Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Charles Mills
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000269B
|
00:06 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:07 Before the break with fellow philosopher Charles Mills- 00:12 We were, we were getting 00:14 to the very root of what lies behind religious sensibility 00:18 and then how that expresses itself 00:19 in the context of religious liberty. 00:21 And of course, 00:22 this all in the context of the world today 00:25 with this fast forgetting religious liberty 00:27 is more instead of chopping of someone's head 00:29 and saying, I'll act by role, God be praised or you know, 00:34 I shouldn't get into Buddhist, 00:36 but even the Buddhist would burn, 00:37 you know, the Vietnam war they will burn themselves 00:40 or now kill the Rohingyas up in minority 00:46 and in Myanmar Buddhist killing 00:49 religious minorities they are saying-- 00:50 They're calling on a God who would say don't do that, 00:53 what you're about to do, don't do that. 00:55 Yes. Exactly, all right. 00:57 So that often they are denying the very religious principle 01:00 but they motivated by religious sentiment. 01:03 Well, then how on earth can you say 01:05 that religion is the answer, 01:07 because before the break I asked you-- 01:08 No, religion is not the answers, 01:09 spirituality is the answer. 01:10 There we go, that's what I'm after. 01:11 Yes, religion is not the answer because I was gonna say 01:14 if religion is the answer what religion, whose religion, 01:18 and whose interpretation of religion? 01:20 Organized religion, is nothing 01:22 inherently wrong with organization 01:25 but there's something inherently risky 01:26 with organizing anything, 01:28 because it becomes over arching in our church 01:31 the Seventh-day Adventist church. 01:33 Ellen White who was a prophetic figure 01:36 and one of the pioneer she spoke, 01:39 quite sharply at times against the organization 01:42 that she helped organize. 01:43 Yeah. 01:44 She said it was-- I don't sure she is the word 01:46 but she gave concept there was a necessary evil. 01:51 You will see that written at the General Conference, 01:53 necessary evil, right. 01:55 But you know, I'll go back to history of Henry, 01:59 there is to many Henry's, 02:00 let start the ending with Henry VIII 02:02 and his quest for children and many war 02:06 but I think Henry V or IV with Thomas a Becket 02:10 who was a meddling priest 02:13 and that's what Thomas a Becket-- 02:15 what Henry said of him 02:16 well, nobody rid me of this meddling priest 02:19 and priest and religionist have meddled 02:23 with human affairs from time and memorial 02:26 and I think they compromise their faith whenever they do. 02:29 Religion should stay with the inner life 02:32 and motivate people to live 02:35 their secular life in a better way. 02:37 You realize what you're saying here? 02:39 You realize what's happening today 02:40 in this world today that is exactly 02:42 what you're saying, shouldn't happen? 02:44 Well, let me get to something 02:45 that's been playing on my mind for the last day or two. 02:48 I received several books in the mail, 02:51 written by a well known conservative 02:54 quite historian David Barton, 02:57 and he challenges the current legal opinion 03:00 that Thomas Jefferson and the constitution argue 03:04 for a separation of church and state 03:07 and David Barton using history 03:10 or at least his vision of history 03:12 tries to show that this was a Christian, 03:14 the United States was a Christian nation 03:16 from the beginning 03:17 and one of his video shows that godly origins of America. 03:23 Well, I've watched it and it sort of troubles me 03:28 because he is mixing two things, 03:32 evidence of spirit-- 03:34 stated evidences of spirituality 03:36 by all in some including some of the religious leaders. 03:39 He uses as evidence that this is a Christian republic. 03:43 When we talk about a Christian republic, 03:45 we're talking about a structure, an organization 03:48 and it is pretty easy to prove 03:50 that America was rather unique for its time, 03:54 that it was a state premised on just secular ideals 03:57 in fact, even antireligious ideals 03:59 as the French Revolution was. 04:02 The thing is that formed that we're not pro-religion at all 04:05 and yet as they did that many of the individuals 04:09 who were part of it had a great personal respect for religion 04:12 and they accomplished almost the unthinkable. 04:14 They set up a secular state that was designed 04:16 to encourage personal spirituality. 04:19 They left the religion at the door 04:20 when they walked in to sign the constitution. 04:21 But they were not antireligious. 04:23 In the slightest, most of them 04:25 were extremely personally religious 04:30 and all of them were deeply respectful 04:32 of the religious tradition 04:33 that their culture had nurtured, 04:37 but David Barton and others sort of take one 04:40 and take it across the fence and try to say 04:43 therefore this is a religious government. 04:46 To me it's a huge misunderstanding 04:49 but reverse engineering that I think 04:51 that's what we need again now, 04:54 and its missing from the world or the poet Matthew Arnold, 04:57 spoke about the lights of the black west vanishing 05:03 and he says "The Sea of Faith was once, too, at the full," 05:06 but he says I hear its slow melancholy retreating roar. 05:10 That in my view is what's happened 05:12 and because the Bible speaks of it Gods spirit 05:14 even being withdrawn from the world. 05:16 That's what I think is happening. 05:18 As people divest themselves of personal inner spirituality, 05:23 what are you left with? 05:24 You left with the bare burns of religious doctrine, 05:27 of the religious history, of the antagonisms 05:31 that have characterized the centuries 05:32 and that's the devils playground. 05:34 How could you say its withdrawing now, 05:36 it's been that way since Adam and Eve. 05:38 Yes, but I see in area, 05:39 I think something radical happening 05:41 and I see it in a prophetic sense. 05:43 I think in a biblical sense I think literally 05:46 God is pulling back from evil 05:49 but sociologically we can seen many signs, 05:52 you know, the increasing secularization 05:55 and what's the word I'm looking for, 05:59 materialism of the west and the TV games 06:02 and you just go on and on have really divorced 06:05 the newer generations from values like 06:08 religion and spirituality, inner morality and so on, 06:11 very utilitarian very me, me, me oriented. 06:14 They don't see an example to follow. 06:15 No, and I think very clearly 06:17 just this is someone looking at as sociologist, 06:21 they're good reasons to see why violence 06:25 and selfishness and are on the rise 06:29 and altruism is on the decline. 06:31 And that fed into the modern mix 06:34 which includes historical religions means violence. 06:38 You have said this many times 06:39 that it doesn't have to be the way it is, 06:42 we don't have to just sit back 06:44 and say well, okay, its just gonna happen 06:46 there's nothing we can do about it 06:47 because God is withdrawing 06:49 and so we might just get ready for the second coming, 06:52 it doesn't have to be that way. 06:53 We can be active in reversing this. 06:57 We can invite God back again. 06:59 How do we do that? 07:01 And you know this is where I agree with-- 07:04 No, I want the Lord to come like anybody else, 07:06 but why force the issue. 07:08 Why don't you just let Him come when He wants to come? 07:10 If they can meet one interesting point 07:11 with only few minutes to go in our program. 07:13 But you know, I used to meet 07:14 a lot with the people in religious right 07:17 and good people most of them, 07:19 I mean I only say most 07:21 because I know most people enough, 07:23 what I mean is not everybody is, 07:25 but they apparently all very good people. 07:27 And one of the things that did impress me invariably 07:30 when they prayed they would pray 07:32 that God would heal this nation. 07:34 Now that's a good pray, I agree with that. 07:37 God can heal it or to put it in another way, 07:40 as we reach toward God and open our lives spiritually, 07:45 and embody the deeper principles of faith 07:48 a change will come. 07:49 There's no question 07:52 whether we be on the tipping point 07:54 that's a philosophical thing but it's never too late. 07:58 And as I read in the Bible when God says to the Nineveh, 08:01 you know, 40 days Nineveh is gonna be destroyed. 08:04 They repented it wasn't destroyed. 08:07 When Jesus said to His disciples, 08:09 you know, things are gonna happen 08:11 some of you still alive, people doubt that. 08:14 Jesus said you will see this, it didn't. 08:19 C. S. Lewis spoke to that 08:20 and he said I'd rather believe in a God 08:22 who didn't know than a God who was wrong. 08:24 Jesus didn't know because he was not privy 08:27 to His father's thoughts at that time. 08:29 He said later He had ascended. 08:32 Now, there's a God is given us a path in his dynamic 08:36 and He is not mandating 08:37 that the world ends at a certain time, 08:39 it ends at a certain time 08:40 because we are declining from Him, 08:43 brings about conditions that require conclusion. 08:47 Interesting. Interesting. 08:48 But we can I believe, 08:49 and specifically talking about religious liberty, 08:52 we can, not in the individual 08:54 but in the aggregate as we changed, 08:56 we can turn back not the hands of time 09:00 but we can turn back 09:01 the vicious violence of religious conflict. 09:04 We can turn back the United States 09:07 to what the David Barton and the others want 09:09 to a godly nation not by mandating it, 09:12 not by restructuring the government, 09:14 not by taking down the wall of separation, 09:18 but by changing the hearts and minds 09:20 which is what I always hearken back to from the Vietnam War. 09:23 Changing the hearts and minds of people 09:25 so that they open to this thinking 09:27 and society will changes it result. 09:29 Move toward a, I hate to use it 09:33 but I always comes up a more tolerant, 09:35 open, forgiving, understanding more human society. 09:42 I find a lot of, a lot of hope in that statement 09:45 that we can affect what God does 09:49 and when He does it to a point of course, 09:51 but we can make that change. 09:53 Of course we can affect that, what about Hezekiah 09:55 God says to him you're gonna die 09:57 but Hezekiah turned his face to the wall 09:58 and wept and said no God, no, God changed his mind. 10:02 That empowers us, as Christians 10:04 that empowers us we can do something, 10:08 we don't have to sit back and just be victims 10:11 of what's happening here we can do something. 10:13 And probably we need to do a show on what can we do 10:15 and we can do a show on that if you'd like, 10:17 that sounds like a good idea. 10:18 But I know one thing that I want to do, 10:20 I want to start making a difference in my church, 10:24 I want to start making a difference in my life 10:26 and in my community. 10:28 I want to start being what God wants us to be 10:32 because, if we start being what God wants us to be 10:35 and enough of us do that, 10:37 God's gonna look down and like He did to Nineveh 10:39 and He says look, hey, they've changed. 10:42 They're not like they are when they used to be, 10:44 there are people there, there are groups there, 10:46 there are church's there, there are individuals there 10:48 who want to be what they should be. 10:52 They want to be My children. They want to live by My rules. 10:55 They want to make sure 10:57 that their lives are reflection of the way 10:59 it supposed to be and when that happens, 11:01 God says, I'm coming back again. 11:06 There's not enough time in our program 11:08 to discuss fully the ramifications 11:10 of being a preachers kid 11:12 but, the best I can say is I remember very well 11:15 as a young man myself flying 11:17 with my family into Kabul, Afghanistan 11:21 and an alien environment for westerner 11:24 and for a Christian 11:25 and we were met there by a very nice family. 11:29 They driven up from Pakistan 11:31 where the father was a Christian missionary, 11:34 they were two beautiful daughters 11:36 whose beauty interested me at the time. 11:38 We had a lovely couple of days there 11:40 going up to Kandahar and looking around 11:43 that ancient country and then we flew off 11:46 and a few months later in the middle of the night 11:50 that family was rouse from their bed 11:51 by banging at the door. 11:53 The father opened the door 11:54 in front of his two daughters and his wife, 11:56 he was killed savagely struck down 11:59 and murdered him in front of them. 12:02 Being a PK in the Middle East 12:03 as Charles have said is quite an assignment 12:08 and it brought with it great privileges 12:10 but also great risks and a great story. 12:13 And I've been so glad to talk to Charles 12:15 and to hear again how that influenced his thinking 12:19 and his views in this case on religious liberty. 12:24 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2015-01-22