Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), John Graz
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000254A
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00:14 Welcome to Liberty Insider.
00:17 This is a program for those that regularly follow it 00:20 that brings you updates, information, analysis 00:24 and general understanding of religious liberty events 00:27 in the United States and around the world. 00:29 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:33 And my guest on the program is Dr. John Graz, 00:36 Secretary General of the International 00:38 Religious Liberty Association. 00:39 Pleasure to be with you. 00:40 And a good associate. 00:42 We had many good sessions together 00:44 on this program and another places. 00:48 I know you traveled the world a lot 00:50 and there's some very interesting 00:51 developing places 00:53 that may be in the west or in the United States 00:56 we don't really acknowledge. 00:58 I remember years ago going to Rio de Janeiro 01:01 and being just bowled over by that 01:03 incredible cosmopolitan city. 01:05 Of course, most young people now know it 01:07 because of a cartoon program Rio with the birds. 01:11 But I know that the economic 01:12 powerhouse city of that country is Sao Paulo 01:15 Yeah. Sure. 01:17 Many of the cars 01:18 that the American's buy are assembled there now. 01:21 You had an event there not to long ago 01:23 where you celebrated religious liberty 01:25 and tens of thousands of people gathered together. 01:28 Tell us a little bit about them? 01:29 Yeah, you know, in 2006 we start a new year program 01:33 which was called a Festival of Religious Freedom 01:35 and we start in Sao Paulo 01:37 and for the first time in our history 01:40 and I think for the first time in the history 01:43 of the churches and so on, 01:44 we have brought more than 12,000 people in the stadium, 01:49 20,000 were outside. 01:50 So you basically filled the stadium? 01:51 We filled the stadium, it was not a big stadium 01:54 but it was an indoor stadium. 01:57 12,000 I thought that only 4 or 3,000 will come. 02:01 That was the revelation for me 02:03 and that was an answer to my prayer, you know. 02:05 I read the text on the Bible 02:07 where the promise of the Bible saying that 02:09 I will make you the-- the Lord will make you 02:12 the head, not the tail. 02:14 I said how it can be apply in religious freedom 02:17 and I thought that he found 02:18 that we can put 10,000 people together 02:21 that would be fabulous and I talked with my friend 02:24 who was in charge of religious freedom 02:26 in South America at this time. 02:28 V.M Costa and I said you know 02:31 if one day we were in 2006, and one day maybe 2009, 02:36 let's say 2009, we could put 10,000 people 02:40 to celebrate religious freedom that would be fabulous, 02:42 to say publicly thank you God, 02:46 thank you my country for religious freedom. 02:49 And he said, "Yes, 02:51 but why do you want to wait 2009." 02:54 And I said 'cause that's not possible, 02:55 people are not interested at all. 02:57 You can have 1 million people 03:00 when you have a concert and so on 03:02 but religious freedom no one will come. 03:04 He said, "Huh, we can do that in 6 months." 03:06 And less than 6 months later we had this festival 03:10 and we start with the idea that we could have 03:13 the maximum of people you know everywhere 03:16 we have religious freedom to say it publicly 03:19 we love religious freedom, we want to keep it. 03:22 So it's to celebrate communal celebration 03:24 of this incredible aspect of allies 03:27 that we can practice our faith, 03:30 we can be protected in that by the government. 03:31 Let's thank you. Thank you God. 03:33 Thank you to the country. Yeah. 03:34 That is the concept very easy, 03:35 you know, and from this point 03:37 we decided to have festival in many countries- 03:40 I remember in Dominican Republic, 03:44 we went to one with the entire stadium. 03:46 12,000 people or 13,000. 03:48 Then we went to, we decided to have a world festival 03:51 of religious freedom every 5 years 03:53 and the first one was in Lima, Peru 03:55 where we had 45,000 people in the stadium 03:59 and also 40,000 people in Angola 04:02 and 15,000 people in Bogota. 04:04 So this is not just a local phenomena, 04:06 it's everywhere. 04:07 No, on the five continents, 04:08 There's a readiness for people to celebrate such a freedom. 04:10 You know, the idea is very simple 04:12 and this is what I try to promote 04:14 that everywhere around the world. 04:15 We will have a big one 04:18 in Papua New Guinea in December and probably around 04:23 30,000 something like that. 04:25 The idea is very simple. 04:27 I visited just a few weeks ago to Gettysburg, 04:31 and several other places where you see 04:34 the price people pay for our freedom. 04:37 You know thousand, sometime million people 04:40 in the story gave their life for the freedom we have today. 04:43 And I think that at least once a while 04:46 we should say thank you to the country 04:50 which protects our freedom and how can we do that? 04:54 Or can you do that 04:55 in having a meeting with 25 people. 04:57 I know you've had it. I'll play the devil's advocate. 05:00 You had some of them in countries 05:01 that have a less than stellar record 05:04 of defending religious liberty, 05:05 but it seems to me your by acknowledging 05:10 what they have granted, you are holding them 05:12 to a higher standard by this public. 05:14 Exactly and of course you cannot do that 05:16 in North Korea, you can imagine. 05:18 You cannot do that even in China, 05:20 even in Vietnam, in some other countries. 05:22 You do that in country 05:24 where you have religious freedom. 05:26 You may have problem with human right, 05:28 that's okay, that's clear. 05:29 It doesn't mean that 05:30 because you have religious freedom, 05:32 all human rights are protected. 05:34 There are some other country, 05:35 they are very good in religious freedom, 05:37 very poor in human right. 05:39 There's a certain connection 05:41 between the two but you're right. 05:42 Yeah, but still you know on the five continents 05:45 still you do that and we have the second world 05:48 festival of religious freedom in Sao Paulo 05:51 and about 25-30,000 people came which is interesting is, 05:56 at the beginning I thought that the festival 05:58 will be just an event, 06:00 but everywhere we have our festival, 06:02 we have a congress before or symposium 06:05 and now we had liberty concert. 06:08 Now, you also had the number of public officials. 06:10 Didn't the governor of province come? 06:11 Of course, we invite public official. 06:13 That is the reason we have these event. 06:16 Also, one of the reason is we can have relations, 06:20 built relations with the officials. 06:22 You know when you invite them to speak 06:24 even 5 minutes before 30,000 people. 06:27 People enjoy to hear them. 06:29 They pay attention. Politicians love that stuff. 06:31 Exactly and you know after the first festival 06:33 in Lima, Peru, they passed a legislation 06:36 which recognized all the church not only the Catholic Church. 06:40 It means now they have all the church recognize. 06:42 It has changed a lot for churches like our church. 06:46 And in Brazil what did they do in Sao Paulo? 06:48 They decide that the day of the festival May 25 06:52 will become the day of religious freedom 06:56 for the city of Sao Paulo. 06:58 And now, everywhere 06:59 we have a festival of religious freedom, 07:01 I ask all people to propose 07:05 to the city or to their country. 07:06 To declare that day, yeah. 07:08 That was the case in Haiti. 07:09 Now they are talking about 07:11 having a day of religious freedom. 07:13 We will do the same in Papua New Guinea. 07:15 I proposed the same in Manila, 07:17 where we had also thousand and thousand people, 07:20 and you know that's very simple concept. 07:24 People die for the freedom we have today. 07:27 Our country still protect our freedom, that's time. 07:30 Time has come to say just thank you, 07:33 thank you for that. 07:34 And this is why I dream to have a big festival 07:37 in Washington with thousand and thousand people. 07:39 But it will happen one day I think. 07:41 I hope, I hope. 07:42 But you have to find people who are ready to organize that. 07:45 But if there is a place in the world 07:48 where people should mobilize, be mobilized time to time 07:52 to say thank you for religious freedom. 07:53 And also, you know, I used to ask people to repeat after me. 07:57 Thank you God for religious freedom. 07:59 Thank you to my country for religious freedom. 08:02 We love it. We want to keep it. 08:05 It means it's not just a celebration, 08:08 it's also a call to we want to keep it. 08:12 And we invite people from other religion 08:14 because it has no sense 08:16 to celebrate religious freedom alone. 08:18 We want to show that we are grateful 08:21 for religious freedom for us but also for the others. 08:24 And I think one big advantage I can see at this, 08:27 and I know you are very aware of it, 08:28 but you don't often say it. 08:29 This is a way to involve young people. 08:32 A lot of religious liberty events, 08:34 it's more like-- well, not academic 08:36 but more technical, legal and so on. 08:39 And I don't think that draws the young people as much 08:42 but hear lot of music. 08:43 Yeah, lot of music. Yeah, excitement. 08:45 And young people play, you know, they play-- 08:47 Yes, the young people are involved directly, 08:49 they attend, they've seen that this is a plus, 08:52 religious liberty is something-- 08:53 Pathfinders you know, 08:54 thousand pathfinders helping us. 08:56 The pathfinder. Yeah, the youth finder. 08:59 Fabulous, you know, last time in the Merida, Mexico, 09:02 if you have seen you know these beautiful 09:04 pathfinder walking with the flag of their countries 09:09 and the official were very impressed, 09:11 that's beautiful. 09:13 No, I think the dynamic is good, 09:15 and I know from not just religious liberty, 09:18 my father used to be involved in temperance, 09:20 holding rallies the same way. 09:21 Once you get the public officials involved, 09:23 you made a contact with them, then there's a follow up. 09:26 They're now a patron basically 09:28 ongoing religious liberty programs. 09:30 They are very positive 09:31 for the churches that are involved 09:34 and the dynamic that you represent. 09:36 So if that was all that it was. 09:37 Yes, this may be spectacular, but I think it's a catalyst 09:41 for ongoing activities, isn't there? 09:43 And you know that's-- we are helping, 09:46 we are receiving support from other groups, 09:49 and the Mormons are very good in religious freedom, 09:52 they have some top leaders 09:54 and Catholics, of course Protestant and so on, 09:56 but we have a special, you know, work perishing 09:59 with the Mormon in several part of the world. 10:01 Because, you know, we are minority 10:03 they are minority, we can understand each other. 10:05 And I was invited to give a lecture 10:08 to the universities in Utah, 10:11 you know the beautiful Brigham University, 10:15 Brigham University, 10:16 and that was to talk to the top level leaders. 10:20 And I said that, you know, I was impressed 10:22 because you have beautiful stadium here. 10:25 And I said, "I want to challenge you." 10:27 Did you get a commitment? 10:28 I want to challenge you, I repeated several times. 10:31 I want to challenge you. 10:32 You know, fill the stadium to celebrate religious liberty 10:35 at least once and I would like east, 10:39 even, you know, when I visited Notre Dame, 10:42 the beautiful Catholic University. 10:44 They have a huge stadium. 10:45 South Bend, Indiana. 10:46 Yeah, yeah, huge stadium and every Sunday 10:49 or during the week, 10:51 you know they fill the stadium for football game. 10:55 I said, mine, once you should 10:57 fill the stadium, to say thank you God 10:59 and thank you our country for religious freedom. 11:01 So there's a lot of potential to organize this. 11:03 You better stay around a few more decades 11:05 and make it happen, I can see that. 11:06 Well, you are my role I say, 11:08 I have to say my role was really 11:10 as they said in Peru to seed you know to spread the seed, 11:14 to promote, to encourage people and they find the team there. 11:20 They had fabulous team to do that. 11:22 Imagine then in Lima, Peru, 11:24 they had, they brought 500 buses. 11:28 When the program was over beautiful program 11:31 in 15 minutes the stadium was empty. 11:36 Fabulous organization and in Sao Paulo 11:39 and everywhere, you know, of course it-- 11:42 there was a lot work behind but when people capture their-- 11:46 capture the concept, you know, 11:49 and I think and sometime they say 11:52 we would like to do that, 11:54 but that would be difficult we are not involved. 11:55 People want to do it. 11:56 You know, there might be some people 11:57 watching that have a burden. 11:59 How can they contact you? You know-- 12:04 And I said to them you are not obliged 12:07 to start with the meeting 12:08 with 10,000 people or 50,000 people, 12:11 but feel obliged to start with something. 12:14 Even if you'll start with 500, 12:16 even if you'll start in a church 12:18 you know by a concert, liberty concert. 12:20 That's very easy. 12:21 In many, many churches you have a choir. 12:24 Why you should not have once a year 12:27 a religious liberty concert, 12:29 then you can see that something can happen 12:32 and you can jump up to the next step. 12:36 And one day, you know one day 12:38 you will have a big, big, big-- 12:39 Yeah. Most of these festivals are very good combination 12:42 of musical events and very small 12:44 but significant little many speeches, right? 12:46 May be five to ten minutes. 12:48 It depends where are you. 12:49 You know the first festival 12:50 we did not have a lot of speeches 12:52 but a lot of music. 12:53 We had fabulous orchestra and children choir 12:58 in some other you have most like in Indonesia 13:01 that was interesting. 13:02 When I saw that the older religious leader 13:06 that they had invited I think that they will speak 13:09 all of them and I asked 13:11 and they say yes, I said but you know people will leave, 13:14 they will never stick that was the opposite. 13:17 You know people enjoyed the music 13:19 but they enjoyed more of the speeches. 13:23 And we don't want to bore people 13:25 and too long a classroom session can turn 13:27 even the most eager student to a sleepy head, 13:30 but that said, you and I know that 13:32 the people lacks specific information 13:34 on religious liberty. 13:36 So an event that can inspire them 13:38 and yet if they can hear that, what is religious liberty? 13:40 Where is the challenge? 13:42 What do I need to do? 13:44 I think this is very practical. We'll take a break now. 13:47 We'll be back after a few seconds 13:49 to continue this discussion of the celebrations, 13:52 festivals of religious liberty that are breaking out 13:55 with some organization all around the world. 13:57 Stay with us. |
Revised 2015-01-01