Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), John Graz
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000256A
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00:15 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:17 This is a program bringing you news, 00:18 views, discussion, and analysis of religious liberty events 00:23 in the United States and around the world. 00:25 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:28 And my guest on this program 00:30 is Dr. John Graz, secretary general 00:32 of the International Religious Liberty Association or IRLA. 00:36 Great pleasure to be with you, Lincoln. 00:38 It's always great to have you on the program. 00:41 I want to talk about something that I know is very dear 00:43 and immediate to your heart because within a few days, 00:47 you're going to lead the-- I think it's the first ever 00:50 from your department the reformation tour. 00:54 It's a tour on religious freedom. 00:55 Religious freedom reformation tour. 00:56 Yes, in fact the title is great controversy 00:59 and religious freedom. 01:01 I'm coming along on it in this-- 01:03 how many are going on this tour? 01:05 Oh, it's another big group, 01:07 there's a group of selected people, 25, 26. 01:10 Yeah, but it's gonna be wonderful 01:12 to do the rounds in starting in Italy. 01:15 We started in Rome. 01:16 And ending in Switzerland it's not, France. 01:19 We ended in Paris, yeah. 01:20 Paris but by way we go through Switzerland. 01:23 So going to some of those incredible spots 01:26 with the different reformers 01:28 and the different events of the reformation took place. 01:30 And especially where people were persecuted, 01:33 where you had also sometime as a kind of light of hope 01:37 and but it happens just few years, 01:40 then after you had again persecution, 01:43 you know, the purpose of the tour 01:45 is to show to the people who are involved in defending, 01:48 promoting religious freedom 01:49 that religious freedom is fragile. 01:52 You know, you can have it and you can lose it. 01:55 And when you lose it, 01:57 it's really, really, really bad. 01:59 And we will see, you know, many experience, 02:02 many site where people have suffering 02:05 but also some hope because at the end, 02:07 you know, we will finish in Paris. 02:11 In Paris you have all you can make 02:13 or rake up a relation or summarize, evolve a story, 02:16 you have the church in the middle age, 02:18 we've Notre-Dame, 02:20 then you have the St. Bartolome, 02:22 Bartholomew which was a-- 02:24 The massacre? 02:25 Massacre, which was terrible, terrible massacre 02:27 where 6,000 Protestants were killed 02:30 and more than 30,000 in France 02:33 just because they were Protestants. 02:34 Then you have the human riot-- the revolution, 02:36 then you have the human rights declarations. 02:38 Do you have any memory of what the population of Paris 02:42 was at the time of St. Bartholomew? 02:43 That's a good question but not a lot, you know. 02:46 I know because people sometimes forget this, 02:48 that's a significant number in itself, 02:50 but I'd be very surprised if Paris was more than 02:53 a couple of hundred thousand people at that time. 02:55 That was not a lot but, 02:56 you know, that was a terrible massacre. 02:58 So a very high percentage of the city were killed, 03:01 almost on signals, just killing like in Rwanda. 03:04 Yeah, the story was terrible 03:06 because they came for the wedding of their leaders, 03:10 you know, the king of Navarre 03:11 who became after the king of France and they were-- 03:14 It was Henry of Navarre, wasn't it? 03:16 Yeah, Henry IV. 03:17 They were very happy about these possibility 03:20 and also it was from the monarchy of this time, 03:23 a possibility to have peace 03:24 because they had already two wars, 03:26 two religious terrible religious wars. 03:29 And at this time in France, 03:30 Protestants were more than 15% of the population 03:34 and we use to say 30% of the nobles. 03:38 It means, and they had in their side 03:41 the blood prince of the prince 03:43 who can pretend to be king one day. 03:46 And it means they were really a strong political party, 03:49 a strong group, the top level people 03:52 and they were seen as a very dangerous for the fanatics, 03:56 and the king wanted to have peace 03:59 and the mother of the king who was behind all this story, 04:03 you know, say that the best way 04:05 to have peace is to marry my daughter with their leader. 04:10 And unfortunately, you know, 04:12 it became a trap for thousand and thousand Protestants, 04:15 and they were massacre, 04:17 but King Henry-- before he was king, 04:19 you know, escaped later on and they won the war. 04:23 The Protestant won the warm the religious war 04:26 but they lost the peace because when he became king, 04:30 he had to become Catholics and in becoming catholic, 04:33 first, you know, he protected the Protestants 04:36 but after they assassinated him. 04:38 And the story is-- 04:40 There are too vulturous time in Europe around there. 04:42 Without any protocol the Protestant lost 04:44 everything they had 04:46 and they were no longer Protestant-- 04:48 protected until the point 04:50 where they were declared illegal. 04:53 It was a crime to become Protestant, 04:55 means there is no longer any Protestant in France, 04:58 and we will visit, you know-- 04:59 It's gonna be assassinating tour. 05:01 You're reminding me of something that 05:02 the people tend to forget. 05:04 First of all that our western democratic model 05:09 is extending all over the world today. 05:11 It's a very recent vintage, 05:14 it's a relative anomaly in world history. 05:17 Even the reformation was brought in, 05:19 lot of these liberalizing influences 05:21 didn't take immediately, 05:22 they were the wars of religion for almost 100 years in Europe 05:27 to settle this out. 05:28 In Central Europe you had the war of 30 years 05:31 which almost destroyed Europe. 05:32 Yeah. 05:33 So it just gives extra reason to defend religious liberty 05:37 because it's not a long term thing, 05:40 it's a very fragile thing, it's been a hard one, 05:43 lot of blood behind it and we should cherish it. 05:46 And I think it's a wonderful exercise 05:47 to go back and sort of walk in the steps of the reformers. 05:52 And not only the reformers, you know, when we are in Rome, 05:54 we will see what happened during three centuries 05:57 for the Christians, they were persecuted. 06:00 Then that's also interesting, then you had Constantine. 06:03 You know, at this time Christians 06:05 were about 10% of the Roman Empire, 06:08 it means minorities, small minorities, 06:10 influential more and more but still a small minorities. 06:14 And the emperor, you know, became Christian. 06:18 Became a patron. 06:19 Yeah, he protected the Christian 06:21 and, you know, he promulgate the Edict of Milan, 06:27 Christians were protected like other religion, 06:29 that was religious freedom. 06:30 Wasn't that the Edict of Nantes that laid behind the, 06:33 remember fell apart with the Bartholomew massacre? 06:35 Exactly after. 06:36 You know, just to show you that-- 06:38 So the Edict of Milan put in place constantly. 06:39 You know in this story, you had time when, 06:42 you've religious freedom now, 06:43 you know, Christians said after 300 years of persecution, 06:46 now we're free, great, great. 06:48 Then in 380, Christianity became 06:52 the religion of the Roman Empire, 06:54 the only religion all other including dissidents 06:58 or not orthodox were persecuted. 07:01 Well, it's interesting you bring this up 07:03 because one of our associates once I was talking to him 07:08 and he maintained that Constantine 07:10 was not a persecutor which really is nonsense 07:13 when you think on the barest details of history. 07:16 Very early on Constantine in anticipation 07:19 of becoming the ongoing sponsor of Christianity 07:22 called the church leaders together 07:24 to determine what orthodoxy was. 07:27 They settled down on the trinity 07:30 among other things. 07:31 Once that was done, 07:33 he had them destroy all of the other books 07:35 that existed, and then they immediately 07:37 began persecuting the-- 07:43 I'm trying to think the word now 07:45 but those they believed that 07:46 there was only one god not expressed in a trinity. 07:49 There was instant persecution when Constantine took over. 07:52 And the dissident too, 07:54 and then after you have the dissidents, 07:56 but you know which is interesting is first, 07:59 you know, he was really the protector of the Christian 08:03 till those years in 380 became really a persecutor, 08:07 he started because he had-- 08:09 you know, that's terrible because in fact, 08:11 they are good people. 08:12 You know, they are really good Christians, 08:14 they pray, they pray, 08:16 you know, they read the Bible, 08:18 they ask for forgiving for being forgiven and so on, 08:22 but they're terrible with other and we saw that, 08:25 you will see when we will visit Aigues-Mortes, 08:28 the city built by Saint Louis, you know, the great king. 08:32 He was a fabulous Christian, 08:34 but as a great Christian he had to persecute 08:37 the dissident and the heretic. 08:39 And during this time people have that in mind, 08:42 you know, if you are a good Christian, 08:44 you have to persecute other, you have to destroy them. 08:47 And these-- that would be their tour, 08:49 you know, we start with the Roman, 08:51 we will see what happened, and we will see what happened 08:53 when Christianity became the only religion 08:57 and during the middle age and the power of Rome, 09:01 then we will go to Geneva, 09:03 we will talk about the reformation. 09:05 That's a new hope for religious freedom. 09:08 But you know what happened to it? 09:12 All the way along this, 09:13 there's been bloodshed, persecution, 09:15 intolerance or hatred of the other 09:19 and it's a difficult thing, isn't it, 09:20 to enable pure religious liberty. 09:23 Respect for other people and keep to cohesion out of it. 09:27 And I know as a Seventh-day Adventist, 09:29 whenever we're looking at last day events, 09:31 there's a lot in Revelation particularly about that. 09:34 It seems to me the keyword to keep in mind is cohesion, 09:37 if there's cohesion involved, it's not of God, 09:40 and it's not religious liberty, 09:41 even if you coerce to a good thing. 09:43 You know, this is why it's so beautiful, 09:45 this quotation of Ellen White, you know, 09:47 "The banner of the truth and religious liberty." 09:50 You know, Calvin in Geneva, he was a great man. 09:52 He did not want to be a leader or a politician leader, 09:55 but the other Protestants needed him 09:57 to establish a Protestant city and to protect. 10:01 Now they were under the threat, 10:03 you know, it never happened like that, 10:04 you know, you don't have a leader 10:06 deciding to be this time a dictator, 10:09 they have to protect themselves. 10:10 How they can protect? 10:11 Well, it was sort of under martial law wanted. 10:13 You know, yeah, they don't want to have enemy 10:15 in their own city, they have to be careful. 10:18 It means they have to establish a set of rules 10:21 to make sure that they will control, 10:23 of course it's temporary but it works like that. 10:26 And after, you know, those dissident like Mitchell-- 10:30 Michael Servetus. 10:31 He was different, 10:33 Calvin did not want really to execute them, 10:35 but the pressure on him were so strong 10:38 coming from the catholic and Protestant. 10:40 They said that this is a test of your faith, 10:43 if you're really Christian you cannot let him free, 10:46 good to go free, you have to execute him. 10:49 But of course that was the standard 10:50 at the time in the prevailing church, 10:53 the Roman Catholic Church never hesitated 10:56 to deal violently with its dissidents. 11:00 This is something that also in the tour 11:03 we will think about, you know, 11:05 as long as you don't have any power 11:07 you don't have to deal with these issues. 11:09 You know, when Christians at the beginning 11:11 they had no power, they did not have to deal 11:14 but now when you become prominent in your city 11:18 or in the country and the city is attacked, 11:21 and you know that you have enemy, 11:23 they want to destroy your church, 11:24 they want to destroy you. 11:26 What will be your action? 11:28 Well, it sounds like another program 11:30 as a Christian pacifist or a holy warrior, 11:36 its the pretty old question. 11:37 I think you have to go to Jesus and to follow His example, 11:40 but that means that you maybe persecuted. 11:44 You may lose every privilege or advantages you've got. 11:47 And this is something that I often say 11:49 especially in North America, 11:51 there is a wonderful privilege to use law 11:53 to buttress your faith, 11:55 but the Bible doesn't promise a quick escape all the time. 11:59 Jesus said, one of the promises, 12:01 everyone who lives a godly life will suffer persecution. 12:06 And we do all that we can to moderate that 12:09 but I think at the end of the day 12:10 someone that believes in something is important 12:13 as faith in Christ and a spiritual faith, 12:17 they need to be prepared 12:18 and many are happy to suffer for that, 12:21 because you're proving your faith 12:24 through that experience. 12:25 I don't think we do people a great privilege 12:28 to remove any test of their faith. 12:32 A faith that's proven by difficulties 12:34 is a better faith and Pastor Monteiro 12:36 we spoke about in another program, 12:38 I think he exemplifies that. 12:39 Well, that's it, this is why you know, 12:41 the purpose of religious freedom 12:43 is to show what kind of God we have, 12:46 and of course to defend the freedom 12:48 but also to show that we as a ambassador 12:51 of the kingdom of God, 12:52 we cannot persecute people who disagree with us 12:56 because God is a God of love 12:58 and we have to accept the difference 13:00 and even if they disagree, even if they persecute us, 13:04 but now, you know, we also human being 13:06 and in some situation we have to understand 13:09 that people that was very, very difficult for people. 13:12 Yeah and culturally most served back in that time than now. 13:16 I think this part of all of the problems 13:19 of the modern world, 13:20 that idea's got more currency now 13:22 than back in that year, wasn't it? 13:23 Yeah. 13:25 And the protestant reformation had doctrinal 13:28 understandings that impelled them 13:31 to separate them from Rome, 13:32 but culturally they were still victims 13:34 to the same models of behavior on religion compulsion, 13:38 prejudice and so on. 13:39 You're under attack you have to defend 13:41 and to protect themselves 13:42 but which is interesting in Geneva, 13:44 we will visit also the universal declaration, 13:48 the United Nation, you know, 13:51 Council and the Palais des Nations, 13:54 where a human right is really-- 13:57 that is their capital of human rights. 13:58 Yeah. 13:59 And even know that the United Nations 14:01 is not a religious entity, in Washing-- 14:04 in New York I think it's good 14:05 that they have that statue 14:07 there with quotes-- isn't it Ezekiel 14:09 where they'll beat the swords into plowshares? 14:11 Yeah. 14:12 So they've taken a religious model 14:15 to justify a secular move 14:17 toward accommodation and human rights. 14:19 We'll be back after a short break 14:21 to continue this discussion 14:23 of religious liberty tour of the old world. |
Revised 2015-01-15