other programs.
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It's for the common good.
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Well, as long as
everybody has a comforting faith
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that's religious freedom.
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But you made a comment on
the first half referring it back
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to the Protestant Reformers,
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where they made a matter
of personal spiritual enquiry
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and full freedom to find truth
seek it and act on it. Yes.
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That's so inclusive
that it's just really--
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if you follow that clearly,
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there's no avenue for the
state to get in the new phase.
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There's no argument for
society to marginalize you
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as even a minority
proponent overview.
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And as we often say, we
talk about religious liberty.
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Well, I often say it,
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because I guess I
express it differently.
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Even if I find your particular
version of faith abhorrent
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and I dislike it intensely.
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It really is my duty as someone
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who believes in religious
liberty to fight for your right
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to believe in
practice whatever it is
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and even to die for that right,
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because that in essence
is what Jesus did, isn't it?
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He died that we all the sinners
have the right to not to be,
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to be immediately suffer
the results of our separation
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but within the right
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and the obligation on a
certain level to seek truth
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and perhaps it says
"happily to find him."
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Didn't Paul say, "That
they all may happily find God."
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When I hear a discussion
and the speaker is proponent
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or supports
protection for seeking truth.
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I think to myself that they have
carefully chosen those words.
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Because
protecting, seeking truth
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is a little bit
different than protecting truth.
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When you're just protecting
truth you're still under
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a thought or a theory that you
may be able to legislate truth,
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because after
all everybody knows.
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And then you have
to ask the question,
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that Pilate asked "What
is truth." What is truth?
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It is who defines it.
And who will define it.
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And that's what
Pilate was asking.
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I don't know whether
Pilate was mocking in.
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But he was at least
being cute with Jesus,
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you know, you say,
truth, what's truth. Yes.
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You know what
veritas, what's verisma,
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what is really true and real.
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And there's a
group of Christians
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that are growing that believe
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that truth is what
your conscience tells you.
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And then everybody's
conscience is are the same
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unless they've been seared.
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And so I'm very nervous
when there is a discussion.
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Well, you're
getting on to something
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and I'll touch out
since you've mentioned it.
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But that's not narrowly,
I think religious liberty
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but in the modern mindset
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when you point a
references internal,
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you determine truth
regardless of external evidence.
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And in a biblical
truth oriented context,
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you can't allow someone to
divorce their faith direction
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from stated
view say in the Bible
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in New and the Old Testaments.
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You know, those are, you
can't force them to obey them
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but to have someone say,
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well, you know, I
don't need to read that
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because my heart
has told me this.
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My heart has told me this.
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Oh, that's the thing of heresies
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within churches or
divergent opinions.
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But as far as religious
liberty, that's really not,
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we don't need to
worry about that.
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On religious liberty construct,
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it's just allowing the person
the full right to determine
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their own spiritual
direction and practice
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and promulgation of that
faith and hands off. Yes.
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And I think
separation of church and state
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and people don't like
the term some of them now.
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But it's a very
descriptive thing.
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It's exactly it should be.
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Separate poles Jesus
said "Render unto Caesar
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what is Caesar's and
unto God what is God's."
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They're two very
distinct spheres.
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They're two kingdoms.
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And separation
of church and state
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is inseparable
from religious freedom.
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Another term that you
hear within the context
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of discussing religious freedom
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or freedom to worship is
the freedom to choose. Yeah.
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And this is,
when we were talking
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about the Quebec
curriculum you choose.
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You're choosing and in
secular, in a secular context,
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choice is a right that
is protected but lot less.
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It's a lot easier to
justify infringement of a choice
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as if you're sampling,
you know, different worldviews
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than it is to justify
infringing seeking truths.
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And in Canada we live in
an extremely secular society
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with secular
government and secular court.
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And they have
infringed on religious liberty
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and rights of conscience because
it's much easier to do that.
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If the community
good, somehow overshadows
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giving you a
right as an individual
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or as an ecclesiastical group,
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they will justify that and they
will infringe on your rights.
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It's interesting the
way you just phrased it.
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There's no question
that Canada has developed
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a very secular
mindset has as Australia
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where I come from and
England another example. Yes.
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But most countries, I'm
taking the lead from things
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like the international
covenant from United Nations
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on human rights and so on.
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Do accept a deeply held
personal view of conscience.
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I mean true conscience
can only be understood
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in a spiritual context.
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But secularist do
respect a view of conviction.
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So how is Canada
getting impasse that?
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I like the fact
that in United States
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even as not
always administered well.
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Say in the
workplace if I don't want to
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as a Seventh-day Adventist
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don't want to have to work
on my Sabbath the holy day.
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And on my Sabbath, the Sabbath
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that I keep holy
that God indicated.
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All I have to prove is
it that it's deeply held
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view of my conscience.
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I don't have to
prove my church requires it
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or I read it here in the Bible.
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I just may be it
came from nowhere,
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but I'm convicted on that.
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That's the logic.
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But the way you're
explaining it in Canada
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personal conviction is not
going to carry you too far.
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Not if it interferes with
what seen as a community good.
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And this is the
dangerous secularism
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in allowing secularism
to define religious liberty.
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Because it seems--
it always seems like
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it's going in
the right direction
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but you know for example--
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secularism says that religious
liberty is not doctrinal,
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it has nothing
to do with theology.
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And as soon as
you remove religion,
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religious
liberty from a doctrinal
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or theological
context and you place it
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into a secular context.
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You now have a system in which
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your rights are
extremely volatile.
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You know, they're not
going to be protected.
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And then it's from a
humanistic perspective
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and from a
humanistic perspective,
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it does make a lot of sense
that this society of humans
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might decide among themselves
that their common purpose
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or even the
survival of the species
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they all do
something that would inhibit
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the views of the
individuals. Yes.
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Where religion
takes it the other way.
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In fact it even makes
virtue and I'm not wanting
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to confuse with Islamic
fundamentalists Jihadist in it.
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But the Bible says if necessary
on a point of conviction
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and a principle you
would even sacrifice your life.
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So it's more
important than life itself
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where a
humanists won't say that.
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Exactly. Yeah.
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So in Canada, I'll
tell you how quickly
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your rights can be removed.
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In 1985, the Supreme
Court of Canada made a decision
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that Sunday Laws were a
violation of the constitution
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and they discriminated
disrespect to religion.
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The very next year, 1986
same court, same question.
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They said oh,
yes it is a violation
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however it's justified.
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And they rolled
out all the reasons
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and why it was justified.
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One year, same
court and a huge issue.
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And that's what I'm
seeing in a secular context
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your rights are very volatile.
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And we need to
protect religious liberty.
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It's one of the most precious
elements of freedom here
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in this human condition.
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And as Hillary
Clinton, I keep quoting her.
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Not to berserk particularly
but she pointed out.
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You can usually tell
the state of civil liberties
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by the state of
religious freedom.
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Exactly it's the touchstone.
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And when I hear discussions with
respect to religious liberty
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and hear the speaker
say, well, it's not doctrinal,
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it's not theological,
it's in the secular context.
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I want to be able to
have opportunity to speak
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to that person
and challenge them
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and ask them if they've
thought about whether or not
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they agree that
it is the touchstone
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of freedom in
society, freedom of,
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freedom of
conscience and freedom to speak.
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I believe it was a character
and one of Lewis Carroll's
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rather whimsical poems,
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who made the
rather arbitrary statement
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that a word means
just what I say it means,
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nothing more, nothing less.
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Unfortunately most of us can't
have that sort of a luxury.
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Words have deeply
and vested meanings
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that are given by
history by the context
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and many other things
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that we ourselves
have no control over.
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I've come to believe
that it's rather unfortunate
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that religious liberty,
religious freedom something
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which everybody
feels comfortable about.
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Nobody is directly opposed to.
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But that the word
can mean so many things
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to so many different people.
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It can be described
accurately if you take the time.
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But so much of the problems
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that we have in
projecting religious freedom,
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I believe come from
the absolute inability
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of many disparate groups
to agree in a concrete way
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on actually what
religious liberty is.
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It is not 'freedom
from' it is 'freedom for.'
00:11:35.49\00:11:41.20
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:41.23\00:11:44.50