Welcome to The Liberty Insider.
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This is the program
that brings you discussion,
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news and updates on
religious liberty issues
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and events around the world
and often in the United States.
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My name is Lincoln Steed.
Editor of Liberty Magazine.
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And my guest is Kim Peckham.
He is already getting tired.
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We've got a
couple of other programs
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that you're getting tired
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of the introduction
so recruiter, author.
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Yeah I like to hear
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what you come up with each time.
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Publicity, publicist
for the Review and Herald
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and so on and so on,
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as well Sabbath
School teacher to the class
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that I have attended on occasion
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at your local church.
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And more important to
this program, tourist.
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The tourist! Yeah.
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I know, it's not long
since you took your family
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on what I envied
because I thought
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it was a great idea to
spend, how many weeks was it?
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We were gone like 4 weeks.
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Yeah 4 weeks
rambling through Europe
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or the heart of Western Europe,
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Italy, France and...
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England as well.
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England? Yeah.
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Well, that's the
heart of the world,
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isn't it for
the English speaking
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that's as the
song Jerusalem says,
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you know, the aim is to
plant the New Jerusalem.
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You know the feet
that in ancient times
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may have walked upon England's
green and pleasant land.
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You know that song?
I have not heard that.
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It's almost a religious
national anthem in England,
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a poem written by
William Blake, Jerusalem.
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And are they implying that
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Jesus was in
England at some point?
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So this is like the
Mormons believing that
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Jesus came to America.
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Well, I have had good success
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in talking to
Mormon missionaries
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when I lived in Idaho
because they will come to you,
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"What do you know about
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church of Jesus Christ
and what did they sense?
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And I said, "Oh, I know a lot."
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I said, I basically see
this is a American version
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of British Israelites.
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Listen, in England,
it's the British Israelites
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that do all that.
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All right.
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But you know what,
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what can I glean
from you on that trip.
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We spoke earlier
about going to tour--
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with the
Waldensians and Barwick.
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By the way I will give
you an English connection
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which I have
mentioned on this program before
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but let's remind them.
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People need reminding.
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In England, the
Puritans agitated
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and in the end
their grievances fed
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into a developing civil war
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and the religious
forces defeated the king,
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put him on trial, executed him.
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And then a
leader who was favorable
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to the Puritan
cause, Oliver Cromwell
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was made a
religious dictator basically.
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Yeah, but and it
wasn't a good dynamic
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but religious liberty flourished
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under Oliver Cromwell.
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He invited the Jewish back.
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He gave full freedom to
all the religious dissidents
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except the Catholic.
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You know, he was
very anti-Catholic.
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And because of
that, during his reign,
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if you want a
better word, or rule,
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the Waldensian question came up
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and he, as a
strong national leader,
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made objection to
the European powers
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and he said that
if the Waldensians
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were not relieved,
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he would lead an
English army there
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and win the day for them.
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Well, yeah, I think that applies
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may be to the work of
Liberty Magazine in a way.
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Does it not?
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That you are letting
people know about issues
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in religious
liberty, in the same way that
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people learned about the
plight of the Waldensians
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and so forth and actually apply
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political pressure
to the Duke of Savoy
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and others who were
causing the problems
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that it was an
international movement.
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And I know Protestants
came from Switzerland
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and so forth to help them.
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Yeah, and it's
an interesting point
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you bring up
because jumping to something
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you might not guess,
you know, the--thing.
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I think that is
a very problematic
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for many western cultures
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but the phenomenon of young men
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usually going somewhere
else to join a cause is not new
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or in fact, it's
sometimes encouraged.
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And Americans went off
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and fought in
the Spanish civil war
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and another European adventures.
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It's not that uncommon.
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And yes so, but at this time
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it was a little bit more formal,
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Oliver Cromwell
wanted to lead a formal army
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but there was a lot of sympathy
within England at that time
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with the Puritans and
religious non-conformers
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to support their
fellow religionist
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and the
Waldenses there in Italy.
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Yeah, I think they were
very much encouraged by that,
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that the
stories had gotten back,
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what was going on
and the Swiss would,
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you know,
opened up their borders
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and sent help as they were being
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driven out of their
homes and off their land.
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And that sometimes
the armies would push back
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because of political
pressure coming from Cromwell
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and others and the Protestants.
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By the way-- I
need to hear more about
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your last European tour
but on the last one I took
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which was last year too.
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We went to Geneva
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and there they have
got reformation wall
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they call it near the
University as I remember
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and it's probably 150 yards long
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and it's carved in stone relief,
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is this whole wall of the heroes
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of religious liberty.
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Luther is there
as you would expect
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and Kelvin, many others.
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But what really impressed me
was Oliver Cromwell was there.
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I think naturally but
not always automatically
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he is one of the more
vilified figures of history.
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And what was his reputation is,
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he was kind of
terrorist in his own way.
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Isn't that how was his
reputation has come down?
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What ruined his reputation
was, once he would gain power,
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and to most people in his time,
he wasn't seen as a dictator.
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He was the charismatic
commander of the military
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and he was loved
just Like Abraham,
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not Abraham
Lincoln he was loved.
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Just like George Washington
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and his men had incredible
personal loyalty to him.
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And so they tried to give him
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the crown at the end of it
all and he turned down the crown
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but he agreed to be the ruler.
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And in a way
that was the weakness
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because when he died,
everything just evaporated.
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He really hadn't
maintained it by force
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and curiously enough
even in his lifetime,
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he allowed the
publishing of a book,
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not even a
satirical book that outlined
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how to kill Oliver Cromwell.
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Not too many regimes, despotic
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or even a
representative government
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would allow such a thing.
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So he was very
tolerant in his own way
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but what was his
undoing as far his legacy
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is reflecting the
Puritan Anti-Catholicism.
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Once he defeated the
king and established his rule,
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then he took his army fresh
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from the civil war conquest
across to Catholic island
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and believing that it
was the mandate of heaven
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that he was God's agent,
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he put much of
Ireland to the sword.
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And at one town Drogheda,
they refused to surrender
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and it was the
convention of the time.
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If you refuse to surrender,
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then the town would be pillaged
and the men would be killed.
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Well, he did it to a full,
killed pretty much everyone
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they can get their
hands on and then lift
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the English Protestant
land owners to rule Ireland.
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And that's the
basis of the ongoing
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Northern Ireland troubles.
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And when he died
things just melted away
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and they invited
the king's son back.
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And as the sign of
their hatred of him,
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they dug up his body.
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Cromwell's body? Yeah, yes.
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Not the king's body.
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The King's body
didn't have a head.
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But Oliver Cromwell was
intact, died of illness.
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They dug him up.
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Judicially hung
him, cut his head off
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and put it on a spike
over the tower of London,
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I think it was.
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And it was there
for about 80 years,
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as a warning to anybody
that would oppose the crown.
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80 years?
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Something like
that, many decades.
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So the only other
person that I can think of
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that was vilified the
same way was Wycliffe.
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Remember, years after he died,
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they dug him up and burned him
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and threw the
ashes in the river,
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to just
extirpate his whole memory.
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And you know, most cultures
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and the Christian
culture is very much this way.
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You don't
desecrate the dead usually.
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So to just
disgrace the dead body
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of your enemy was
a pretty low thing.
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But it was done to
Wycliffe and to Oliver Cromwell.
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Well back to thoughts of Europe.
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Sure.
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What other things struck you
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as you were traveling
around, other reminders?
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I know history is
everywhere you go and you--
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what else did you
see that reminded you
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of the religious conflicts
or challenges of the past?
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Well, you know that
the magnificent cathedrals
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in the large towns of
the enormous resources
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that were put into
making those cathedrals,
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that are now pretty much empty.
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In fact, I was a little
bit shocked to see that,
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you pretty much have to pay
to go into all the cathedrals.
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You know, you would
never think of like having
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to pay to go into church.
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But since it's mostly tourist,
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they would line up
outside the front door
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and you pay to get in.
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And may be
sometimes at the back door,
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if you can prove
you're just there for prayers,
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they will let you in.
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But you gotta go in
the wrong entrance though.
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I remember one
that you have to pay
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but they're
usually trying to get money
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from you, for going through.
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Well, it's very
different. I was at, in Paris.
00:11:04.83\00:11:09.03
And early one
morning as a young man,
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I went to Notre-Dame
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and I was able just to
walk in the front door.
00:11:13.23\00:11:15.50
And there was a
mass going on there
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early in the morning.
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And, you know,
they had free access.
00:11:19.24\00:11:22.68
This time there was,
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you know, the doors were
only for paying customers
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as far as I can see
in the line of people,
00:11:28.35\00:11:31.59
you know, there was no easy
way to even attend the church.
00:11:31.62\00:11:35.09
That's so bad to
set in that direction.
00:11:35.12\00:11:36.83
I have always, you know,
00:11:36.86\00:11:40.26
I'm a
Protestant, not a Catholic.
00:11:40.30\00:11:42.46
But I was been impressed by
where I had been in the past
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that the doors
to Catholic chapels
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and cathedrals are always open.
00:11:50.94\00:11:53.81
They don't lock
them that I can say
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Well, it's just they, I
guess that flood of tourists,
00:11:55.81\00:11:58.35
they have to like
control them somewhere.
00:11:58.38\00:12:00.08
And that dates back of
course to Luther's time
00:12:00.12\00:12:02.75
and before, the pilgrims
were always taken advantage of.
00:12:02.78\00:12:07.19
Yeah, perhaps. And
that's even broadened.
00:12:07.22\00:12:10.03
We know back in Jesus'
time, the sale of the birds
00:12:10.06\00:12:14.36
and the lambs
and all the rest was,
00:12:14.40\00:12:15.73
it was quite at a deal.
00:12:15.76\00:12:18.23
There's a lot of
commerce in the courtyard
00:12:18.27\00:12:20.64
of the church or the tabernacle.
00:12:20.67\00:12:23.47
Yeah, I know it, I
was shocked in Milan
00:12:23.51\00:12:25.31
to see a giant
Samsung outdoor television
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on the side of the
church in a promotional,
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you know, venue there,
advertising their television.
00:12:34.85\00:12:39.75
Interesting. Yeah.
00:12:39.79\00:12:41.32
Well the
commercialization of religion
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is moving along obviously.
00:12:44.53\00:12:45.86
Stay with us.
00:12:45.89\00:12:47.23
We'll take a
little bit of a break
00:12:47.26\00:12:48.60
and we'll be back to
continue this discussion
00:12:48.63\00:12:50.50
of European
trails and tracking down
00:12:50.53\00:12:54.50
the religious liberty
challenges of the past.
00:12:54.54\00:12:57.54