Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break
with guest Dr. John Graz
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we were talking about
ecumenism and some of--
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And religious freedom.
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And religious freedom,
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yes, because they're
not one and the same.
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But they intersect
very often, particularly
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with their own constituency
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and what they think is going on.
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Ecumenical
movement as we've discussed
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is not really dead,
but it's changed its--
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the way that it
presents is a little different
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than certainly in
the '60s, isn't it?
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Yeah, because, you know,
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in fact you did not
have a lot of progress
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in ecumenism in
term of if the goal--
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you know, the goal was really
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to build a uni-- a visible unity
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and still you have
the Orthodox Church,
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you have the Protestant,
the Liberal Protestant and I--
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I have to say that it becomes
more and more complicated
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because now the
problem-- one of the problem
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in the ecumenical
circle at the world level
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it's not really adduct,
not only doctrinal problem
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which the
progress has not been done
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you know, still they are--
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they have the
early-- not together.
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In one side you
have the Lutheran,
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in the other side
you have the Catholic
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and so Orthodox and so on.
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But it's the ethical problem
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which is really
dividing ecumenical world
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between the west and the south
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the ethical
problem, it means what--
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what kind of place do
we have to give to the gays
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and the lesbians in
the church to authorize--
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Their differences in
doctrinal application.
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Yeah, but that's really a
point which divide very strongly
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that the ecumenical world today.
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It means that
it's still working,
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the vision is still here,
but a lot, lot of challenges
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it doesn't go
as people expected.
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But on one level
it's even further along
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than people imagine
like before the break
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I mentioned Tony
Palmer, an ostensibly,
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an Episcopal priest.
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I actually found out
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that the branch of
the Episcopal church
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he belongs to is a
convergent movement,
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when most of the
priests and the adherence
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have come from
outside of the Anglic--
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I think of the
Anglican, the Episcopal church
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and they've joined with it,
but their agenda is different,
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their practice is different
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so they've really
taken on the name.
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But it's a little
misleading to think of this
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as the heart land
of Episcopal belief.
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But that said,
the Church of England
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has gone close
enough to Rome now
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that they can
actually hold orders
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within the Catholic Church.
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They call it
under the ordinariate.
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They're officially part of
the Roman Catholic structure,
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so those that are seeing
a blending coming from this,
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there's evidence for that.
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But I think it's probably
gone as far as it needs to go
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to fulfill any
prophetic expectation
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and is probably gone
as far as it's logical
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with all of the inhabitations
that you mentioned,
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and some of them are
just plain organizational.
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Even in the secular
world joining two businesses
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is very difficult.
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But usually it's
done by just removing one
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and the other joins with it
but to mesh two structures--
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You know, this is why sometime
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when we make so much
publicity on some events,
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but in fact you know,
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except when you have
on the practical issue,
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you have Lutheran and reform
in the same part of the country
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they don't have enough pastor,
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enough to find-- and they put--
they deicide to work together,
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but that's not really
the unity we talk about.
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I think really
there, the new coming,
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the new way of ecumenist will be
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just the largest the
biggest church saying that
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hey, you are
losing your time to talk
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and you talk, and
you talk, come back home,
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we are ready to welcome you.
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That will be the new
wave because, you know,
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the other have been
talking and talking and talking
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and for very very
very little result
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and more and more problems.
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Our-- And also that
some people say that,
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even in a
Catholic church they say,
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the real unity will
come when Jesus come, return.
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And we believe
that too, you know,
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when Jesus return
you will have one people,
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but I think I long-- as
long as you have the freedom--
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One people of who have
come out of here by people.
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Yeah. There--
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As long as you have
the freedom to choose.
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Well, religious liberty
that's what we're all about.
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Yeah, as long as you have
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religious freedom
they would very difficult.
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I'll say this for our viewers,
but I know you agree with me.
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When you talk
about religious liberty,
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you don't need to
decide ahead of time
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that this belief is a
valid belief system at all,
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it could be the most pernicious,
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crazy, trumped up,
[] believe possible,
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but the mere fact that
someone is called to that
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their conscience
drives them to it,
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you have to defend their
right to have it and hold it.
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Yeah.
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And you justify the whole
principle of religious liberty
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in every case not just one
that you feel comfortable with.
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Yeah, and this is
why, you know, in history
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unity have been always imposed.
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It has never been
the result of discussion
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between both or
three sides and so on.
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It has been imposed, it
means the unity will happen
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according to what we
believe on the prophecy
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will be imposed by
the power of the state.
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And at this time you will
have no religious freedom.
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This is why it's so important
to defend religious freedom
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to give the
possibility to people.
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You want to join another
church you are free to do that.
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You are not-- You
want to stay as you are,
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you are free to do that
and we protect your freedom.
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You want to be part of [],
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you are free as long as
you don't threat the society
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and the life of people.
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You are free. It
means you are not obliged
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to join one church or another,
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you are not obliged to
stay in one church or to leave.
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You know, you are free.
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That's totally different than
unity which would be imposed.
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Let's talk about
one aspect of ecumenism
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or the ecumenical
dynamic that I've observed,
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it's coming to an end in one way
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because there's
been a change of Popes
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but Benedict definitely
structured the whole dynamic
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as people of faith
opposed to secularism.
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And you can see that
even in the United States
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with the Protestant activists.
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They saw the great
enemy as secularism
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and that's an
instant coming together
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of Roman Catholic
political interests,
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whole gambit of
Protestant interests
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and so to oppose
the secular movement
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and calling it even a religion.
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That's been a great
effort in the United States
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say the
secularism is a religion.
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And I think with Benedict
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he's moving on to
a different approach,
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but there's no
question that this did create
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or defect a union of most
of the main line Protestant
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and Catholic
Churches or Catholic Church
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who were unified
with this common purpose
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to oppose secularism.
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Sometimes abortion,
anti-abortion efforts,
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other times creationism
and so on but they were--
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they had a united front
and they were not always wrong
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in the things they did,
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but that tended to make
a single monolithic entity
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out of Christian believers.
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There are, there are
also some other priority,
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maybe not priority
but concern, you know,
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like your
Pentecostal in, in South America
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is one of the concern
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it has been
mentioned very, very often.
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A concern for Rome, you know,
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because the
Pentecostal and Evangelical
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are growing in
traditionally Catholic countries
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and you have Islam
also, the place of Islam.
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Of course, when you put
secularism as number one
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you have a chance
to lead a coalition.
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The question is, do we want
to be part of this coalition?
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That's always, you
know, the political game.
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You know, and I
think that secularism
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has always been,
is a challenge too,
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but there are also many
other challenge we have to face.
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But when you talk
about religious freedom,
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you also put the
limit to secularism.
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Secularism has, as it come--
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become a religion,
should not persecute people
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even on behalf of human rights.
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Of course, part of the
dynamic in the United States
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and I haven't much
discussed this on this program,
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but it's a setup
because for religious activists,
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Protestants and
some Catholics, to claim
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that secularism
is really a religion
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and yet it gets
access to government it--
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it is
government funded education
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in Darwinism and so on.
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But here, this is
really a false religion
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being supported by the state
where it should be expelled.
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Yeah.
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To me it's a straw man argument,
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but the other day I had
to rethink of it a little
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because I had a
representative from my office,
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he's written an
article for Liberty arguing
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that the atheists need to
have chaplains in the military.
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That theirs is
really the religion of man
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and they need
equal representation.
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I believe it's a mistake
for them to talk that way
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because they're
actually playing into the hands
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of the ecumenical
front of religionists
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who would, in a way,
try to get into government
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for equal time
believing and saying
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that secularism is
also a religious stands.
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Oh, you know, probably
one day it may be accepted
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as a religion
you know, who knows,
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but still we have to
learn how to live together
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but every side, every side
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and not just on
the religious side.
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We saw the effect
of religious fanatics
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of persecution
centuries of persecution.
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We saw also the
effect of radical secularism,
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radical atheist the
same thing, you know,
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million and million
of people were killed.
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Yeah, they kill people just
because they were believers.
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And we-- You
need-- The world today
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need to have a
strong voice saying,
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no, that's not the
way we should follow.
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Let people their
freedom to decide
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and but not only the
freedom to decide, the freedom
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to receive the
information to decide.
00:10:03.30\00:10:05.30
And in many ways while the world
00:10:05.33\00:10:07.31
is deteriorating on many fronts,
00:10:07.34\00:10:09.32
just this understanding
that there's more respect
00:10:09.35\00:10:11.36
for an
individual's right to determine
00:10:11.39\00:10:13.19
their spiritual agenda,
that is a great improvement.
00:10:13.22\00:10:15.51
Yeah, yeah, this is
what religious freedom
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is different that--
ecumenism they are--
00:10:17.68\00:10:22.56
Do you know, you
have another agenda
00:10:22.59\00:10:24.05
when you defend
religious freedom,
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and this is why I
think is so important
00:10:25.67\00:10:27.41
to the defend religious freedom,
00:10:27.44\00:10:29.01
because you're
putting the right of people
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to decide what they
want to do with their life,
00:10:30.81\00:10:33.50
with their
conscience and that is, again
00:10:33.53\00:10:36.21
and I repeat,
gift coming from God.
00:10:36.24\00:10:39.88
The last prayer of
Jesus to His Father,
00:10:39.91\00:10:42.94
but in front of
His few followers there
00:10:42.97\00:10:44.84
before His crucifixion
was that they all may be one.
00:10:44.87\00:10:50.06
So when we
speak about ecumenism,
00:10:50.09\00:10:53.00
while many people
are suspicious of it,
00:10:53.03\00:10:55.29
the root, yearning,
00:10:55.32\00:10:57.09
the Jesus
expressed is not wrong.
00:10:57.12\00:10:59.18
Christians are to be
one, but they are to be one
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in the spirit
and knowledge of God.
00:11:02.11\00:11:04.22
They're not to be one glossing
over all the differences
00:11:04.25\00:11:07.55
that have
developed among men about
00:11:07.58\00:11:09.49
interpretation of
truth or execution of it
00:11:09.52\00:11:12.72
through different organizations.
00:11:12.75\00:11:14.78
Those things can be
very much opposed to truth,
00:11:14.81\00:11:18.00
and to
ecumenically unite on those
00:11:18.03\00:11:22.56
is nothing but syncretism,
to use another difficult word.
00:11:22.59\00:11:25.14
I know some people
choke on these large words.
00:11:25.17\00:11:28.63
What we are called toward
00:11:28.66\00:11:30.64
is a unity with God
in truth and in sprit.
00:11:30.67\00:11:33.68
What we're seeing
in the world around us
00:11:33.71\00:11:35.39
very often is compromise.
00:11:35.42\00:11:37.23
There are well meaning efforts
00:11:37.26\00:11:39.04
and there are
rather dangerous efforts
00:11:39.07\00:11:42.46
to sort of amalgamate
even the old church of Rome,
00:11:42.49\00:11:46.72
and the new despaired
churches of Protestantism.
00:11:46.75\00:11:50.06
We need to be careful with
all of this sort of ecumenism.
00:11:50.09\00:11:53.89
Thank you for being with us
00:11:53.92\00:11:55.29
this is Lincoln
Steed for Liberty Insider.
00:11:55.32\00:11:59.24