Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break with fellow
philosopher Charles Mills-
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We were, we were getting
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to the very root of what lies
behind religious sensibility
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and then how
that expresses itself
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in the context of
religious liberty.
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And of course,
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this all in the
context of the world today
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with this fast
forgetting religious liberty
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is more instead of
chopping of someone's head
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and saying, I'll act by role,
God be praised or you know,
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I shouldn't get into Buddhist,
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but even the
Buddhist would burn,
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you know, the Vietnam
war they will burn themselves
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or now kill the
Rohingyas up in minority
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and in Myanmar Buddhist killing
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religious
minorities they are saying--
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They're calling on a God
who would say don't do that,
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what you're about
to do, don't do that.
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Yes. Exactly, all right.
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So that often they are denying
the very religious principle
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but they motivated
by religious sentiment.
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Well, then how
on earth can you say
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that religion is the answer,
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because before the
break I asked you--
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No, religion is not the answers,
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spirituality is the answer.
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There we go,
that's what I'm after.
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Yes, religion is not the
answer because I was gonna say
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if religion is the answer
what religion, whose religion,
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and whose
interpretation of religion?
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Organized religion, is nothing
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inherently wrong
with organization
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but there's
something inherently risky
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with organizing anything,
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because it becomes
over arching in our church
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the Seventh-day
Adventist church.
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Ellen White who
was a prophetic figure
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and one of the
pioneer she spoke,
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quite sharply at times
against the organization
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that she helped organize.
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Yeah.
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She said it was-- I
don't sure she is the word
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but she gave concept
there was a necessary evil.
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You will see that written
at the General Conference,
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necessary evil, right.
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But you know, I'll go
back to history of Henry,
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there is to many Henry's,
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let start the
ending with Henry VIII
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and his quest for
children and many war
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but I think Henry V or
IV with Thomas a Becket
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who was a meddling priest
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and that's what
Thomas a Becket--
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what Henry said of him
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well, nobody rid me
of this meddling priest
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and priest and
religionist have meddled
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with human affairs
from time and memorial
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and I think they compromise
their faith whenever they do.
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Religion should
stay with the inner life
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and motivate people to live
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their secular
life in a better way.
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You realize what
you're saying here?
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You realize
what's happening today
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in this world
today that is exactly
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what you're
saying, shouldn't happen?
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Well, let me get to something
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that's been playing on my
mind for the last day or two.
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I received
several books in the mail,
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written by a well
known conservative
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quite historian David Barton,
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and he challenges
the current legal opinion
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that Thomas Jefferson
and the constitution argue
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for a separation
of church and state
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and David Barton using history
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or at least his
vision of history
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tries to show that
this was a Christian,
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the United States
was a Christian nation
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from the beginning
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and one of his video shows
that godly origins of America.
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Well, I've watched it
and it sort of troubles me
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because he is mixing two things,
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evidence of spirit--
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stated evidences of spirituality
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by all in some including
some of the religious leaders.
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He uses as evidence that
this is a Christian republic.
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When we talk about
a Christian republic,
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we're talking about a
structure, an organization
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and it is pretty easy to prove
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that America was
rather unique for its time,
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that it was a state
premised on just secular ideals
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in fact, even
antireligious ideals
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as the French Revolution was.
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The thing is that formed that
we're not pro-religion at all
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and yet as they did
that many of the individuals
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who were part of it had a great
personal respect for religion
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and they accomplished
almost the unthinkable.
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They set up a secular
state that was designed
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to encourage
personal spirituality.
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They left the
religion at the door
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when they walked in
to sign the constitution.
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But they were not antireligious.
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In the slightest, most of them
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were extremely
personally religious
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and all of them
were deeply respectful
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of the religious tradition
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that their culture had nurtured,
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but David Barton and
others sort of take one
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and take it across
the fence and try to say
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therefore this is a
religious government.
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To me it's a
huge misunderstanding
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but reverse
engineering that I think
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that's what we need again now,
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and its missing from the world
or the poet Matthew Arnold,
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spoke about the lights
of the black west vanishing
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and he says "The Sea of Faith
was once, too, at the full,"
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but he says I hear its
slow melancholy retreating roar.
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That in my view
is what's happened
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and because the Bible
speaks of it Gods spirit
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even being
withdrawn from the world.
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That's what I
think is happening.
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As people divest themselves
of personal inner spirituality,
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what are you left with?
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You left with the bare
burns of religious doctrine,
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of the religious
history, of the antagonisms
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that have
characterized the centuries
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and that's the
devils playground.
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How could you say
its withdrawing now,
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it's been that way
since Adam and Eve.
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Yes, but I see in area,
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I think
something radical happening
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and I see it in
a prophetic sense.
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I think in a biblical
sense I think literally
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God is pulling back from evil
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but sociologically
we can seen many signs,
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you know, the
increasing secularization
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and what's the
word I'm looking for,
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materialism of the
west and the TV games
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and you just go on and
on have really divorced
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the newer
generations from values like
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religion and spirituality,
inner morality and so on,
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very utilitarian
very me, me, me oriented.
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They don't see an
example to follow.
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No, and I think very clearly
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just this is someone
looking at as sociologist,
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they're good
reasons to see why violence
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and selfishness
and are on the rise
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and altruism is on the decline.
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And that fed into the modern mix
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which includes historical
religions means violence.
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You have said this many times
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that it doesn't
have to be the way it is,
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we don't have to just sit back
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and say well, okay,
its just gonna happen
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there's nothing
we can do about it
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because God is withdrawing
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and so we might just get
ready for the second coming,
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it doesn't have to be that way.
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We can be active
in reversing this.
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We can invite God back again.
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How do we do that?
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And you know this
is where I agree with--
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No, I want the Lord to
come like anybody else,
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but why force the issue.
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Why don't you just let Him
come when He wants to come?
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If they can meet
one interesting point
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with only few
minutes to go in our program.
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But you know, I used to meet
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a lot with the
people in religious right
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and good people most of them,
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I mean I only say most
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because I know
most people enough,
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what I mean is not everybody is,
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but they apparently
all very good people.
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And one of the things
that did impress me invariably
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when they prayed they would pray
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that God would heal this nation.
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Now that's a good
pray, I agree with that.
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God can heal it or to
put it in another way,
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as we reach toward God and
open our lives spiritually,
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and embody the
deeper principles of faith
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a change will come.
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There's no question
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whether we be on
the tipping point
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that's a philosophical
thing but it's never too late.
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And as I read in the Bible
when God says to the Nineveh,
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you know, 40 days
Nineveh is gonna be destroyed.
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They repented it
wasn't destroyed.
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When Jesus said
to His disciples,
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you know,
things are gonna happen
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some of you still
alive, people doubt that.
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Jesus said you will
see this, it didn't.
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C. S. Lewis spoke to that
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and he said I'd
rather believe in a God
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who didn't know
than a God who was wrong.
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Jesus didn't know
because he was not privy
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to His father's
thoughts at that time.
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He said later He had ascended.
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Now, there's a God is
given us a path in his dynamic
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and He is not mandating
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that the world
ends at a certain time,
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it ends at a certain time
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because we are
declining from Him,
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brings about conditions
that require conclusion.
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Interesting. Interesting.
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But we can I believe,
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and specifically
talking about religious liberty,
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we can, not in the individual
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but in the
aggregate as we changed,
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we can turn back
not the hands of time
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but we can turn back
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the vicious violence
of religious conflict.
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We can turn back
the United States
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to what the David
Barton and the others want
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to a godly nation
not by mandating it,
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not by
restructuring the government,
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not by taking down
the wall of separation,
00:09:14.61\00:09:18.21
but by changing
the hearts and minds
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which is what I always hearken
back to from the Vietnam War.
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Changing the
hearts and minds of people
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so that they
open to this thinking
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and society will
changes it result.
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Move toward a, I hate to use it
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but I always comes
up a more tolerant,
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open, forgiving, understanding
more human society.
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I find a lot of, a lot
of hope in that statement
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that we can affect what God does
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and when He does it
to a point of course,
00:09:49.27\00:09:51.43
but we can make that change.
00:09:51.46\00:09:53.22
Of course we can affect
that, what about Hezekiah
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God says to him you're gonna die
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but Hezekiah turned
his face to the wall
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and wept and said no
God, no, God changed his mind.
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That empowers us, as Christians
00:10:02.71\00:10:04.26
that empowers us
we can do something,
00:10:04.29\00:10:07.98
we don't have to sit
back and just be victims
00:10:08.01\00:10:11.11
of what's happening
here we can do something.
00:10:11.14\00:10:13.34
And probably we need to
do a show on what can we do
00:10:13.37\00:10:15.88
and we can do a show
on that if you'd like,
00:10:15.91\00:10:17.35
that sounds like a good idea.
00:10:17.38\00:10:18.71
But I know one
thing that I want to do,
00:10:18.74\00:10:20.57
I want to start making
a difference in my church,
00:10:20.60\00:10:24.25
I want to start making
a difference in my life
00:10:24.28\00:10:26.74
and in my community.
00:10:26.77\00:10:28.14
I want to start being
what God wants us to be
00:10:28.17\00:10:32.28
because, if we start
being what God wants us to be
00:10:32.31\00:10:35.05
and enough of us do that,
00:10:35.08\00:10:37.35
God's gonna look down
and like He did to Nineveh
00:10:37.38\00:10:39.09
and He says look,
hey, they've changed.
00:10:39.12\00:10:42.14
They're not like they
are when they used to be,
00:10:42.17\00:10:44.71
there are people
there, there are groups there,
00:10:44.74\00:10:46.51
there are church's there,
there are individuals there
00:10:46.54\00:10:48.53
who want to be
what they should be.
00:10:48.56\00:10:52.37
They want to be My children.
They want to live by My rules.
00:10:52.40\00:10:55.89
They want to make sure
00:10:55.92\00:10:57.14
that their lives are
reflection of the way
00:10:57.17\00:10:59.29
it supposed to be
and when that happens,
00:10:59.32\00:11:01.65
God says, I'm coming back again.
00:11:01.68\00:11:06.29
There's not enough
time in our program
00:11:06.32\00:11:08.75
to discuss fully
the ramifications
00:11:08.78\00:11:10.47
of being a preachers kid
00:11:10.50\00:11:12.63
but, the best I can
say is I remember very well
00:11:12.66\00:11:15.20
as a young man myself flying
00:11:15.23\00:11:17.52
with my family
into Kabul, Afghanistan
00:11:17.55\00:11:21.54
and an alien
environment for westerner
00:11:21.57\00:11:24.17
and for a Christian
00:11:24.20\00:11:25.60
and we were met there
by a very nice family.
00:11:25.63\00:11:29.11
They driven up from Pakistan
00:11:29.14\00:11:31.09
where the father was
a Christian missionary,
00:11:31.12\00:11:34.16
they were two
beautiful daughters
00:11:34.19\00:11:35.97
whose beauty
interested me at the time.
00:11:36.00\00:11:38.62
We had a lovely
couple of days there
00:11:38.65\00:11:40.75
going up to
Kandahar and looking around
00:11:40.78\00:11:43.37
that ancient
country and then we flew off
00:11:43.40\00:11:46.73
and a few months later
in the middle of the night
00:11:46.76\00:11:49.98
that family was
rouse from their bed
00:11:50.01\00:11:51.85
by banging at the door.
00:11:51.88\00:11:53.37
The father opened the door
00:11:53.40\00:11:54.58
in front of his two
daughters and his wife,
00:11:54.61\00:11:56.60
he was killed
savagely struck down
00:11:56.63\00:11:59.85
and murdered him
in front of them.
00:11:59.88\00:12:02.12
Being a PK in the Middle East
00:12:02.15\00:12:03.91
as Charles have said
is quite an assignment
00:12:03.94\00:12:07.97
and it brought
with it great privileges
00:12:08.00\00:12:10.06
but also great
risks and a great story.
00:12:10.09\00:12:13.74
And I've been so
glad to talk to Charles
00:12:13.77\00:12:15.94
and to hear again how
that influenced his thinking
00:12:15.97\00:12:19.39
and his views in this
case on religious liberty.
00:12:19.42\00:12:24.94
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:12:24.97\00:12:28.32