Welcome to the
"Liberty Insider."
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This is the program
that brings you discussion,
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analysis, news and in-depth
reporting on religious liberty
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in the United States
and around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
Editor of Liberty Magazine
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and my guest is
Attorney Allen Reinach,
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Executive Director of
the Church State Council.
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Glad to be with you, Lincoln.
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I titled this
program "Two Horns."
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Yes, indeed.
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Now, we are on the
horns of a dilemma as a nation
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internationally, as
we record this program
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the president of
the United States
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as he had already drawn
a line in the sand on Syria
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and someone stepped across it
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and it look like
something is going to happen.
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As that looms I know many
people in the United States,
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many Christians
are thinking prophecy.
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The whole Middle
East is so highly charged
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and many evangelical Christians
see prophetic significance
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in the existence of Israel
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and now necessity
to support Israel.
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What I think many of them miss
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and you and I need to
talk about this is well
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they see American exceptionalism
and God's favor on it.
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They don't so
easily see the role
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of the United
States itself in prophecy.
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The Bible has a lot to say
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about the United
States doesn't it?
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Once you accept the bit
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particular based
fitting this nation.
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We as Seventh-day
Adventists have uniquely I think
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identified the second
beast of Revelation 13
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as the United States.
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And there's a lot of
good biblical reasons for that
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which I don't think we have
time to focus on this program.
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Now there are many
beasts in Daniel and Revelation.
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But final--the final power,
you know, this is the passage
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it's this beast
that brings the world
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the infamous mark
of the beast and 666
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and a final
round of persecution.
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But there are things about
the character of this nation
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that are
identified in this prophecy
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and even I think most
Seventh-day Adventists
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who recognize
America in prophecy here
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fail to really
consider the significance
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of how its
described in the passage.
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Before you go
into that significance
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but let's revisit the beast
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because people that
are not particularly well,
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literate is one
word I could use them
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Bible things but nor interested.
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Who haven't
studied the prophecies.
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Yep, might not
realize the, you know,
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the link we make as Daniel
2 where there was an image
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given in a dream
to Nebuchadnezzar
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divided by metals
in that case not beasts
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and Daniel was then told
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what those kingdoms were.
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And the kingdoms
were then centralized
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by beasts in other prophecies.
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Then elsewhere he gives
the succession of beasts
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and their interpretation
is essentially given.
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Babylon, Greece,
Persia, Greece, Rome,
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all symbolized by ferocious
beasts of different kinds.
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Lion, bear--
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It's not a false interpretation
to assign kingdoms to beasts.
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Correct.
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Then at the end of
all of that sequence,
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where presenter
says another beast
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remember rises out
of the--of the land
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which ironically
is to be easily linked
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to an un-people there because
the sea is out of people.
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Sea is a symbol for people.
Sea is a symbol of peoples.
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So, it talks of
that-- about this beast
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this two horned beast
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a lamb like or a
initially peaceful beast
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that then becomes aggressive
and it's relatively easy
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in the sequence 'cause you know,
one kingdom follows another
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to see that
this is the timeframe
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for the rise of
the United States
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and then once you see that
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It's very nature's describe
very plainly in this prophecy.
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So it's hardly it's
not that everyone would
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necessarily agree with
us but it's hardly a stretch
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to apply this beast
to the United States.
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Fair enough, but the thing I
disagree with is the sequence
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that the lamb
describes are founding
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Christ like
peaceful, meek, mild etcetera.,
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protective of our rights
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and the dragon
describes something future.
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The text of the passage
and I have opened to it.
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Then I saw, Revelation 13:11,
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"Then I saw another
beast rising out of the earth.
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It had two horns like a lamb,"
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so that's in the past tense
"and it spoke like a dragon."
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Now the theologians tell me
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that is a type
of a perfect tense
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that describes action that
was not completed in the past.
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It begun in the past
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but it's
continuing into the present.
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And so what we have is
this description is this tension
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which I think if we
start to think about it
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in American history we
have these wonderful ideals
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of civil and religious freedom
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very fitting description
two horns like a lamb.
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In the Bible the
horn is a symbol of power.
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And so we have we talked
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about the separation of
powers in our last show.
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The separation of powers,
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the protection for
civil and religious freedom
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because we protect against
power becoming accumulated
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in the tyranny of power.
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Some other observers who
tried to see in these two horns
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the separation
of church and state.
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That's another
part of the protection.
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It's all
reasonable analogies to draw.
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Religious freedom, absolutely.
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So it's these and if you think
about it those who are familiar
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with prophecy in the prophesies
of Daniel Chapter 7 and 8
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the power that dominated
the west during the middle ages
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was pictured as a
single little horn
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that consolidated
civil and religious authority
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and became a persecuting
power I think the inquisition.
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Here we have a separation
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between civil and
religious authority
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protection for civil
and religious freedom,
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we have these
marvelous principles of freedom
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that have made the United States
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a beacon of
freedom to the world.
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Underlying
aggression from the beginning.
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At the same time, can
you think of any ethnic group
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that has not been
mistreated at some point
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or another beginning
with Native Americans
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but there was a
terrible Anti-Catholicism
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going back to the early days
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of course we
had African slavery,
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so we've had a problem there.
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You know, I'm from--
I'm living in California,
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we imported Chinese labors
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who died by the thousands
building the rail roads.
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And we interned
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we interned the
Japanese during World War II.
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This is and you're right
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what American exceptionalism
blinds people to is that,
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that--this country or no country
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is an exception to human nature
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and human beings
have the same tendencies.
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The United States
exemplified attitudes
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at the times of its founding
and the peoples that came in.
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What I believe
is the unique thing
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and it's really the
load star of Americanism
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or the American state
is the constitution. Right.
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Which of course, was
informed by progressive thinkers
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religious and
secular at that time
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and so this stands up
there as a guiding star
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and we haven't yet
blanked it out totally
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but if you look just at the
history of the United States
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It's as
imperfect as any country.
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It's what we say
is the United States
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why should it be the
policeman of the world,
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we are a peaceful country,
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this isolationist,
this never been true.
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The United States has never
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practically
speaking been isolationist.
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It's always been expansionist.
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You know, there are 50 states
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so they spread
over half the world.
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You know, that's
the nature of empowers
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as it's become a
latter day empower
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but it still has this unique
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universal aspect
of freedom and rights
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and of course bury within that
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wonderful
religious liberty sentiments
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and we need to cling to that.
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Well, and I think
one of the key things
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to think about in seeing
the tension in our history
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between the lamb and the dragon
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between the wonderful values
and principles that we espouse
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and our failure
to live up to them
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is this whole concept
of American civil religion
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and what you mentioned
American exceptionalism,
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we have a blind
spot as Americans.
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We tend to have this idea
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that God blesses
America that God is on our side.
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Automatically
regardless of what we do.
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And then we justify
being the world's policeman
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which sometimes becomes
being the world's bully.
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You know, projecting our power,
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throwing our weight
around internationally
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and we are uncritical about
whether that's really essential.
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Now, Congress is going to debate
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whether we should project
American power into Syria.
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And I don't have the
answer to that question
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but I'm glad
that there is at least
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going to be some
discussion about it.
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Which is the way it
should operate, you know,
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so often we hear
about it on the news
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and Congress lament
that they had no part in it,
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so the system at
least is working.
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but even the system
is on some predicates
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as you say from
its very founding
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there were some principles
embedded in the Untied States
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that can easily be used to be
enforcing and dictatorial power
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particularly on
religious matters.
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But I want to talk a little more
about American exceptionalism
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because I think that--
Some books written on that.
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Of course, look, it's a
given that we are exceptional
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in our commitment
to the wonderful values
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of civil and religious freedom.
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That's what
makes us exceptional.
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We are not exceptional
when we fail to live up to them
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but there is an inherent danger
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and that is a danger
from our civil religion
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that we turn God into a tribal
deity of the United States.
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I like that.
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And what I mean
by a tribal deity,
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all true religion
whatever you call--
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Or a national icon.
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All true religion
is based on the premise
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that God is sovereign
and we as the creatures
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as the created beings
are in humble submission
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to the will of the
sovereign Creator God.
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You know, there is a
hierarchy, God is on top
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and we are--you
know, we are on the bottom.
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All right, we are the
creatures, He is the Creator.
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Civil religion turns
that formula upside down
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and God becomes the
instrument of national policy.
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God as the, you know,
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as the tribal deity
of the United States
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is invoked--you know
politicians invoke His name
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to bless their political
aspirations to elected at office
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and also to bless
our national aspirations
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as we project power
into the global community.
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Well, it's a little example that
illustrates where this leads.
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Couple of years ago
it turned out that--
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that all of the gun sites
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used in Afghanistan
and Iraq had a Bible text.
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John 3:16 on the Bible.
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Next to the serial number,
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well, it was
told to the soldiers
00:11:45.88\00:11:47.46
who found out about it
that these were holy weapons.
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In extension of the
state is religious thinking
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and this just gets
so muddled together.
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But of course the
structure you are describing
00:11:56.47\00:11:58.14
really existed
in the Middle Ages
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and in some ways that's
what perhaps lies ahead of us.
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This merging of church and
state but in a more modern,
00:12:04.16\00:12:08.04
Well, I'm trying to
avoid some of the words like--
00:12:11.02\00:12:12.81
like some of these
totalitarian powers
00:12:12.84\00:12:16.52
we saw at World War II.
00:12:16.55\00:12:17.62
But really technology is handing
00:12:17.65\00:12:19.89
that sort of statism to
any dominant entity today.
00:12:19.92\00:12:23.85
Abraham Lincoln I
think had a healthy attitude.
00:12:23.88\00:12:27.14
He was asked--
00:12:27.17\00:12:28.20
Oh, nobody God
didn't favor either.
00:12:28.23\00:12:30.15
He was asked whether God
was on the side of the north
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and his answer was you know
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I don't know, I hope that
we are on God's side. Yeah.
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Well, elsewhere
he said both sides
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pray to God, he
couldn't be on both sides.
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Well, that was his
second Inaugural Address
00:12:43.64\00:12:45.80
and if there is one
thing I would comment
00:12:45.83\00:12:47.61
every American
to reread regularly.
00:12:47.64\00:12:50.73
It's Lincoln second inaugural
it is just a masterpiece.
00:12:50.76\00:12:54.53
Very humble
document. Very humble.
00:12:54.56\00:12:56.56
And he had it absolutely--
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And biblically and
prophetically dead on right.
00:12:57.65\00:13:02.46
Although he was not
00:13:02.49\00:13:03.53
a conventional
Christian in any form.
00:13:03.56\00:13:07.67
No. in fact he was well read.
00:13:07.70\00:13:08.73
And I think he had his
moral compass well sort out.
00:13:08.76\00:13:12.18
So the two horns--
00:13:12.21\00:13:14.27
what this the latter activity
of this entity do though.
00:13:14.30\00:13:19.24
Okay, so it says that
we have these two horns
00:13:19.27\00:13:23.59
but then it says
that it will exercise
00:13:23.62\00:13:26.53
or it exercises
all the authority
00:13:26.56\00:13:29.18
of the first
beast in its presence
00:13:29.21\00:13:32.53
and when it does that
it says it makes the earth
00:13:32.56\00:13:36.28
and its inhabitance
worship the first beast
00:13:36.31\00:13:41.38
whose mortal wound was healed.
00:13:41.41\00:13:43.87
So the time is
coming when in repudiation
00:13:43.90\00:13:47.48
of the principles of the
civil and religious freedom,
00:13:47.51\00:13:51.30
the two horns become one.
00:13:51.33\00:13:53.18
We exercise both civil
and religious authority
00:13:53.21\00:13:56.46
and we enforce
religious obligations.
00:13:56.49\00:14:00.51
We enforce worship,
00:14:00.54\00:14:03.39
that's the whole
mark of the beast
00:14:03.42\00:14:05.23
I have the word
worship underlined
00:14:05.26\00:14:07.42
repeatedly in this passage.
00:14:07.45\00:14:09.36
Those who would not worship
00:14:09.39\00:14:11.25
the image of the
beast are to be slain.
00:14:11.28\00:14:14.10
So there is
persecution and death penalty
00:14:14.13\00:14:17.52
for those who do not
conform to the popular worship.
00:14:17.55\00:14:23.29
We need to take a
break, we'll be right back
00:14:23.32\00:14:25.90
to continue this discussion
of the two horn beast.
00:14:25.93\00:14:29.05