Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), John Graz
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000252A
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00:15 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:17 This is a program bringing you news, views, information, 00:20 analysis and up-to-date information regarding 00:23 religious liberty in the United States 00:25 but around the world also. 00:27 My name is Lincoln Steed, Editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:31 And my guest on the program is Dr. John Graz, 00:33 not the first time I must say. 00:35 No, and it's always a pleasure to be with you, Lincoln. 00:37 Thanks for coming on the program. 00:39 You're the Secretary General 00:41 of the International Religious Liberty Association. 00:44 Yes. 00:46 And that should be the cue I think on this program. 00:49 I said the United States 00:50 but let's look at religious liberty 00:52 and the global scene on this. 00:56 I'm sure like many people you've been seeing headlines 00:59 lately about Russia and the Ukraine 01:02 and the Crimean Peninsula. 01:05 Does that resonate with you at all from history? 01:07 Oh, yes, of course. 01:08 Because you know during long time, 01:10 the countries of Ukraine and Russia 01:12 have been very close and during the Sovietic time, 01:17 they were really close and you had a lot of leaders 01:21 of the Soviet Union who came from Ukraine. 01:25 And it means from our side, from the west, 01:29 it was more or less the same countries 01:31 but it was two different countries 01:33 and we see today that they have a problem 01:36 and they will have still problem, 01:38 they had already problem at the level of religion, you know? 01:42 We have in Ukraine, 01:44 a lot of religious freedom we can say... 01:46 Since the fall of the Soviet Union, yes. 01:48 Yeah, there is no one church which is dominating Ukraine 01:54 but you have several different Orthodox Church, 01:56 you have the Catholic Church 01:58 and you have many evangelicals now. 02:00 It means that you have this possibility 02:03 to built a pluralistic society but the other side 02:08 you have also a lot of people coming from Russia, 02:10 they still speak Russian. 02:13 And they have been so much associate 02:16 with the history of Russia that now it's difficult 02:19 to cut when a part of Ukraine 02:22 would like to join the European side, 02:25 you know, it creates some tension 02:26 and this is the challenge they have to solve now. 02:29 There's no question that it's a very dynamic political 02:31 and even a religious situation but what resonates with me, 02:35 I remember my history lessons a few years ago. 02:38 The biggest war before World War I 02:41 was the Crimean War. 02:43 Yeah, yeah. Where-- 02:45 Between the west and the Russian, yeah. 02:47 Well, it was the Great Powers, that was France... 02:49 England. 02:50 England, Russia and the Ottoman Turkish Empire 02:54 battled viciously there, the difference between it 02:58 and the World War, it involved all the major powers 03:01 but the sphere of battle was very narrow 03:04 around the Crimean Peninsula and a couple of the provinces 03:07 of the Austro-Hungarian Empire 03:09 but it was a bloody battle that lasted three years ending in, 03:13 I think, 1856 as I remember. 03:16 But what really impressed me on that and I-- 03:19 you know, I went by my memory but I when refreshed it, 03:22 every source that I looked up says 03:24 that the proximate cause of the Crimean War was religion. 03:28 It was a religious war involving the great powers. 03:31 So to me now that the agitation begins there again, 03:35 you have to ask the question, 03:36 what role does religion play this time around? 03:38 Yeah, probably, you know, the religion there play a role, 03:42 it's not probably on the first on a front line. 03:44 No, it's not the main issue this time. 03:46 But it's clear that, you know, in Ukraine, 03:48 you have the Russian Orthodox Church 03:50 and of course the Russian Orthodox Church 03:52 is connected with Russia, with the patriarch and so on. 03:56 And you have the independent or Ukrainian Orthodox Church 04:01 which are more on the side of the west. 04:04 I mean that it makes things complicated 04:07 and you have also now the evangelical 04:09 because of the president, you know he's a former Baptist 04:12 or former Baptist pastor if I remember well. 04:16 It means in some part people ask the question, 04:20 what is the position of the evangelical in this conflict? 04:23 And as a church we have to be very careful 04:27 because we have connection on both sides 04:29 and to be careful to say that, 04:31 you know, the church is not involved in politic 04:34 but we pray for peace. 04:36 And we pray for good relation between people 04:38 'cause, why, you know, in most of the country, 04:41 in Europe countries, you have minorities, 04:44 ethnical minorities, linguistic minorities 04:48 and it means you have potential conflict everywhere. 04:51 If you don't know how to deal with the differences, 04:54 you will spend your time fighting each other 04:57 and that's another way. 04:58 And that's been the great success of the European Union 05:01 that they've managed for a few years to sort of set aside 05:06 or to accommodate these bubbling differences. 05:09 You know history and you remember a lot, 05:12 almost every 25 years in Europe, you had a war, 05:15 that was a cycle and it lasted, lasted all the time 05:19 and when the European dominated the world, 05:22 the wars became world wars 05:25 and it mean that it was terrible, 05:27 but because, you know, 05:29 Europe tried to build a community of interest, 05:32 they learn how to talk instead to fight, to talk together 05:37 and they have to talk a lot just to find 05:40 an agreement between them 05:42 but it helps, they're very, very positive sides 05:46 because at the end, you know, 05:47 the worst thing which can happen it's the war 05:49 and you spent more money fighting than talking. 05:53 You know, you organize a lecture, 05:55 conferences to make peace, it takes time, 05:57 you know nothing, maybe you don't get any result 06:01 but at least you have peace. 06:04 When you start the war, that's terrible. 06:06 People die, people are killed, 06:08 you destroy things and that the worst you can have. 06:13 I follow things very close like you do 06:16 and I saw a photograph recently in the Washington Post. 06:20 It was when Russia through its paramilitary proxies 06:24 have taken over the naval base, well, 06:26 not only they earned the naval base 06:28 but they took over Crimea as a whole 06:31 and the military bases there. 06:33 And there was a photograph of the Russian paramilitaries 06:38 and standing next to them 06:40 was an Eastern Orthodox Metropolitan 06:43 and immediately I knew what was going on 06:45 as often in the past the eastern orthodox 06:48 have thrown in their lot with the Russian separatists. 06:53 Oh, yeah, you know, they-- politics and religion 06:56 have not been separated. 06:58 You know, during the war in Yugoslavia, you had the same. 07:01 You know, on one side you have the Catholic 07:03 on other side, the Orthodox, 07:04 and the Muslim on the other side, 07:07 it means and sometimes which is shocking for us, 07:10 you know, the priest blessed the gun 07:13 and blessed the cannon and so on, 07:16 that's something we should avoid. 07:18 Really when the churches are so much involved in politic. 07:22 But you know-- 07:23 I'm glad you made that point because on this program 07:25 we're constantly speaking of this, 07:28 of course in the US from a constitutional 07:30 civil background, this inhibition against 07:34 joining church and state, it's called the separation of church 07:37 and state with the first amendment. 07:38 But US Constitution and governance aside, 07:41 it's just a logic of world affairs 07:44 that whenever you allow religion to become immersed 07:47 with politics, these rivalries, these ethnic differences, 07:51 it gets explosive because it's a very unhealthy 07:55 marriage of church and state in that sense. 07:57 But, you know, religion has been 08:00 so much part of their history 08:02 and sometime that was difficult 08:04 to make a distinction. 08:06 Sometime, you know, the nation did not exist 08:08 but the church existed and the church gave 08:11 more or less help to have a nation. 08:13 It means they've been always very close 08:17 and the concept of separation is almost to say we don't exist 08:22 or but if you recognize that you have history 08:25 in the country, you play inference that's more difficult 08:29 for you to accept, you could be separate. 08:31 Or more difficult is accept-- you can be separate 08:35 and did not-doesn't get any privileges 08:39 because at the end that is the matter of power. 08:41 And that's what's being played out in Russia right now, 08:43 the Eastern Orthodox Church is wanting the privileges 08:46 they had in the Tsar's times. 08:49 Let me get it back again and I made a comment 08:51 about the Crimean War and I'll bring it up again 08:53 and then we'll move on. 08:55 But the Crimean War as I understood it 08:58 and I've reviewed it again was against 09:01 the backdrop of the Ottoman Empire 09:03 which had ruled a large part of the now Muslim world 09:08 and indeed into Europe itself for several hundred years. 09:12 They were a great threat to Europe 09:14 at the time of Martin Luther in the mid 1500s. 09:17 In fact you can easily argue that the reformation 09:20 was for Luther was only enabled 09:23 because they were so afraid of the Turks 09:26 coming up with Muslims, that he was allowed to survive 09:29 and the reformation flourished. 09:31 But 300 years later in the mid 1800s, 09:35 the Ottoman Turkish Empire was still large 09:38 but weak, and against that backdrop 09:41 there were complaints from the Middle East 09:43 between all of the major Christian factions 09:46 that they were being harassed by the Turks. 09:49 You remember that from history? 09:51 And then there was a competition 09:53 between the Eastern Orthodox, between the Catholics 09:55 and the Protestants who were going to defend 09:58 the Christian interests in the holy place. 10:01 And so Russia came in as the champion 10:03 and they attacked Turkey. 10:06 Once they did that, England, Protestant England-- 10:10 no, first of all then Catholic France, 10:14 they wanted to be the champion for Christians, 10:18 England I think thinking more as a world power equation 10:21 but happening to be Protestant decided 10:23 no, we will take the upperhand so England 10:25 led the alliance of Turkey strangely enough 10:31 and France in attacking Russia to stop the Eastern Orthodox 10:35 influence into the Muslim area 10:37 so it was a purely religious conflict. 10:41 And it's resonated with me lately 10:42 because I've been reading historical analysis 10:46 of the Pope of Rome and Hitler and Mussolini 10:51 and so on in World War II and there's no question 10:55 that the pope at that time Pacelli, cardinal Pacelli 10:58 had an interest in supporting Hitler 11:01 because he's so the excursion into Russia 11:05 is not just removing communism 11:07 but removing his religious rival, 11:09 the Eastern Orthodox Church. 11:10 You know you're right, that's so difficult 11:12 to make a distinction, you know, 11:13 especially when you have a long tradition in countries 11:17 where religion has always been part, 11:20 an important partners and also something, you know, 11:23 the idea that if you're all together with one religion, 11:28 you are stronger than if you have a division. 11:31 And especially if your minority is alive with some 11:35 other countries where you have the majority. 11:38 A religious minority is seen as a beachhead 11:40 for another country, for another national interest. 11:42 It makes things more complicated 11:43 and this is what we have to learn 11:45 when we defend religious freedom. 11:46 We have to learn the history of every country 11:49 and to try to understand how we can promote 11:51 religious freedom in such a context. 11:53 Absolutely and it's a very good point that it doesn't-- 11:56 religion is not in a vacuum in this world of ours 11:59 and while we work towards separation of church and state, 12:02 we need to acknowledge 12:03 the dynamic that it plays in society 12:05 and with governance and with history. 12:07 And many of these countries-- United States doesn't think 12:10 more than a couple of hundred years back 12:11 but many of these countries what happened 400 years ago 12:15 is as present as today, you know, 12:16 they're fighting that war at least in the dynamic 12:18 of their present politics, it comes up all the time. 12:21 It goes back to the origin of the humanity, 12:25 you know, if you go to Egypt, if you go to Babylon, 12:27 you had always a strong influence of the religious 12:31 category of religious leaders, 12:33 and sometimes they were able to change even the pharaoh 12:36 in Egypt, we saw that with Akhenaten, 12:39 you know, where the power of the religious institutions, 12:44 it's something that government cannot neglect 12:46 and of course sometime it's linked, 12:48 it's so mixed with the history of the people, 12:51 with the culture of the people that, 12:54 if you say that I leave, I quit this religion 12:57 is like if you said that I quit my country. 12:59 Yeah, but we always need to have a program on that, 13:03 Akhenaten's change from the ancient gods 13:07 and when he left, they expunged his record totally. 13:10 Yeah. 13:11 There was a program against Akhenaten's 13:14 new one god worship but that is a curious anomaly 13:17 and it'd be interesting to know what role 13:19 did the knowledge of the one true God 13:20 play in that shift in Egypt. 13:24 This is perhaps a good time to take a break so stay with us, 13:28 we'll be back shortly to discuss at greater length 13:31 what's happening in the world today, 13:32 what is the state of religious liberty internationally. |
Revised 2015-01-15