Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Charles Mills
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000271A
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00:17 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:19 This a program bringing you analysis, 00:21 discussion, dialogue, argumentation. 00:24 You get lot's of information on religious liberty 00:27 in the United States and around the world. 00:29 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine 00:33 and my guest on the program 00:34 is Charles Mills, director, suit arranger 00:39 he was very good on pulling the-- my seat into place. 00:42 But he works with video a lot 00:44 and most importantly to Liberty, 00:46 you and I worked together on our weekly radio program. 00:48 Yes, yes. 00:50 And another program we discussed your background 00:53 where as a preachers kids you lived Beirut, Lebanon 00:56 as well as Seoul, Korea. 00:59 Let's talk a little bit about not so much Lebanon 01:01 but that part of the world. 01:04 For quite a while now, you grab the daily newspaper 01:08 and certainly somewhere on the front cover 01:10 there would be an article about 01:11 Iraq or Syria or the Middle East that 01:14 or Israel with the rockets coming down 01:17 and they're all sort of variations 01:19 on a theme aren't they? 01:22 Religious conflict, religious conflict. 01:26 What-- how would you characterize 01:27 that other than that 01:29 but how do you see that whole part of the world now? 01:31 What's going on? 01:33 You know, having lived there and watched it up close, 01:38 it almost gets down to the point 01:40 where they're looking for something to fight about. 01:44 They aren't happy not fighting. 01:46 They need to be fighting and of course 01:48 we've have talked about this before many times 01:49 is that the seeds of the conflict 01:52 doesn't go back a generation or two, 01:54 it goes back millennia, 01:56 it goes back for a very long time 01:59 and it's like it feeds on itself. 02:01 Every generation hears the stories about 02:03 what happened to the previous generation, 02:05 the generation before that. 02:06 They pick up the history books 02:07 and they see the horrific things 02:08 that have happened between these two cultures 02:10 or three cultures or four cultures. 02:13 So what's happening in the Middle East 02:15 is that something that just someone came up with, 02:17 it's something that's been going on and on and on 02:20 for thousands of years. 02:22 And within Islam there are-- 02:23 there are fractures in the Sunni and Shiites. 02:26 And every time they go worship at the-- 02:28 at the tomb of Ali for example, 02:31 they're reminding themselves of their hurts 02:33 and so riots break out. 02:36 Does seem an endless cycle going on. 02:37 Let's just say that forgivingness 02:38 is not part of their way of doing things over there. 02:41 Well, the Quran does say 02:42 certain things about forgiveness 02:44 and I heard some Muslim leaders once in a dialogue saying, 02:48 you know, Christianity says turn the other cheek 02:51 but Islam says, if you hit a someone cheek, 02:54 he'll hit you back twice as hard. 02:58 And I thought that's very sad. 03:00 They don't realize how counterproductive 03:02 that sort of payback mentality is 03:04 but it has characterized that part of the world. 03:06 And I think even before the religions came, 03:11 what does the Bible say about Esau, 03:12 you know, he is a wild man. 03:14 Wild man. 03:15 I'm gonna better be careful 03:16 because I doubt of indulging cultural superiority. 03:20 Every culture has dignity 03:22 and we've all come a long way through history, 03:26 but I think there's certain characteristics 03:28 that have been natured even up to the present day 03:31 and it doesn't help, doesn't when religion enters 03:34 and these antagonisms turn bloody. 03:40 I've been very troubled 03:41 and we didn't mention it in other program, 03:43 what's happening currently in Iraq 03:46 where one faction of Islam the Sunni faction, 03:52 at least the radicals were ended up pushing 03:54 for an Islamic caliphate 03:56 throughout that whole area of the Levant. 03:59 I turned my head to the scene for a while. 04:03 And yet they're now fighting the Shiites 04:07 and I thought there's an incredible irony there. 04:10 The newspapers don't much mention it 04:12 but with the Sunni's on the move in Syria 04:17 and now Iraq, that means that Iran is on the back page 04:21 and that their influence is threatened 04:23 because they are Shiite 04:24 which does sort of suit you as political address. 04:29 And again why are we suddenly bowing the new revolutionaries? 04:34 The morality aside, it's a mix bag 04:36 and all I can think of when I watch this is-- 04:39 you remember an author called Rudyard Kipling? 04:42 He was the literary figure of the imperial days of England 04:50 and in one of his books 04:51 he spoke of this as the Great Game. 04:52 Great Game. And also-- 04:54 It's almost like that. It's almost like a game. 04:57 It's a game that no one wants to finish, 05:00 because no one actually has figured out how to win it. 05:03 No. That's it. 05:04 So if we can't win it and we don't want to lose it, 05:07 let's just do it, let's just play it 05:10 and play it generation after generation. 05:12 I always have to just sort of sinker 05:14 when I see envoys from this country 05:16 heading over to fix the Middle East. 05:18 We're gonna go there and take care of it, 05:19 we're gonna write a few accords, 05:20 we're gonna write a few, 05:22 we're gonna get some handshakes here 05:23 and we're all gonna live 05:25 and join hands and sing Chumbawamba. 05:26 That's not gonna happen, that's not gonna happen. 05:28 And-- you know, this-- 05:32 we have very competent leaders of both sexes 05:35 obviously in the west, but it does trouble me 05:38 and I wonder are they-- do they understand 05:40 what's happening there when they send-- 05:45 Secretary Albright or Hillary Clinton 05:49 or Condoleezza Rice over to tell the Middle East 05:52 suggest what to do? 05:53 Hey, they tried, they tried to heal it politically. 05:56 Now would you understand what I'm saying? 05:57 It is not a political battle over there. 05:58 That part of the world that's-- Yes. 05:59 The minute they get off the plane-- 06:00 Yeah, right, right, yes. 06:01 They are insulted. They insulted, yeah. 06:03 You sent a woman over here from America? 06:06 No. 06:08 Yes, I think we have advanced in right direction 06:11 because, there is a very confident people 06:14 but-- culturally turn deaf I think when we deal with them. 06:17 You know, we had the same problem 06:19 as Seventh-day Adventist missionaries in Beirut. 06:22 We had an organization that was head-quartered in America. 06:26 We kept the seventh day Sabbath 06:28 just like the Jews and we had a women prophet. 06:32 So one, two, three now I'm gonna teach you about God. 06:35 It's not gonna happen. But good things did happen. 06:37 Oh, absolutely. Not easily. 06:39 Absolutely well, it was difficult. 06:40 Yeah. Yeah. 06:41 So the Arab Spring, I don't hear 06:44 anyone talking about it anymore 06:46 and I have the dubious distinction in Liberty 06:49 and I'm not the only one but I was one of the few 06:52 who at the time of Arab Spring, 06:53 pretty much predicted would be where we are today. 06:56 And I just not that I'm anything close to a prophet 07:00 I just read history and I think it was written in the wind, 07:03 that this would go this way. 07:05 And yet we could wish it hadn't because on this program 07:08 we're talking about religious liberty. 07:10 We want religion to flourish, we want religions 07:16 that are minorities to be protected 07:18 and the story in Iraq has particularly 07:21 since the invasion-- US invasion has been 07:24 of gross persecution of Christians, 07:28 and not necessarily western Christians 07:30 there's Chaldean Christians, 07:32 there's ancient Christian churches 07:33 in the Middle East and in Iraq 07:35 that go back to the time of Christ, 07:37 they weren't brought there from the west, 07:39 that's where it comes from. 07:41 And those people have being killed gratuitously, 07:44 they've either died or they've lift. 07:46 I saw a figure the other day 07:47 and I think it was 50,000 Christians left in Iraq. 07:50 I had been quoting it was down to 200,000 07:53 from the million at the time of invasion. 07:56 But now on the last week or so we're hearing 07:58 that the ISIS the Islamic-- what's it stand for again? 08:06 Stands for death that was it stands for. 08:07 Yeah, well, it stands for the killer fate. 08:09 They want this killer fate in Syria and Iraq, particularly. 08:17 They-- they're attacking Yazidi's 08:19 who are Zoroastrians they're attacking the Kurds 08:25 who-- some of them are Muslim but there are another people 08:29 and so the polyglot religious background 08:32 and it seems like everybody is fair game there now. 08:35 It's-- there's no such thing as tolerance, 08:38 it's-- if you're an enemy, 08:40 if you're foreign agent cut your head off 08:43 and in fact I was-- 08:45 I'm gonna write an editorial on this in the next few days. 08:47 But I thought of that 08:49 this wasn't the queen in Alice in Wonderland 08:52 she says off with their heads, off with their heads. 08:53 Off with their heads. Like it's the easy answer. 08:55 That's the answer. Yeah. 08:56 Well, that's not the answer 08:57 when you're talking religious liberty. 08:59 It's not the answer at all. 09:02 Are we talking religious liberty here? 09:03 That you just opened this up. 09:05 Are we talking religious liberty issues 09:07 in the Middle East right now? 09:10 Because-- it doesn't sound like 09:13 that they are trying to convert anybody, 09:15 it doesn't sound like they are trying to say 09:17 come on over to my way of thinking, believe as I do. 09:20 It simply says if you don't-- 09:23 if you don't believe the way I am 09:24 you are my enemy and I'm going to kill you. 09:26 That's not religion liberty in any shape or form. 09:29 Well, the-- ISIS did apply the Quran 09:33 in some of the areas that they conquered. 09:35 Well, they're using it as a-- as an excuse. 09:39 Quran says it that they are the convert 09:42 and if they reject they die but-- 09:46 So did they hold tent meetings in these towns 09:48 before they took out everybody? 09:50 You convert or die, but certain groups 09:52 because the Quran is very charitable toward Christians, 09:55 people of the book. 09:57 So people of the book can stay-- 09:58 People know that. 09:59 Yeah, they can stay as people of the book 10:01 but they had to pay the Dhimmi the Quranic mandated tax. 10:07 And then you're of course are under a certain cloud. 10:12 To their credit most Islamic countries in the long haul 10:15 were fairly tolerant as long as the tax was paid, 10:19 but these guys are applying it in a very blood thirsty, 10:22 aggressive way like, like-- you get 10 minutes to decide 10:25 and then so-- 10,000 of these people fled the village 10:29 because they knew that regardless of what they said 10:32 they were likely gonna be put to the sword. 10:35 Not religious liberty. 10:36 You're right it's very difficult program 10:39 and-- most regretting we got to the Middle East 10:41 because when you define it 10:43 on the point of religious liberty 10:44 there's not much traction to get when we talk about it. 10:48 So what is-- what is happening, is this a political battle? 10:51 Is this-- excuse me, is this-- this is something 10:54 that we as a Christian nation 10:58 that's not the right-- we as a nation-- 11:00 Christian society. Society. 11:01 We as a Christian society who live in a nation 11:04 that allows Christian societies 11:06 to coexist against non-Christian societies, 11:09 do we have anything to offer them as a nation? 11:13 As a country? 11:14 As a government? As a political machine? 11:16 Do we have anything to put in our briefcase 11:19 and take over there and say here is the answer? 11:21 Well, I think the western in particularly United States 11:25 does still lives something to offer 11:27 and I have got to give good credit 11:29 to the government since 9/11. 11:32 The United States government from the federal 11:34 to the state levels has reiterated our commitment 11:38 to the separation of church and state 11:40 and to enforcing, well, that's a wrong word, 11:43 to supporting religious plurality. 11:45 Supporting, okay. 11:47 I see no evidence other than the security services 11:50 who might profile certain people 11:52 but I see no evidence from point of administering the law 11:56 and stating what our principles are. 11:59 We've wavered from allowing Islam 12:01 in this case or any other religion 12:04 that's acting badly in its home land 12:06 that we're not going to punish them here, 12:08 they have the same ruts, 12:10 the same allowance to practice regardless 12:14 and that's a good thing and that's a modeled 12:16 that we could hope we'd someday, 12:18 somehow transferred to other parts of the world. 12:21 I have found it and we talk about this 12:23 on the radio program that we do, 12:25 I have found that, I find great joy in the fact 12:30 that when I smile and wave at my Muslim neighbor 12:35 or I go to his shop or her shop and I shop there 12:38 and I allow that person to live in freedom 12:42 and in openness whether that's a Muslim 12:47 or someone else that isn't like I am. 12:50 That I'm actually firing a shot in the Middle East, 12:53 I'm saying you guys are wrong, 12:56 you guys are fighting for the wrong thing here. 12:58 You're going about at the wrong way. 12:59 I'm in the battle by simply being a loving, 13:03 kind, compassionate, supportive Christian. 13:08 Under the personal human level 13:10 that's what we should do on this 13:12 we can't do much more than that. 13:14 And-- we've spoken about it in another context. 13:18 Yes, there is a structural level the-- 13:21 by two governments 13:22 and the whole society and how its ordered. 13:24 But on the personal level that way you can really make 13:28 this changes eventually not immediately. 13:30 And you and I and those watching 13:32 we're all center stage on that 13:35 and we can make a huge difference. 13:38 We can show that our religion impels us to act charitably. 13:44 What I think in the governmental sense in the US 13:47 what we need to-- word of and so far have successfully, 13:51 we shouldn't allow any group, 13:53 whether it's fundamentalists Christians 13:55 or whether it's a-- what's already developed, 13:58 I closing it Muslim sub community in an area. 14:01 We shouldn't allow either to project 14:04 their religious values into the legal marketplace. 14:10 We need to break for the moment 14:12 and I will bring up this point later 14:13 because I want to spell it out. 14:15 Stay with us in our discussion 14:17 of both the Middle East and the United States 14:19 on conflict on religious matters. |
Revised 2015-02-05