Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break
with Ambassador Seiple
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we were pretty
much ranging the world
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from trying to get
into your perspective
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as the first ambassador-at-large
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for Religious Freedom
for the United States.
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And I know you had an incredible
experience over many years
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and before that
with World Vision
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as the president
of the World Vision.
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You were traveling the world
and getting a sense of the pulse
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of religious freedom
and religious activities
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around the world.
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And we'd been
talking about Europe.
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In everyone's mind that's the,
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the place of no
religion isn't it.
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But there're
religious force there
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and Bosnia and on
the fringes of Europe
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they're the Balkans reminded as
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that it's the
force to recon with.
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I think we're keeping
pretty good eye on Europe.
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We took it right off
in the middle of the 1900s
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and then looked what happened
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we had two world
wars in that era.
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And then we talk about Bosnia
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I just continued
to think that Bosnia
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is the extension of
not getting the aftermath
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of World War II, right.
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Slavenka Drakulic a writer
writing in the Balkan Express
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had a very chilling
comment about Bosnia
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as she looked
back at that history
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and realized what was taking
place yet again in Europe.
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She said
"someone is always a Jew.
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Someone is always a Jew
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and once the
concept of otherness
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takes place the
unimaginable becomes possible."
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Yeah. There's a prophetic word.
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Very deep way to state this,
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the toxic side of
religious conflict.
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The world is not
safe with diversity, yeah.
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You know something
that I'm sure you are aware
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but probably most of our
viewers haven't picked up
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and because the
media never say it.
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We are on a war on terrorism
its manifests itself 9/11
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of course and follow up
wars of the United States.
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We are told over and
over again the sense of,
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of hurt from the Islamic world
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things like troupes
quartered in Saudi Arabia
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and because the
Middle East situation
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and the unresolved
Palestinian question.
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But I pick up a lot in
the material coming out
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of that world that
they've got extensive grievance
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that they were badly
done by in the Balkans
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and the Muslims were victimized.
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Now that's not
the stance in the US
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or our
governments stance we fell--
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we feel that we
tilted toward them
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if there could be anything.
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You know, we
rescued the Muslim public.
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Yes, I think I agree but
that's not the way it perceived
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in the Muslim
world which is very--
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Well, In Kosovo as well
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we can see the tilt in
terms of natural disasters
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where the United
States has embodied itself.
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I'm not sure any of these things
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are going to really
make the Islamic world
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and it got to be careful because
I don't want to categorize
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1.7 billion people as
having single mindset.
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That's an
intellectually lazy approach
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and its hurt our relationship.
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But even if we fix
the Arab Israeli conflict
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and the
Palestinian state and so on.
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Even if that gets fixed
and we have had a handle it
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I'm not sure any of these
issues are going to go away.
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No, probably no.
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Ah, I think we have terrorism
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probably on both sides
of some of those issues.
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And for an example as you get
closed to the solution in Israel
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you find some of the
one throw an hand grenade,
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someone blowing
up a pizza parlor,
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someone there is
extremism on both sides. Yeah.
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And the only way
you get to an end result
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is by upfront very
early on a process saying
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we are not going to let
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a terrorist attack
undo this negotiation.
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It's too big.
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And unfortunately
once that person blows up
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that pizza parlor nobody
remembers how it started.
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All they remember is that
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the moderate
voice is now silence
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and it's us against them. Yeah.
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And you're
saying what I don't know
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that I've said
it on this program
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but just as an observer I have
lived most of my life in the US
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so on one level I can I
hope can't myself as an American
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but I came from Australia
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so, you know, I always have
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a sort of a
outsiders viewpoint on it.
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And I think we
have done ourselves
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in a justice by responding
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so frantically
to terrorist things
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because I think part of
solution is to keep our cool
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not to be terrorized,
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because that's the
whole point of these people.
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They can't whether
its Islamic terrorist
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or before them they're
go in the Haganah in Israel
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with dealing the British or
the groups in Northern Ireland.
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All terrorist are a minority
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are certainly not in
a strong enough position
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to win through
their traditional way.
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So they're hoping that
they will panic a population
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to lose their cool and
to change their direction
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obviously in their favor.
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We don't really have,
even though it's been said
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a true existential threat from
terrorism we have a disruption.
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And our way of life I
think can be protected by us
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not subverted by then
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if we hold on to our
values and maintain our cool,
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do certain things
that's for the government do
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but not go overboard, not throw
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as you and I
have talked a little
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not through the civil liberties
may be have with the bathwater.
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We use to say often
in the state department
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we got to all work hard to prove
Sam Huntington to the wrong.
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Yeah. It's not a
clash of civilization.
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Didn't he die a
couple of years ago?
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He died without recanting.
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I remember going
to a lecture of his
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and here I cam
expound on this stuff.
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Well, he would be a
believer in the hands of the day
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you suggested before that
pessimist always has more facts.
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And you can draw that negative
solution that negative scenario,
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you know very easily but I
think you got to work very hard
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so that it just doesn't happen.
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And to do that
there are two things
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that absolutely have to happen
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and they really very directly
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to how ameliorate the
religious freedom issue.
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One is you have to
understand your own faith.
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And we can get
into this on a big way
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but we are soft in terms
of our individual theologies.
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We pick and chose, we
have domesticated God,
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we have got lot
of things wrong about
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and but we've got to understand
why we believe what we believe.
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You know, what
you're arguing against
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I think it's that
shouldn't be a civil religion,
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it shouldn't be a generic
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national watered down
version. I don't know.
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If we need to have our own
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deeply held views
and stick with it.
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I mean, Calvary
tells us at least one thing
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you never watered it down.
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No. It didn't have a plan B.
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I mean it was
there and I was with that
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what was gonna happening.
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But the other thing in addition
to understanding is our own
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is respecting the other
and we have a long way to go.
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People have talked for decades
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about how we have
to tolerate the other
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and that seems such a--
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I mean I tolerate people I
don't know specially care for.
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That's what I tolerate.
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And tolerate is for now
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but when there is a
stress toleration disappears
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and then you have
got religious warfare
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you have got
interpersonal conflict.
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Respect takes us in a
totally different direction.
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Respect is based
on this communality
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we have this all
been created by, by God.
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And the respect
that we need to have
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towards one and
other comes out of that,
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certainly for the, in the
Judea Christian tradition.
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Well, in the United
States its interesting
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I agree with you from
the Judea Christian tradition
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and our faith
that should lead us
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to regard the other as
this is important as our
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but the US is the society
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and its
government I think is drawing
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just as heavily from a
secular almost the human--
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well, not almost
very much a humanistic
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appreciation of the dignity,
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inherent dignity of
man as a sentient being.
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And perhaps when you were
dealing with other countries
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couldn't you invoke
that this as a effectively
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as your own biblical viewpoint
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because when you
dealing with the Hindu
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or a Buddhist country
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I mean they might
like what you're saying
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from that point of
view but its not necessarily
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automatically persuades it
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but we can appeal to a
common humanity can't we
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and just the rights
that are living a being has.
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Well, I'm saying for everyone
understand your own faith
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at its deepest
and richest blessed.
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And if you're person of no faith
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understand how you got there
at the deepest and richest best.
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So it includes
all faiths and none.
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And then know
enough about your neighbor
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in order to show at respect
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and I know that's a
big bite of the apple
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but if we could find a way
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to take that big
bite of the apple
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we would eliminate
sectarian strife in the world.
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Think about it.
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We would
eliminate sectarian strife
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there will be no
more religious wars.
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We would have
respect for one another.
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We don't cross
over the differences,
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we don't compromise who we are,
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we don't put
ourselves on any slippery slope.
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All we do is understand
why we believe what we believe.
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It sounds
captivating when you say that
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and of course as well as
an optimist you're realists
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I don't think we going likely
to eliminate sectarian war
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but it would be a wonderful
goal to work toward wouldn't it,
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we need to. Oh, yeah.
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Because reverse
is a sectarian abyss.
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Its Armageddon, isn't it.
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It's not literally biblically
then figuratively true.
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But you sound a little bit
like to person who says the poor
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we have with us always.
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It's a biblical admonition.
No, it's not an admonition.
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We can't be status quo.
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It may be in point of realism
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but that doesn't take the burden
off our behaviors to change.
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So that's wonderful
that after this experience
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dealing with many
issues many countries
00:10:00.17\00:10:02.99
you're really got
this, this biblical optimism.
00:10:03.02\00:10:06.57
When we talk
about religious conflict
00:10:06.60\00:10:08.27
and the need for
religious liberty.
00:10:08.30\00:10:10.94
Yes we did not have
the biblical optimism,
00:10:10.97\00:10:13.84
if I did not have
biblical optimism,
00:10:13.87\00:10:16.56
you know, I would be
the world's worst pessimist.
00:10:16.59\00:10:19.87
But there is something tangible
that gives my hope credibility.
00:10:19.90\00:10:24.95
Hope is the expectation
that tomorrows reality
00:10:24.98\00:10:27.08
is gonna be better
00:10:27.11\00:10:28.78
but its important to
have something tangible
00:10:28.81\00:10:30.68
in the present that
points towards that expectation
00:10:30.71\00:10:34.42
that the resurrection
does that familiar. Absolutely.
00:10:34.45\00:10:36.97
And working in religious
liberty it may not be better
00:10:37.00\00:10:39.96
left to its own
devices but the opposition
00:10:39.99\00:10:43.23
and others even
some of our viewers
00:10:43.26\00:10:46.07
they have the ability
to be part of a grand swirl
00:10:46.10\00:10:49.40
to turn back this intolerance
00:10:49.43\00:10:51.84
and this lack of religious
liberty in practice around.
00:10:51.87\00:10:54.45
Understand your own faith at
its deepest and richest best.
00:10:54.48\00:10:59.01
And so, so just in a capsule
00:10:59.04\00:11:02.16
what could you
say about your time as
00:11:02.19\00:11:05.41
ambassador-at-large
for religious liberty.
00:11:05.44\00:11:07.46
What was the key to, in
your mind carrying that through?
00:11:07.49\00:11:11.38
What did you
need to keep in mind?
00:11:11.41\00:11:14.68
I think what you
always have to keep in mind
00:11:14.71\00:11:16.33
what you always have to
see is the face of the person
00:11:16.36\00:11:19.40
who is to use the
metaphor of Good Samaritan.
00:11:19.43\00:11:23.24
A person who is lying on
the side of the road beaten
00:11:23.27\00:11:25.96
and bruised that has
to be your motivation,
00:11:25.99\00:11:28.43
that has to be why
you do what you do.
00:11:28.46\00:11:30.49
Why I did what I did.
00:11:30.52\00:11:34.89
In presenting religious
liberty is always a tension
00:11:34.92\00:11:38.99
between the different goals
we are trying to communicate.
00:11:39.02\00:11:42.38
You know, when I
look at the life of Jesus
00:11:42.41\00:11:44.89
I can see that
it's easy to focus
00:11:44.92\00:11:46.70
on the woe on the
Scribes and the Pharisees
00:11:46.73\00:11:49.98
and perhaps just as
easy to forget that Jesus
00:11:50.01\00:11:53.69
when He spoke to
the women taken in sin
00:11:53.72\00:11:55.55
He said "neither
do I condemn thee
00:11:55.58\00:11:57.41
go and sin no more."
00:11:57.44\00:11:59.64
When we talk
about religious liberty
00:11:59.67\00:12:01.98
we should be airing on the side
of compassion and consideration.
00:12:02.01\00:12:07.72
Obviously, some of this field
00:12:07.75\00:12:09.56
that we have
more truth than others
00:12:09.59\00:12:11.46
that's inherent
in any belief system
00:12:11.49\00:12:13.63
as well as human nature.
00:12:13.66\00:12:15.31
But we need to understand
00:12:15.34\00:12:16.73
no matter where
we are talking about
00:12:16.76\00:12:18.25
whether we are
traveling in the Far East
00:12:18.28\00:12:20.70
or the South East
Asia or the United States
00:12:20.73\00:12:24.01
but we need to represent
00:12:24.04\00:12:26.31
true values of
understanding a freedom,
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a spiritual self determination
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and borrowing from the Bible
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as it says "against
such there is no law.
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There must be a higher law
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that guides that principles
of religious freedom."
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The law of liberty
is purported I believe.
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For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
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