Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Robert Seiple
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000250B
|
00:06 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:08 Before the break with guest Ambassador Robert Seiple 00:12 we were talking about religious liberty in the United States 00:15 and of course talking about the history 00:17 and how it came to be. 00:19 And we have given a pretty good grade overall I think. 00:22 Of course, we have many, many programs with ongoing issues 00:26 like Workplace Religious Freedom that initiative 00:30 but its not yet had been passed, show up accommodation 00:33 in the workplace but it can never be 00:34 as you said acquitted with the upright persecution. 00:37 Sometimes a threat of life of laymens in other countries. 00:41 I will tell you something that during the break 00:44 we even thought about what about religious freedom 00:47 in the armed forces. 00:48 Is that just like anywhere else 00:51 that all the rights are given and guaranteed? 00:54 First of all I'm gonna say I saw more Christians 00:57 and I'm using the term in terms of developed people 01:00 who know why they believe what they believe. 01:02 I saw more Christians in the military 01:05 and I have seen in every-- any other segment or society. 01:08 So I think there is a high degree. 01:12 I mean, people who are gonna put the lives on the line 01:15 they better know how the lives are safe. 01:16 There's an old saying not so many atheists of the folksong. 01:19 Well, that's true and I, I say in my 13 months 01:22 in Vietnam I'd learned how to pray. 01:24 I prayed more than anybody ever prayed in my life. 01:28 But it is, it's a difficult subject 01:30 because if someone is in uniform there is certain things 01:35 that we require of that person professionally 01:39 and certain things that we don't allow that person to do 01:42 with the power of the uniform. 01:45 I was in marine there is no more powerful uniform 01:49 than United States. 01:50 Sympathizer right. 01:51 So you have to be careful. 01:52 You have to be careful that you don't get on a soapbox 01:55 and everybody is got to be like, like me. 01:57 And we've situations where people would join the events, 02:01 conferences and so on as keynoters 02:04 or inspirational speakers would wear their uniform, 02:08 wear the weapons. 02:09 Was it marine but was it General Boykin. 02:11 Boykin. 02:12 Very exemplary seem to cross that line, recently. 02:15 Not seem to what I would say but general sense. 02:18 Yeah, yeah but you know if you never push against the line 02:22 you don't know when you have crossed it. 02:23 So someone has got to cross the line somewhere 02:26 to see if to make sure we have gone too far 02:29 and have to pull back. 02:30 We have chaplains that do that. 02:33 We all grew up with two subjects 02:36 that we could not discuss Employee Company. 02:41 Religion and politics you can imagine someone 02:45 coming in from the outside to the state upon. 02:46 So this was in the military? 02:48 Well, well but outside of the military, I mean 02:52 inside of the military it's even because you got, 02:55 you got a command structure 02:56 they can tell you what to do 02:57 but outside you got parents and school teachers 03:00 and everybody else and oh don't, 03:02 don't talk about these subjects. 03:04 Now the problem is 95% of world's problems today 03:09 take place at the intersection of religion in politics. 03:12 Absolutely. 03:14 And we failed to discuss this issue in those terms 03:17 and our considerable call. 03:19 Yeah, you are right. 03:20 By the way this, this program talks about politics a lot. 03:26 And I'm not embarrassed but that it is unavoidable 03:29 but what I try to remind people now and then 03:32 when people say that we should be careful with politics 03:35 really what it is, is partisan political expression 03:38 I think can become toxic and divisive and dangerous. 03:42 But when we are talking about events in the world 03:44 and particularly with religious liberty 03:46 you can't really even get into it without talking 03:48 about political developments, right. 03:50 Here is a major one that's taking place right now 03:54 and it's important to me, my son and I teach a Bible study 03:59 on Monday nights in the community. 04:01 And we are teaching First and Second Samuel. 04:03 And we are looking at this character Saul 04:06 whose been broken by a covenant on theology 04:10 that he doesn't understand. 04:11 What happened on Mount Sinai 04:12 when God puts this high premium on obedience, faithfulness? 04:17 And he and he can't get there. 04:19 And he has to go through Samuel. 04:20 And it just doesn't work out. 04:22 And ultimately he is rejected as a king. 04:24 And we talked about he should have made some compromises. 04:28 He should have understood that he can learn of all this 04:31 and little of that. 04:32 And then someone asked well we compromise 04:35 all over the place, don't we. 04:36 There is a cultural today. 04:37 There is a cultural state of soul 04:38 to obey is better then sacrifice. 04:39 Yes, yes that's it, that's it. 04:41 To obey obedience, faithfulness is better than 04:44 trying to create a religious right 04:46 even if you are not, even if you're not a priest 04:48 which he wasn't. 04:49 Samuel always did the sacrifices 04:51 but you come around today and trying to find an example 04:56 of some group that has never compromised. 04:59 And we get this spurge on newspapers 05:02 the little sisters of the poor and they're going against 05:08 unarguably the most powerful person in the world, 05:12 the president of the United States 05:14 and the Affordable Care Act. 05:16 Now I know this makes people queasy because its-- 05:19 we are talking about something that has 05:21 all kind of detractors. 05:22 I only want to make one point. 05:24 I was wondering if you're gonna break up 05:26 the Affordable Care Act. 05:27 Well, I only want to make one point. 05:29 Follow this group whose belief is in obedience 05:34 in faithfulness and no compromise in terms 05:38 of how they feel and what their behavior should look like 05:41 as it relates to the people they feel called to serve. 05:44 Now the optics are terrible for the big powerful people. 05:49 The little sisters of the poor are going to win this. 05:52 They're gonna win this particular thing 05:54 because of their faithfulness and obedience. 05:57 On that personal level yes, it's the right attitude. 06:01 There is a bigger issue on the dynamic of the healthcare thing 06:04 that I have even discussed on this program 06:06 that makes me uncomfortable sometimes. 06:08 I think there is almost a readiness by people of faith 06:13 to use that as leverage 06:15 against the state to an essence project 06:18 their religious viewpoint to the larger population. 06:20 I think we need to be careful of that. 06:22 We are talking about compulsion, and compulsion works two ways. 06:24 That's true. 06:27 I'm taking the other side of the pulse. 06:28 Yeah, so I think your point is, is correct, yeah. 06:32 But we were talking about the military 06:37 which starting to get into the military 06:38 and their how they relate to religious freedom 06:43 and there's been sort of few embarrassments 06:46 slightly at the Air Force Academy 06:48 and so we're supposedly religious hidalgos 06:50 where sort of projecting and our religious viewpoint 06:55 there in a protected environment that was felt wrong. 06:59 What do you think about the dynamic of religion 07:03 in a military environment? 07:05 That's a microcosm of what's happening across society. 07:09 It just happens we don't. That's true, that's true. 07:11 I think you're troubling up 07:12 of what was happening else where yes. 07:14 But there are lots of things that are happening 07:16 into the academies cheating scandals. 07:18 Yeah. Rapes, date rapes. 07:21 There are things that you would say chief, 07:24 I'm up a discipline approach 07:27 a highly geared towards professionalism. 07:31 These things should not be and they shouldn't be 07:34 but they speak I think probably to a larger issue in our society 07:39 where our compromise is put us on the slip of sound. 07:42 Anyway I hear the statistic the other day on womens, 07:45 women in the military being sexually harassed. 07:48 Like I think it was a stronger were that harassed 07:50 and it was something like one in three, 07:53 or it might be one in four 07:54 that is very high percentage about that order. 07:57 And then they said that numerically 07:59 there are more men in the military 08:02 that are sexually harassed. 08:04 Now that's interesting not a higher percentage 08:06 but a higher number of course there's less women. 08:09 But it means that there is a great incidents 08:12 of this sort of problem. 08:13 So you are right, its not just religious impropriety. 08:17 I have a concern as the Seventh-day Adventist 08:19 that with the demise of the volunteer army 08:23 and not the volunteer army 08:24 the draft obligatory service with the volunteer army 08:28 the, the allowances for consciences objection 08:33 and Sabbath and other religious accommodations 08:36 are not as readily granted. 08:40 You think there's a need 08:41 to protect religion in an environment? 08:42 Yes, I do and if someone, 08:45 yeah I think there are many ways you serve in the military 08:48 without putting a gun to your shoulder. 08:51 Well, that one might not to be so hard to insist on 08:53 because it's a choice now whether you go in. 08:55 But certainly a person in the military if they have 08:59 any conscience religious related conscience issue 09:02 I think then there needs to be effort made to accommodate them. 09:05 Not just sort of well it's, you know, you came in 09:08 and you have given it away 09:09 because you give away certain civil rights 09:12 when you enter a military. 09:14 But as you have said right now with a profession army 09:16 not all volunteer army you're making a choice to go in. 09:20 You're making choice with eyes wide open 09:23 and you may change that. 09:25 And that's some cases we have had you could in way 09:27 we have been hrough that in Liberty. 09:30 Yes you could even allow well they made that choice 09:32 but within that entity then they had a change of mind 09:35 they discovered a new faith and now commitment rises up. 09:39 So it can't be sort of, it can't be totally does 09:43 just because they chose to go in. 09:45 I mean, it takes some insight and some discernment. 09:48 I mean, I know there are number of people 09:51 who become consciences objector, 09:54 objectors when the first shot is fired in anger. 09:57 It's not supposed to work that way. 09:58 It supposed to reach this point of your belief system 10:02 when you're putting in the context. 10:03 Well, you're going back to your and my or too 10:06 I just didn't go to Vietnam 10:07 I had a number but there were many people 10:09 the first shot that was fired was at their own foot 10:11 so they can go home, right. 10:13 Well, I think a lot of us felt that. 10:15 Yeah. 10:16 If we can get that $16 million wound let's take it. 10:20 Vietnam was not a good place to be. 10:23 Yeah. 10:24 I went to take the experience for anything. 10:27 And as I say I was 22, 10:30 who had never been asked to do anything for his country. 10:34 And now I'm at the age group 10:35 where my age group younger and some older 10:40 were populating to the tune 10:42 of three-and-half million of military. 10:45 Now people make decisions 10:47 unlike mine they were much more difficult to make. 10:50 But the decision I made was to go in 10:54 and I have to say I have never regretted it. 10:56 You know, I have all the family members 10:58 who have followed suit regretted, regretted it either. 11:05 Years ago when the Soviet Union was intact 11:08 I often saw pictures of the workers 11:11 surging forward with flags and Soviet slogans under them. 11:15 It took me a long time to realize 11:17 that they were invariably saying onward to communism, 11:21 they never arrived. 11:22 When we talk about religious liberty in the United States 11:26 its worth remembering that the call is onward 11:29 and upward in some ways the same. 11:32 You know those words under the Statue of Liberty 11:34 say you know "send me your tired 11:36 and your huddled masses longing to be free." 11:39 But it's worth remembering that the US constitution accepts 11:43 that it is a present reality 11:45 inherent in our status human beings that we are free. 11:49 When you read the Bible 11:50 and Jesus charged there in Nazareth to freedom. 11:55 We are free and its great privilege 11:58 I think to live in a land 12:00 that accepts our inherent state of religious freedom. 12:04 And it's our privilege and our responsibility 12:07 to work toward that end to protect what we already have 12:12 and project it to others in a way 12:14 that will further empower them, 12:16 to participate in this great American freedom. 12:21 For Liberty Insider this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2014-12-17