Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break I
don't about the you viewers
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but I was spellbound.
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Thank you.
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Wintley Phipps
is our guest today.
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Singing "I believe."
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But we were talking
about Nelson Mandela
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or in the jump off
point was of course
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you wrote this
article for Liberty Magazine.
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Yeah.
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Remembering him and
you're connection there.
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You were at the
day he was released
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and announced his released.
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And lot of things
float from that didn't they?
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Yes.
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And before we get
furtherer I have got to tell you
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that I have spoken a
bit about him lately,
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interjection with your article.
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And I read in his biography
he said something interesting.
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He said "I was not
born longing to be free."
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He said "I was born free." Wow.
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I just love that.
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Wow, yeah, yeah
and it was my honor
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and privilege to have actually
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met Nelson Mandela
on several occasions.
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And when he first came to the US
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I also met him
again at the church
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and then my wife and I
were privileged to meet him
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not long before he
died at his library
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and so when you
walked into his presence
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there was a
princely nature about
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and there's on doubt about it.
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My wife says he had
the most supple hands
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that she had ever shake hand.
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It's like your
wife is like my mother
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I have discovered this is hands
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I would see a
looking her own hands.
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We met at the
doctor the other day
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and she said "He
had such big hands."
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Yeah, yeah.
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The hands are very important
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and in different
cultures they mean a lot.
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Yes, that's right.
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And as Christians you
know the Christ and the hands.
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Yeah, that's right.
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It's how you touch other people.
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Yeah, that's
right. And it means a lot.
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So I know you and
I have talked before
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a number of times
about Nelson Mandela
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but there is
religious liberty in his story.
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It isn't just you
know a man suffering
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to liberate his nation.
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He exemplifies a
lot of the principles
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that characterize
religious freedom and tolerance
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but tolerance is
not really good word
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for religious liberty.
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But comprehending
the rights of others
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to believe and
practice of faith.
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Exactly, and I saw
a unique angle to this
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and that is that apartheid
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as we know it is the
result of what happens
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when religious
people and the state
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persuade the
state to use its power
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to enforce their
religious beliefs.
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And the whole apartheid regiment
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had a theology behind it.
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Absolutely, it was.
It wasn't just bigotry.
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I mean it played into bigotry
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but it had a very
clear religious structure.
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Very so, I call it a
religion political mis-creation.
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Yeah, because it
was based upon the Dutch
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reformed churches belief
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that God not only created man
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but he created the black
man to be sub-subservient.
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One of the great
moments of my life
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was I had the
chance to ride in a car
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for two hours from
London, England to Oxford
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with Doctor John
Stott the great--
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The two hours would
have been halfway across.
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Oh, yeah. Oh, great, great.
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Oxford is just really
on the outskirts of London.
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That's right,
great, great theologian
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as a matter he was--
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Stott. Oh, John Stott.
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Doctor Stott he
was he was chaplain
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to the queen from 1959 to 1992.
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And on our ride together
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which is an
amazing moment for me.
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I remember him saying you know
when I get to heaven he said,
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one of the things I
want to talk to God about
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is that why in
the areas of the world
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where evangelical Christianity
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was the most
dynamic and vibrant.
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That those very
areas of the world
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were breeding
grounds for intolerance
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and hatred and racism.
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And then Doctor
Stott began to school me
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by going around the globe
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and he started in
the Northern Ireland.
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If you never been
to Northern Ireland
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as I have been
Belfast and ministered there.
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You don't realize
how devout in their faith
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both Protestants
and Catholics are
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but there is this bad blood
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that keeps them at
each others throats.
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And then he went
down to South Africa.
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I tell people all the time
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if you haven't
heard singing in a Dutch
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reform church in South Africa
you missing half of your life.
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They love the
Lord they passionate
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but they also provided
the theological underpinnings
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for one of the worst systems
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of racism the
world has ever seen.
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Again apartheid was the belief
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that God cursed the black man.
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And when he cursed him
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he made him to be
only a hewer of wood
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and drawer of water which meant
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that he was to
be a manual laborer
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and that's why
they didn't educate
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black people in South Africa.
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Simple misreading Bible texts
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that suited the
highest that they had.
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And this is the
problem I see with the religion
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that very easily and as you say
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devout people quite easily link
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their own
proclivities with God's will.
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Yeah. They don't discriminate.
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And so to the degree
that someone religious
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they could be
even more dangerous.
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And we're seeing in that
of course in the Middle East.
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Absolutely one of the scriptures
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that they use
you would never think
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that they would
use and the scripture
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was that God created
of one blood all men.
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Okay, well that sounds
like antiapartheid doesn't it?
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Yeah.
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But they say, they
say but you got to read
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the second half
of that scripture.
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The second half of
that scripture says
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and He established
bounds of habitation
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which meant they
were to be separate.
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And so yes they conveniently
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used religio ideas or
religio political ideas
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to build this system.
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Doctor Stott didn't
stop and South Africa
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he ended up in the
Bible belt of America.
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I was thinking that it is here.
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The very place in America
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where we consider to
be the most religious
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the south the most devout,
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the most evangelical
also happened to be the place
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that was the
breeding ground for a lot of
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not only hatred and
intolerance but segregation.
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And it had a theology.
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And I had a theology behind it.
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Absolutely and the
not just with then slaves
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and the antebellum
south the whole wars
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against Indians was done
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because they
were not Christians.
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They did not worship God
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and a lot of text
was invoked on it.
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People have forgotten on that.
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Yeah and I--
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Obviously the impulse was
the desire to get their land.
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And it's about butting
of the moment of settlers
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but they had a theology on it.
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Yeah, and I could accord
I ran across sometimes ago
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it said it's not an easy
step to hurt the body of one
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whose soul you
have already damned
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in your mind, in
your imagination.
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And so when you see
people as less than yourself
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you're then it's a
easy step to hurt them.
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And so what Nelson Mandela did
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was not just
teardown a political system
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he tore down a
religio-political system.
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A system that used state power
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to enforce misguided
theological believes.
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And so to me he
was a great champion
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for religious
freedom as a result.
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Absolutely, at
the risk of making our
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or giving the
idea to our viewers
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that I'm under strain movie buff
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I mentioned that in following
his story the film "Invictus."
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Yes it's a great film.
It's just powerful debate.
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Obviously an actor
Morgan Freeman played Mandela.
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But I thought he was true
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to what he would
look like at that time.
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Yes, yes.
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Yes the spirit of forgiveness
in the film "Invictus"
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it was to do with
the football team.
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Right or rugby as it known.
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Yeah, rugby.
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Yeah well football
overseas. Yeah, yeah.
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But technically its rugby. Yeah.
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But I wish I could remember
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some of the things
he told us advisors
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but it was basically we
have to forgive they are us now.
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It was this
inclusion that was powerful.
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And yet religion very often
is being used to create another.
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And you know
tribalism does that pretty well
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but religion is more toxic
because when it creates another
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you are not only
physically different
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you're in different realm
you may be beyond salvation.
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You represent the devil. Yeah.
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And that's lowers
the personal level
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where then the
physical abuse is gonna follow.
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And a lot of
people don't realize
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Nelson Mandela was
raised a Methodist.
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He was baptized as a Methodist
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and for some strange reasons
well, I should say strange
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you have on both
sides of the divide
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you had the English
and you have the Dutch.
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Which led to the world war.
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A world war.
People has a history.
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And so the Dutch
were pro-apartheid
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so consequently the English
were going to be antiapartheid.
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And so you had all
of the English religions
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now all English
denominations Presbyterians
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and even catholic and Anglican
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and Methodist
were antiapartheid.
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So Nelson Mandela grew
up in a faith tradition
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that was one of the--
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Not so accepting antiapartheid.
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Very antiapartheid
and so he was taught that
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and then he was
also taught forgiveness
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and he was also
taught the faith of Christ.
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But I believe he learned
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some of that
practically speaking in prison.
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And I have read
little bit of his story.
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Like he tells there
was one of the prison guys
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with a swastikas
tattooed on his arm.
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And the guys said
I'm gonna break you
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and boy and all of
these horrible things.
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Yes. And he kept
control of himself.
00:10:09.47\00:10:11.85
And he kept itself respect
and we're running out of time
00:10:11.88\00:10:16.32
but one of the
most amazing stories
00:10:16.35\00:10:18.18
Nelson Mandela
tells of his battle
00:10:18.21\00:10:20.29
to get long pants
for the prisoners.
00:10:20.32\00:10:21.77
Right, just I love that.
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There's lot of
symbolism in that.
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Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
00:10:23.92\00:10:25.58
But he had a great
experience. Oh, it was, it was.
00:10:25.61\00:10:28.50
And I appreciate that you've
wrote that story for Liberty.
00:10:28.53\00:10:30.81
Well thank you
it was my privilege.
00:10:30.84\00:10:32.27
I thank you for
that opportunity.
00:10:32.30\00:10:33.72
Yeah.
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If you got any
last words that to say
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what's the takeaway
for you on Nelson Mandela.
00:10:38.58\00:10:40.88
The takeaway for Nelson Mandela
00:10:40.91\00:10:42.79
is that never should we use
00:10:42.82\00:10:46.80
our religious
believes to hurt other people--
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love is the answer.
00:10:50.92\00:10:53.82
I tried myself on being some
more of a student of history
00:10:53.85\00:10:57.81
and I have noticed
particularly in our modern era
00:10:57.84\00:11:00.48
that so often
transforming leaders
00:11:00.51\00:11:04.82
come to that
position via prison.
00:11:04.85\00:11:09.51
But the transformation
is not always good.
00:11:09.54\00:11:12.16
Its worth
remembering that Adolf Hitler
00:11:12.19\00:11:13.78
went into prison after
a fail takeover attempt
00:11:13.81\00:11:17.10
and came out
formed in his opinion
00:11:17.13\00:11:19.71
to destroy a whole people.
00:11:19.74\00:11:23.33
And look at the Bible
00:11:23.36\00:11:24.87
and I remember that Joseph
spent those two years in prison
00:11:24.90\00:11:29.50
that hardened his in
character of obedience to God.
00:11:29.53\00:11:34.64
Its worth remembers the
people like Nelson Mandela
00:11:34.67\00:11:38.65
and there are many of them
have used their time in prison
00:11:38.68\00:11:42.67
to reexamine
themselves spiritually.
00:11:42.70\00:11:45.60
Its not accident in my
analysis of Nelson Mandela
00:11:45.63\00:11:49.23
that a man who was an
activist, a hardened lawyer
00:11:49.26\00:11:53.85
but what that
means came out of prison
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converted in his very soul
00:11:58.26\00:12:00.68
and dedicated to
radical transformation
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by love
accommodation and forgiveness.
00:12:03.97\00:12:07.10
Thereby lies the
path for true freedom
00:12:07.13\00:12:09.78
and I believe the
true religious liberty.
00:12:09.81\00:12:14.11
For Liberty Insider
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:12:14.14\00:12:17.36