Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is the program
that brings you news, views,
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discussion, updates and analysis
of religious liberty events
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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 on this program
is Attorney Alan Reinach.
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You're executive
director of the--
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Church State Council
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celebrating our
50th anniversary in 2014.
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We worked very closely together.
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I was gonna say
I'm an Australian
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but that's really a
misleader, misleading thing.
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I've lived most of my
life in the United States.
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But here, we're in the
US, talking in that context
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but let me
invoke another country
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the British
parliamentary system.
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I don't know about you but
I love to listen to the BBC
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and some of the
question time in parliament
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and the raucous,
bantering and desperate comments
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that sometimes come
from the prime minister
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are quite entertaining.
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I haven't generally
seen anything like that
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in the United States, right?
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Okay. But lately, a little bit.
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Think back to-- I think it was
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President Obama's first
State of the Union message.
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You remember that?
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Yes, I remember, he
stepped out of line of protocol.
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It's usually very prim and
proper in the United States,
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and he took the
time to rail against
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a recent Supreme Court decision.
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Okay. Citizens united.
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Indeed.
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I mean, that was
quite out of character.
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I can't remember
anything quite like that.
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They often get on a hobby horse
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about the Cold War or
whatever, are these presidents.
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But to take a
shot across the bow
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domestic in this case
domestic political situation,
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the Supreme Court
with something else.
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And then Chief
Justice Roberts grimaced
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and was murmuring
things and then later--
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There he is shaking his head.
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Yeah, they went on the
warpath so that in its own way
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I think is untoward is any
of the yelling and screaming
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in the back bencher cooing and
jabbering like apes in England.
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The Supreme-- What's going on?
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The Supreme Court decision
that most if you ask Christians,
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you know, what cases do
you remember are notable cases,
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they may say for
example, Roe v. Wade
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the case that legalized
abortion but Citizens United
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is probably the single
worst case of the last century.
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Why?
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And the boldest departure
from a previous understanding.
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It essentially
equates money and speech
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in terms of the
political process
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and it gives, you know,
the rights of a person--
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It said-- Personhood.
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Didn't they say corporations
are individuals too.
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Well, for purposes of
making campaign donations.
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So, you know,
now we have to wonder
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when you go out and
spend your money at the store
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where a portion--you
know, which political party
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a portion of that's gonna go
to support for which candidates,
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because corporations are
now virtually unrestrained.
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Now Citizens United was
the first of a couple of cases
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there is one
pending now before the court
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that may go to next step.
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Citizens United did not say
that corporations can give or--
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to candidates directly, but
the political action committees
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that essentially
support candidates
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and for all intends and purposes
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are directed by the candidates.
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Right, and there's no
cap on what they can spend
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unlike wasn't it
McCain-- who was his co-sponsor
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on the McCain-Feingold.
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McCain-Feingold, yeah.
McCain-Feingold, years ago--
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Well, that's why it was
struck down by Citizens United.
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But there's still
limits, you and I couldn't give
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not the way political--
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That's the next, that's the
next case it's likely to fall.
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There's very, very low
limit on what you can give
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for a campaign contribution
even if you're billionaire.
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Right, but that's the
next case it's coming along
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and that's likely to fall.
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So that essentially
now we have government,
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oh well, it was,
the comedians quip that
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it's finally true now
that corporations or persons
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and we have government
of by and for the people.
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Well, that's a-- I mean
it's funny but it's sad.
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That was Stephen Colbert's quip.
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But it does
have the ability to--
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the potential to
subvert this perfect union.
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Well, the idea that
our elective officials
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are responsive to
their constituents
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is less and less true
when the corporations become
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the single most significant
part of campaign finance.
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Now I don't claim, I mean
sometimes in our discussions
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we claim to be
sort of in the mind box
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of the Supreme Court justices.
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I don't really-- how
could I know what they think.
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But it appears to
me that is very often
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they're very bookish
types they study back
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that in a perverse way they've
come close to the principles
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that underlay the
founding of the United States.
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You know that
classic statement that we say
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life liberty in the
pursuit of happiness
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was actually originally
in-- Life, liberty and property.
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Property. Yeah.
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And I think, but I
think it's very dangerous.
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They're going back to origins
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and are
requiting political power
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and the ultimate thing that
this whole governance protects
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is property and aggregations
of property so they,
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that's where they've gotten
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this wonderful new
respect for a corporation.
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Look, if you want to go
back to our founding fathers,
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James Madison
wrote later in life,
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collection of thoughts about
separation of church and state.
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Detach memoranda.
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Detach memoranda is what
it's been come to be called
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and in it he was very
suspect of treating the church
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as a corporate entity and
the potential for the church
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to gain money and
power and property
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because of its
continued existence.
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Which was the
standard Protestant viewpoint?
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Well, because you
look at Catholicism.
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That was the
fight of the reformation
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apart from doctrine
that was hitting a nutshell.
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Sure, so what's ironic
about Madison's concerns
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so long ago is how it
has come true with respect
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not to the religious corporation
but the secular corporation
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and just how much power
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the corporate world has
obtained in this country.
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But in other
discussions we've pointed out
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that the individual
is progressively losing
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the right to stand up for
their individual conscience.
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There are larger issues
and I even thrown in the--
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the common good and so on.
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And so the Citizens
United not the Bible--
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Oh.
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Citizens United case, I
think is just another part
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of the dynamic hitting us away
from the autonomy and rights
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and conscience of the
individual, its corporatism.
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Well, you know,
what's interesting
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when you look and I want to
bring this back to prophecy here
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'cause that's really
our purpose in criticizing
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the global economy
and the masters of it
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is to see that the Bible
actually has something to say,
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in the last days.
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There is--shall I put
it, a counterfeit trinity
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of the political
powers, the economic powers
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and the religious
powers all embed together
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and it's all
gonna come crashing down
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but not before
the three together
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unite to restrict
liberty of conscience.
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Yeah, read those texts
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that we were looking
at them a little early.
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Well--
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I remember quoting a
couple of these texts,
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during the
economic collapse of 2008.
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James really talks
of, you know, to me,
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this is a forerunner of how,
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we have virtual
slave labor and child labor
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producing our
goods in South East Asia
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while we want to go
to our big buck stores
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which I won't
name, call out by name
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but, you know, we
want to buy cheap goods.
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"Come now, you
rich, weep and howl
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for the miseries
that are coming upon you.
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Your riches have rotted, and
your garments are moth-eaten.
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Your gold and
silver have corroded
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and their corrosion
will be evidence against you,
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and will eat
your flesh like fire.
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You have laid up
treasure in the last days."
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So James clearly
is-- this is end time,
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"You've laid up
treasure in the last days.
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Behold the wages of the
laborers who mowed your fields,
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which you kept back by fraud
are crying out against you."
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Capital has been
very oppressive of labor.
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We are
destroying the middle class.
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"And the cries of the harvesters
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have reached the
ears of the Lord of hosts.
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You have lived on the earth in
luxury and in self indulgence.
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You have fattened your
hearts in a day of slaughter."
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And James goes on again
in the last days context,
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"Be patient,
therefore, brothers,
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until the coming of the Lord."
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Yeah. But so-- So that's one.
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Economic inequality is a
characteristic of our end time.
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Oh, and we have the
worst inequality of all that--
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There was the
propellant incident,
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this--wasn't it in
Pakistan this no, in Bangladesh
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this building collapsed
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killing hundreds of
these marginal workers.
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And I can remember my
wife is from Guatemala
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going to a upscale shirt factory
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there was a Yves
Saint Laurent I think.
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You know how much they pay
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the owner of the
factory to assemble a shirt?
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Nothing. 35 cents a shirt.
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Yeah, no. And he is doing well.
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The facts are that the workers
there are getting nothing.
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Yeah, no, it's outrageous.
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Revelation 18,
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"The merchants of the
earth weep and mourn for her,
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since no one buys
their cargo anymore."
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And there's a--it goes on
for verses about the collapse.
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And they lamented in one hour.
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This great-- One hour--
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Economic, edifice collapses.
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Right. Babylon
comes crashing down.
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And it is for God,
I think Babylon stands
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for just the
confusion of man's voice,
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all of these false systems.
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Well, we--but we have a
three folded counterfeit trinity
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the religious
powers, the civil powers,
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and the economic powers, all
in this confused global order
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if you will and very oppressive
of the rights of individuals
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and especially the
rights of conscience
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and religious freedom.
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Yeah, what can
Christians do about this?
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I often had people when I
explain religious liberty,
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"What can we do about it?"
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Probably not much, right?
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But we certainly not called upon
to be social revolutionaries
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in the sense of taking
up any sort of a vendetta
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against authority and the system
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but I think we do
have a loud prophetic voice
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and that we shouldn't
suffer these things quietly,
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we should speak true principles
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against this
developing construct.
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Let me first of all
say what we should not do.
00:11:58.25\00:12:01.47
We should not have an attitude
of passivity and inevitability.
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Oh, well, you know,
the world's going to
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hell in a hand basket there's
nothing I can do about it
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and not to vote
and just to disengage.
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We, you know, yes,
the old saying goes,
00:12:16.66\00:12:20.20
you know, "Think
global and act local."
00:12:20.23\00:12:23.16
So for starters we
do need to pay attention
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to what goes on in
our own communities,
00:12:27.37\00:12:29.61
we need to participate, we
need to provide leadership.
00:12:29.64\00:12:33.55
Revelation says,
you know, God says,
00:12:33.58\00:12:36.43
I will destroy those
who destroy the earth.
00:12:36.46\00:12:38.81
We need to
examine our own lifestyles
00:12:38.84\00:12:42.22
and take baby
steps maybe concrete
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to have a less of an impact
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on the economy,
on the environment.
00:12:49.24\00:12:52.08
Don't you agree
the baby steps are not,
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because they
will change the world
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but the baby steps should be
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because, we
babies following Christ.
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Well--
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We're called to
follow and exemplify
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Christian and
Biblical principles
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and it's really up to God
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is to whether that
will change the world or not
00:13:08.59\00:13:10.33
but we have to be changed,
we have to act correctly.
00:13:10.36\00:13:12.81
We need to live thoughtful moral
lives and to lead by example.
00:13:12.84\00:13:16.80
We can't just stop that.
00:13:16.83\00:13:17.86
I remember even I was
a Seventh-day Adventist
00:13:17.89\00:13:20.39
leader in Australia
00:13:20.42\00:13:21.64
one of the publishing
houses I worked there.
00:13:21.67\00:13:23.96
And his view was--we'll
so gonna get on and achieve,
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so I'm gonna irresponsibly
borrow heavily here
00:13:26.22\00:13:28.55
because I'll never
have to pay it back.
00:13:28.58\00:13:30.84
Back in the Reagan Era we
had an energy interior secretary
00:13:30.87\00:13:36.53
by the name of James
Watt who was an evangelic
00:13:36.56\00:13:39.87
I think he was a Pentecostal.
00:13:39.90\00:13:41.68
And-- I remember him.
00:13:41.71\00:13:43.11
And he was, he
wanted to drill excessively
00:13:43.14\00:13:47.41
for oil off the
coast of California
00:13:47.44\00:13:50.03
and to the
environmental concerns he said,
00:13:50.06\00:13:52.96
you know, Jesus is
coming soon, it doesn't matter.
00:13:52.99\00:13:55.50
Well, we're laughing
about it but in another context
00:13:55.53\00:13:57.64
that's more than
just a personal mistake.
00:13:57.67\00:14:00.48
That's part of the
philosophy of the Devin Nunes.
00:14:00.51\00:14:03.95
It's a God given
right to plunder the earth
00:14:03.98\00:14:06.59
because it's for ours to take.
00:14:06.62\00:14:09.45
But we are
called to be stewards.
00:14:09.48\00:14:11.56
Right, it's different
than stewardship rather.
00:14:11.59\00:14:16.25
The--you know,
demonist is a control,
00:14:16.28\00:14:19.99
well, we are not given
control, we're given custody,
00:14:20.02\00:14:22.80
is a difference.
00:14:22.83\00:14:24.98
We could continue but I
think it's time for a break.
00:14:25.01\00:14:27.47
So we'll be back
in a few minutes.
00:14:27.50\00:14:29.76
Please stay with us.
00:14:29.79\00:14:30.90