Welcome back to
the "Liberty Insider."
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Before the break
with guest Kim Peckham
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we were discussing
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and I might have been
holding forth a little too much
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on my principles or my
take on religious liberty
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but[] Kim had
some very good points.
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There are lot of
challenges to this assumption
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that I have and we
project through Liberty Magazine
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that religious
liberty is for all people,
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it's inherent
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and no matter you
believe it should be respected
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and allowed
unless of course some
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civil little public
endangerments involved,
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that's another question.
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But it's not for me
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to double guess
religious viewpoint.
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It has to be allowed
and I have to defend it
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with my life if necessary
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because its an
inherent right of someone.
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But there are
challenges to religious liberty.
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It happens all
the time I think and,
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and what we are seeing
and I think more commonly now
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is challenges to
religious liberty
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not from other
religions sometimes
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but also from secular ideals
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that are pressed on people,
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I think maybe
the Hobby Lobby case
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which has been interpreted
several different ways
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but this idea
that the government
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and what everyone agrees on
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in society may need
to be applied to people
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with[out] that
religious believes
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or contrary religious believes.
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One of the principles,
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yeah, you are right
with kind of words there--
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I think I'm right, yes.
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One of the
principles of religious liberty
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and it was even-- even the Quran
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does pay lip service to this,
even though they practice not.
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Its supposed to be no
collation in religion.
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It supposed to be.
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And I myself didn't find
the collation in Hobby Lobby.
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Because, why did you--
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Nobody was required
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to take
advantage of that service
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of the birth
control or other services
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the one against the moral views
of the owners of that business
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so there was--
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that neither they
know their employees
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were required to participate
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in an activity that
they found troublesome.
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It was a matter
of personal choice
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but the employer was prepared
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and sued to get the right
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to make that
decision for someone else,
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that's collation.
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Yeah, so they were--
that was the incident
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as you see it
there[] probably it was
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religious
liberty of the employers
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to make the choice was being--
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It was one on the religious
liberty rights of the employer
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and I must say
that this is a complex
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that you got it to an end
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and depending on
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the angle of
religious freedom you look at
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you can argue it
two different ways.
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And we actually had
articles in Liberty,
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three articles as I can remember
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and two took
quite divergent views.
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Overall, I'm not
happy with the case
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because I also think
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that its consistent
with Citizens United,
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that was the Supreme Court
that held that corporations
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have the rights
of the individuals.
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And I think that Hobby Lobby
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even though its
not narrowly speaking--
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well, its
connected, but you know,
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narrowly speaking it wasn't,
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it was one case and
the other fled from.
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I think it shows
further that corporate,
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in this case
employee corporate rights
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can trump individual rights
and I don't like that thinking.
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And I've heard representatives
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of one of the major
religious groups in this country
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decry effect that
there is too much emphasis
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on individual conscience rights
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and not enough on the
corporate rights of the church
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and my ears go up
with that because I think
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middle ages where the church
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and the state
were in bed together
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and yes, then the
church and what it said,
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its dictates for
empowered and protected
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but different from that church
and everyone is against you.
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Well, you know,
I'm still sympathetic
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I guess maybe to
the Hobby Lobby owners
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who felt it was a
matter of conscience for them
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but there were a lot
of other people involved
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so that's what you
find so complicated.
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We don't need to
question their sincerity,
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you can sincerely
be wrong of course.
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Of course. Yeah.
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Now, yeah, it's just
not worth getting into,
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you know, what
was their motivation.
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I think its reasonable
and probably did offend this,
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their personal
conscience sensibility.
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But you know, where
else can you see in society
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that this tension
is sort of welling up
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in societal ways
that the blindside people
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on the principle
of religious liberty.
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I think that
there is a lot of people
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who are
wondering if societal norms
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are gonna affect their beliefs.
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You know, there's
been these other cases,
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you know, sometimes involved in
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same sex marriages and so forth
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and the people
who may not want to be
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involved in that for
their own religious believes.
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You know the case of
the-- the wedding cake baker
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who tried to get out of
providing a wedding cake
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for a gay marriage.
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These things seem
like they might be
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aware of the real
edge of the debate
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under religious liberty
are right now in America.
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They are.
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We are perceptive I can tell you
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you're right on course
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with where these
things are going.
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How we deal with that
societal is less legal,
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the legal thing is
fairly plain really
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but how we deal with
societal, societal I think
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we will have a great bearing
on where the mainline churches
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lead us and
whether we head toward
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an over reaction and an
attempt to gain political power
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to support a
particular religious view point.
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You know, gay marriage to,
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you know, we've talked about
it a lot on this program before.
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Gay marriage I'd
think from the point of view
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of almost any Christian,
Bible believing Christian
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from the certainly point of view
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of someone reading the Quran
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and from some other
religious traditions
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is problematic.
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It's not seen as
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morally admirable,
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its not even seen
as safe for the society
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but if you believe in
separation of church and state
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even a corrupt
society has a right
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within its norms to
enact, support for such behavior
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and it should be
possible for a person of faith
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to decry that
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and yet
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allow it in the
sense that we don't control
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the state and the government
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but just maintain
our faith position,
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be able to say
that this is not right
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as many other things aren't
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but we live our lives as
our faith calls us to be.
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The problem is
that a lot of people
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and we are back to the real
meaning of religious liberty
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have always thought
that it was the right
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for their faith to be
supported by the government.
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So when they see their society
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shifting from their
faith they think that now
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the obligation of the government
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is to some how remove it
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or enact something
to support their faith.
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It's really turning
the world upside down
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and they have had
this assumption always
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even though they don't state it,
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this is in this
case a Christian society.
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It used to be a Christian
society in a cultural sense
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but it never ever
was in the United States
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as it once was in
England under Oliver Cromwell
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but it never was
in the United States
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a religious government.
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A government set up to enforce
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any particular
religions orthodoxy
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and that's a hard
lesson for most people to get
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and I don't think
they are gonna learn it.
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I really think at some point
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a political
faction is gonna rise up
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the believers that
God given mandate to
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legislate away
all of the social else
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they see a
religious moral component to.
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Well, I would
certainly agree with you.
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That there is a separation
in church and state here
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and what happens in
the community square
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is different from
what happens in the church
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and the church doesn't
necessarily mean to control
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what happens in
the community or--
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Under the civil model but
very few churches see that.
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Yeah.
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What the thing where
religious liberty comes in
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is that as we
come closer and closer
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to being a post-Christian
society in America
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so its Christianity,
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practicing
Christianity comes down
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to about half the population
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then there is like a sort
of a secular humanist believes
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that sort of come and conflict.
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These values over here
start to come and conflict
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with these
traditional Christian values
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and it becomes
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an area of religious
liberty concerned on both side.
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Because on side says,
well, we are the majority here
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we are gonna have
things our way and marginalize
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you people on the other side.
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There not a question
that secularity is changing
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the equation in
the United States
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which once was a...
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more uniformly
Protestant Christian society
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and some of those assumptions
and norms have drifted away
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but I would
challenge that its...
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its not quite as
secular as people imagine
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because the
religious identity remains
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even as the life and
the morals of the people
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move in a secular direction.
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Well, the real trick is that
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in the past
Christians were able to
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have common
experience and common values
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and now as things drift away
from traditional Christianity
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there is more variety and
people can't even agree on
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what the right value is.
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And I've recently
heard Hollywood directors
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complaining about
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how to set up a
story of good versus evil
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when so few
Americans agree on what is evil
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or how do you set up a
villain that does something
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that everyone will immediately
say, "Okay, that's bad."
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It's a good point.
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Well, it's interesting
that the fox is complaining.
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I think Hollywood has done a lot
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to blur the distinction
between good and evil.
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But yeah, it is true
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that we are in
a transition point
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and I think there is
a great vulnerability
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in the United States
00:11:07.83\00:11:09.46
to people that can be swung away
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from traditional moral values
00:11:11.53\00:11:14.17
not realizing and obviously
religious liberty itself
00:11:14.20\00:11:17.17
could be swept away.
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It's true, it's true so
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we would just on
both side need to have
00:11:21.74\00:11:23.75
kind of a humility and respect
00:11:23.78\00:11:25.91
for what the
other side is saying.
00:11:25.95\00:11:27.28
Well, respect is not tolerance,
00:11:27.32\00:11:30.29
not tolerance but respect.
00:11:30.32\00:11:32.95
And once that happens
00:11:32.99\00:11:34.32
and I think that
it makes it clear
00:11:34.36\00:11:35.76
we can go
forward working together
00:11:35.79\00:11:37.86
respecting each other
and there is not gonna be
00:11:37.89\00:11:39.76
conflict and serve at
this moral superiority
00:11:39.79\00:11:42.80
that causes more
conflict and anger.
00:11:42.83\00:11:45.70
I haven't yet made anybody
00:11:48.80\00:11:50.34
who is really
against religious liberty
00:11:50.37\00:11:52.54
but so many people see
00:11:52.57\00:11:54.11
religious liberty
so many different ways.
00:11:54.14\00:11:57.21
The safest way I
think is to start
00:11:57.25\00:11:59.75
with where Jesus
Christ started in Nazareth.
00:11:59.78\00:12:02.38
He got up there and
read from the Book of Azariah
00:12:02.42\00:12:04.72
and proclaimed
that it was His mission
00:12:04.75\00:12:07.29
to spread good news to proclaim
00:12:07.32\00:12:11.36
release liberty to the captives.
00:12:11.39\00:12:14.10
To set that liberty
those who are oppressed.
00:12:14.13\00:12:16.87
Religious freedom is freedom
from the constraints of sin.
00:12:16.90\00:12:21.10
Once that's accepted
00:12:21.14\00:12:23.44
as creatures of the Creator God
00:12:23.47\00:12:25.84
we are obligated to pass on
00:12:25.87\00:12:27.84
that message of
liberation to others.
00:12:27.88\00:12:30.31
Once that's accepted it means
00:12:30.35\00:12:32.25
that we have to
respect our fellows
00:12:32.28\00:12:35.42
because of this
00:12:35.45\00:12:36.79
existential
reality of the creator.
00:12:36.82\00:12:39.25
Its not just a
legal or a constitutional
00:12:39.29\00:12:42.19
or even a historic imperative,
00:12:42.22\00:12:44.79
it's a divine imperative
00:12:44.83\00:12:47.53
and I'm required
to defend the right
00:12:47.56\00:12:51.33
of another person to
follow their conscience
00:12:51.37\00:12:53.90
no matter how
foolish it may appear to me
00:12:53.94\00:12:56.40
what they believe
00:12:56.44\00:12:57.77
but they are right
to do so is inviolable.
00:12:57.81\00:13:01.48
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:13:01.51\00:13:04.88