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 something
that you've really identified
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within your
leadership, the festivals
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or the celebrations
of religious liberty
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held with massive
crowds filling entire stadiums
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all around the world.
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This is been a
growing a phenomenon.
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Yeah, you know, and as I
said I challenge the others,
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you know, I said
you have to do the same.
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Try to do better
than us and for the women
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I'm still waiting
but I encourage them
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to do the same because you know,
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as you mention
when you have a meeting
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about religious
freedom most of the time
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its a meeting
between lawyer, officials.
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Even if we have a
congress like the World Congress
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with 900 participant
which is the largest,
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it was the
largest World Congress
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but still its
selection of people.
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But when religious
freedom is threatened
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ordinary people have trouble.
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It means everyone.
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Not just the lawyer
and so on, everyone.
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It means they have to
stand for religious freedom
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publicly at least time to time.
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And when you have that privilege
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to live in a
country where you have this
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religious freedom
protected by the constitution,
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by the law you have
to show that you like it.
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You want to keep it
and if not, you know,
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it means that
that's not important
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and you will lose it.
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Have you thought
about running a festival
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in a country
that's obviously less free
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sort of a public
call for this value
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that so important to
humans around the world?
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Yeah.
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We want religious
liberty, let's have it.
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Yeah, but, you
know, when you organize
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such a big event
you need authorization.
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And of course and sometime also
you have to be careful like,
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you don't want to
organize a big event
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just few weeks
before big election.
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This kind of
thing you have to avoid
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and it means
there are several things
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and people like, you know,
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beautiful music
about religious freedom
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which is the-- from
Verdin, Nabucco the Slaves,
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the Hebrew Slaves
song playing in Spain
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when we had our
festival in Spain
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that was fabulous, you know,
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but in Brazil this is the
hymn of the communist party
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and they say that you will have
a confusion if you play that.
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It means you
are really to adjust
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but, you know, just imagine--
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Music can get you
into trouble, you know.
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Yes, exactly.
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Laugh and hymn all
that many Adventist churches
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use there's a song and I
wish I could remember title
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but its about
American singing about America
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but I know this that its done
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to the tune of
"God Save The Queen."
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So there's a lot of--
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But that's adjust
that adjust then you know--
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Well, its not
dangerous say in context
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but there are political
overturns to many things
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that people don't
realize even classical music.
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The beautiful side in
Spain we had meeting of expert
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with 60 university
professor and so on.
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It was organized
by the university
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with our association in Europe.
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And after they came to
the central church of Madrid
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for the festival
you had a professor,
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you have people
from the European Union,
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people from the United
Nation they came to the church
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for the festival
of religious freedom
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which was a beautiful concert.
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It means you have
ambassadors coming and so on,
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that's very
important to show that
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you have in the world
today people who are dedicated
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to promote and
defend religious freedom.
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But that's not, you know,
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religious freedom
doesn't bring a lot of money,
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we have always to deal with it.
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We have to learn
how to do big things
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with a small amount.
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What you are countering
in a very positive way
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is the religious liberty is
often defined in the negative.
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It's when its taken
or when its restricted,
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when this persecution
and somehow we need to put
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the very real positive tool.
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But people don't
think of it that way
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and in some ways I was
thinking while you were
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claiming this to be again
and I'm very familiar with it
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but I'm thinking in
some ways its probably harder
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to get people out in a country
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where they have
religious freedom
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because its not a
great burden to them--
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Very difficult, very
difficult because they say
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that's another point,
we have religious freedom
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and I said to them thank you
for those who are persecuted.
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You have them in doing nothing.
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And secondly you can
lose your religious freedom
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and if you are not aware
you will not see the change.
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It will go
gradually step by step
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and one day it will be too late.
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You know, in the
United States particularly
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here I deal with
lawyers and legal principles
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and it struck me yes,
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there's a constitution
in the United States,
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yes, there is a
certain historical norm
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that people are in
expectation even in the courts.
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But that said law is a
very movable dynamic thing
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and something that settled now,
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you think the
constitution backs it full time.
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If people paid
little attention to it
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and were sloppy about
it paid little attention
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it could drift away and in
a shortest handful of years
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you could find that
practically speaking
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you don't even have the
most basic religious liberty.
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So it needs to be defended.
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You will have-- you
will not have all people
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affected when you have
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the restriction
of religious freedom.
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It means the majority of people
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will say that's all the problem.
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The majority always
have whatever they have.
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Yeah, but for some people
that will be very difficult
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and this is why
it's so important
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to have this kind of initiative
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and not to say
we cannot do that.
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Yes, we can.
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We cannot do maybe
with 30-50,000 people
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but we can do
that with what we have,
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even two or three hundred.
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You know Romania and Bucharest
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they put
several thousand people.
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They could have put
10,000, the put 4,500
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in a beautiful auditorium
with a beautiful concert,
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the minister came and so on.
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That's okay,
there is no problem.
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You know, if he can do better,
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if you want to do
better you have also to choose.
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You can have a beautiful problem
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and not too lot of
people because you select
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and it could be a
great, great event
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or you can have an
event in the stadium.
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It means there is no rules,
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you choose to do
the best to promote.
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Well, in Mexico, in Mexico
the first time in Chiapas.
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This is the Chiapas one, yeah.
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Chiapas, you
know, the first time--
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Which of course was
in an incredible context
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because that's where they been
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that religious prosecution of
evangelical Christians, right.
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Yeah, and we can
see the affect today
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where you have
evangelicals and Adventist
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who have lost everything.
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And few years ago we
start with the first symposium
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and the first
concert on religious freedom
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and then they
decided to do something big
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in the stadium and
they gathered 27,000 people.
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You know, that was the
day of religious freedom.
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The day of religious
freedom that was fabulous.
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So how long have you
been organizing these
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with I think Costa,
Williams Costa was the first--
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He was there on for
really-- organized the first,
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the first big,
first media festival.
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We had before some festival
but that was just in churches.
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This was all within the
last decade certainly isn't it?
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You know, we start
the festival in 1997,
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the idea, the first one we
to-- that was my idea to have,
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when we have a World
Congress I thought that we have
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a World Congress
it lasted four days,
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then after its finished I said,
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we should involve
the local churches
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and instead to stop
with the World Congress
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we should have an event
to promote religious freedom
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in the same city and we
called this event festival
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and started in Rio.
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But you know, during the,
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within of developed the
concept really of Festival
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for Religious
Freedom came in 2006
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when I go tin the
Bible these promise of God,
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you know the Lord will make
you the head and not the tail.
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I said that we
should not be happy
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when we have 200 or 300
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we should see bigger
than that and God can do that.
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And you know, my goad as I said,
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10,000 and God
brought 50,000, 45,000.
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You had a bigger God.
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And I'm sure that
one day we will have
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100 or 80,000 people saying
that we love religious freedom.
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Of course, you are coming
up against the limitations
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of the stadiums,
there's not too many huge ones.
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We could have in Brazil,
we could have the festival
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in a big stadium
but also, you know,
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the place they decided
to go to the public square.
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Why not? That's great.
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Public square is in the city,
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it attracts more
the attention of people
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than in a stadium.
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It mean there are
many, many possibility.
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You can also organize
a big march, you know,
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with 30,000 or 10
even 10,000 people.
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People who are
walking marching in the street
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like in Yongding, you
know, 2,000 young people
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march in the street
for religious freedom.
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It attracts the
attention of people incredibly.
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Oh, I'm sure that this is making
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an affect all around the world.
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We just need the really do it
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in the United
States in particular.
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I'm sure that
potentially it's fabulous.
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We had a very small event
some years ago in Honolulu.
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Yeah, yeah, that
was the first one.
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And in
anticipation that was good by
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and by different
churches and different groups
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but the attendance was
rather poor on the day.
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And I put most of it
they on to-- you know,
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specially wide, surf
and sand and you know,
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wonderful environment
they don't feel threatened.
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But you know, you remember--
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But people believe in
it but they need to be
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motivated to make a statement.
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You remember what happened,
the mayor came to the event.
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The mayor of Honolulu,
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member of the
parliament there of the city
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and the state parliament came
and they say we want to have
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a day of religious
freedom in Honolulu.
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Yeah.
00:09:53.70\00:09:54.74
Unfortunately we do not have
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the number of people we expected
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but that was our
fault we missed something.
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But you know what
we should aim for,
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you think what if a
100,000 mixture of young people
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and others but
lot of young people
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walk down to the Washington mall
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and then have a
big public meeting
00:10:10.12\00:10:12.10
will be noticed of course.
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And it's possible. Yeah,
I'm sure that's possible.
00:10:13.29\00:10:17.17
We should do that one day.
00:10:17.20\00:10:18.23
You know, the
civil rights movement,
00:10:18.26\00:10:19.29
the march of
Washington was the pivotal event
00:10:19.32\00:10:21.28
with the objections to
Vietnam War of the young people
00:10:21.31\00:10:25.39
when they camp there
and young people camp there
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but changed the
political reality
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and I believe a
massive demonstration
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in Washington
for religious liberty
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like you already
had in other countries
00:10:33.65\00:10:36.55
would not easily
for them, sure of it.
00:10:36.58\00:10:38.72
This is what its--
00:10:38.75\00:10:39.96
And importantly it
could be inoculation
00:10:39.99\00:10:42.25
against future troubles.
00:10:42.28\00:10:45.03
Yeah, I'm happy to see that--
you got the vision, you know.
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This is why it's so
important time to time
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to say publicly thank you God,
00:10:50.98\00:10:53.79
thank you my country
for religious freedom.
00:10:53.82\00:10:57.82
When we talk
about religious liberty
00:10:57.85\00:10:59.99
very often it's
expressed in the negative.
00:11:00.02\00:11:03.07
It is not a
negative concept but we often
00:11:03.10\00:11:06.36
look at places where
someone is imprisoned,
00:11:06.39\00:11:08.28
harassed or their
belief system is made illegal.
00:11:08.31\00:11:12.32
Those are negatives but
religious liberty itself
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is the most
incredibly positive God directed
00:11:14.98\00:11:18.52
concept that can be.
00:11:18.55\00:11:21.03
When I read the
Apostle Paul's work
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I'm really encouraged
to hear his testimony.
00:11:23.61\00:11:25.70
He says, you know,
I've been shipwrecked,
00:11:25.73\00:11:27.59
I've been stoned,
I've been lashed, you know,
00:11:27.62\00:11:31.37
betrayed by fellow
believers, shipwrecked.
00:11:31.40\00:11:34.66
He goes on and on
with all of these things
00:11:34.69\00:11:36.91
which are the types of troubles
that we describe now thus
00:11:36.94\00:11:39.94
with religious
liberty often but then he says
00:11:39.97\00:11:42.48
all of this is amazing,
all for the love of Christ.
00:11:42.51\00:11:46.83
Wonderful, not
a hardship at all.
00:11:46.86\00:11:49.95
Dr. John Graz has
explained in great detail
00:11:49.98\00:11:53.00
how around the world now
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Christians and
people of all beliefs
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are able to gather
together and to celebrate
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the freedoms that they do have.
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This is our God given privilege.
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For Liberty Insider
this is Lincoln Steed.
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Thank you for being with us.
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