Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Tim Roosenburg
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000287B
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00:05 Welcome back.
00:06 We were getting into a pretty heavy discussion 00:08 before the break with guest Tim Roosenberg 00:12 about what might be the solution on this. 00:14 So you were saying openness, right? 00:17 Yeah. 00:18 Now, I am not saying that's ever going to happen 00:19 but that would be the solution. 00:21 Well, no. 00:22 Be careful, what you wish for may happen. 00:24 I would love it to happen. 00:25 You know, you are old enough too 00:27 and I am old enough to remember the Soviet Union was betrayed 00:30 and then many ways was a totally closed system. 00:35 They said, they wouldn't let people out very easily 00:37 unless they trusted them and it was hard to get it. 00:40 And they were able to sustain 00:42 the construct of a secular religion 00:45 and the myth that the Soviet Union 00:47 and the people's paradise-- it was a paradise, 00:50 but once Perestroika 00:53 and-- I think Perestroika was the open this and Glasnost-- 00:57 No, Glasnost the openness 00:59 but it was openness and restructuring. 01:01 And once that hit there was no stopping it 01:04 and the whole thing just withered away. 01:06 I myself think certainly Saudi Arabia 01:09 a very close society and some other places. 01:11 If this-- if the light of day got in, 01:14 the light of public discuss on religious issues got in 01:18 things would change real quick. 01:21 Yes, I agree but I am not sure 01:23 it's going to happen simply 01:25 because the anger levels building up on both sides. 01:28 Yeah. 01:29 Well, and plus I am prejudice 01:32 because of my study of Daniel 11. 01:34 So you think we need less cartoons to throw away? 01:38 I would never draw a cartoon of-- 01:42 No, I would never do that either 01:43 but you know, on the western value 01:46 and the enlightenment view of the rights of man 01:48 and free speech and all of that-- 01:49 Now, I believe-- 01:50 We can't afford to say that 01:53 you can only do things that I am comfortable with 01:55 it's only on the limits that you test that level. 01:58 Now, I am not saying 02:00 others shouldn't be allowed to it, 02:01 I said I would not do it. 02:03 No, I think it's very bad taste. 02:05 I have a problem with a Christian doing that 02:07 because Jesus said, 02:08 "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." 02:10 Absolutely. 02:11 And so if I am truly a Christian 02:14 I need to show that to secular Muslims, 02:20 any kind of people 02:22 if I am truly trying to follow God's way. 02:25 And not just Mohamed or Islamic themes, 02:29 you know, we live in a-- 02:31 I don't believe it's truly a post-Christian era 02:33 but it's been characterize as post-Christian era 02:36 but it certainly within Christian-- 02:37 normally Christian community 02:39 there's all sorts of profanities 02:41 and perversions, visual 02:44 and other perversions of faith that are allowed. 02:46 So it's not like even with the cartoons 02:48 that were published Islam 02:49 was being particularly singled out-- 02:52 Everybody is getting-- 02:53 Right. 02:55 And you know, we have to allow that 02:58 given our libertarian viewpoint 03:02 that is the deceleration of independence 03:04 in the US points out that these are in-- 03:06 should be unalienable right. 03:08 It's not given to someone else to restrict. 03:11 But it would be nice if we lived in a culture 03:14 of interaction between religions 03:15 where insults were not thrown just to offend people. 03:19 So if I was a Muslim leader, 03:21 I think there would be a far greater 03:23 and more effective response to Mohammed cartoons. 03:28 If whoever was doing 03:29 it was claming to be a Christian, 03:31 I would just look at them and say, are you a Christian? 03:34 Yeah. 03:35 Did Jesus say to do this kind of thing 03:39 or did He say to do kind things to others? 03:41 And all of a sudden 03:42 instead of it being Islam that looks bad, 03:45 all of a sudden that particular Christian 03:47 would look bad 03:48 and they would not want to keep doing 03:50 what they're doing. 03:51 Yeah. 03:52 But by fighting fire with fire again, 03:54 it just ramps up higher and higher. 03:57 Openness is the solution. 03:59 It's a bad dynamic and people are being manipulated 04:02 because you know, at Friday prayers 04:04 the mullah gets up there and rants and raves 04:07 and the people have may not have even seen the cartoons, 04:09 they take to the streets. 04:10 So it's-- its religious manipulation 04:14 which all religions indulge in 04:16 but at the moment we're seeing it done 04:19 greatly by this particular religious identity, 04:23 to speak in code. 04:26 By the-- you know, we're talking ISIS 04:28 and all the rest of this which is kind of interesting. 04:32 When I take a look back at the map, 04:33 King of North, King of the South in Israel 04:36 there is a day of worship 04:38 that is a sign of which side you are on. 04:41 You have the King of the North, Sunday, 04:43 the King of the South, Friday, 04:45 Israel, God's day, the Sabbath in the middle. 04:48 Yeah. 04:49 And you have a conflict 04:51 and there are lot of people over time 04:52 that have looked at the day of worship 04:54 as some kind of a sigh or code or whatever at the end 04:57 and all of a sudden you have three different days 05:01 spiritual representing peoples that get caught up 05:05 in this geo-political conflict. 05:07 No, I agree with you 05:08 and of course the Seventh-Day Adventists 05:10 have made a point of explaining that 05:13 the Sabbath that we should keep. 05:16 I mean, the Sabbath is a concept, 05:19 Christians understand that the Pope of Rome 05:21 came out with a document few years ago 05:24 deals about the Sabbath. 05:26 But if you really read the Bible closely 05:29 you'll see that it was the seventh day, 05:31 the Saturday always kept. 05:33 We're on the same weekly cycle. 05:36 And different people have different reasons for the days 05:39 but you're on to something. 05:41 I spoke to a Muslim imam years ago 05:44 to try and to find out why do they keep Friday. 05:47 That's their tradition. 05:48 Yeah, but what tradition? 05:49 It was animist tradition before Islam. 05:52 They already were keeping a Friday. 05:54 And this imam was head imam of the Washington 05:57 that I spoke with and he said, 05:59 well, Mohammed didn't want to trouble them too much 06:02 and change it so they accepted a pagan day. 06:06 So it's not-- it's a marker of their origins 06:10 and the Roman Catholic Church 06:12 and the most of Christianity 06:14 even Protestantism still keeping Sunday. 06:16 Which is a pagan day. 06:17 The origins of that are undeniable. 06:20 They can argue the authority to change it 06:23 and all that sort of stuff 06:24 and that stands for the resurrection. 06:27 Yes, but it was the day of the sun, 06:29 of sun worship, the predated Christianity. 06:32 So what did-- 06:33 And Saturday Sabbath is no interceding to that 06:36 other than the God's create of dictate. 06:39 Why did Islam the King of the South 06:41 do the Sabbath keepers? 06:42 They weren't that friendly to them. 06:44 The King of the North 06:45 wasn't that friendly to Sabbath keepers. 06:46 They're always caught in the middle. 06:47 Yeah. Yeah. 06:49 It's amazing. 06:50 The prophecy is to you're political and spiritual. 06:53 But I think we need to raise the alarm on the Sabbath 06:57 more than ever before the you are not saved 07:00 by keeping one day or another 07:02 but it can be a marker of your saving attitude 07:05 and you're pointing toward literally to God 07:09 or little bit more comprising. 07:11 To a more human system 07:13 this comprise] with a world than this. 07:16 The day of worship actually is pointing that out. 07:19 It's amazing. 07:20 Oh, it has to be, of course. 07:21 And if as a Christian 07:24 I side with trying to pull the rights of the Friday keeper 07:30 whose next? 07:31 Yeah. 07:32 Oh, no, I-- 07:33 So again-- 07:34 I think we were going this direction, 07:36 but in an editorial I just wrote 07:39 I thought it was good to mention A.T. Jones, 07:41 our Religious Liberty pioneer from Adventism 07:43 giving testimony in congress in 1888 07:46 against a Sunday Law proposal. 07:49 And he help defeat it with some other 07:52 well meaning people in the community 07:54 but he made a good point there. 07:56 He said, even if you enacted a law 07:59 requiring the seventh day Sabbath be kept, 08:04 he says, I would have opposed that just as strongly. 08:07 And than we need keep that principal in mind. 08:08 Yes. 08:09 So there is a right day 08:11 but there's a wrong way to advance any belief. 08:14 But never enforce it by force. 08:16 Right. 08:17 And I think the Sabbath is a pretty good litmus test 08:20 but as far as the religious liberty, 08:22 the absolute litmus test is, is there collusion involved? 08:25 Yes. 08:26 And we must love our fellow human beings 08:29 to have the right to be wrong, 08:31 the right to make their own spiritual choices. 08:33 Yes. 08:34 That would solve the whole mess. 08:36 Well, it would certainly go a long way. 08:39 You know, we don't have too much time left 08:41 but coming on this, I've got a book 08:43 and I need to have it reviewed in Liberty even. 08:47 The title of it is something like 08:49 the death wish of the major world religions. 08:52 But it points out that Islam, Christianly 08:55 and to some degree Judaism 08:57 all holding apocalyptic end term scenarios. 09:02 Right. 09:03 And in different threads within those belief systems 09:06 sometimes working actively toward it 09:09 that whole world is sort of on a collusion course 09:12 for a self fulfilling religious prophecy, 09:15 if you like. 09:17 Certainly the Middle East shows that 09:18 it's a cauldron of expectations of trouble. 09:22 If you are secular you look at this and say 09:25 religion is just gonna take us into a black hole. 09:31 I look at it a little differently 09:32 as a committed Christian 09:34 and looking at scripture and where it's heading 09:36 but this is exactly where scripture said 09:38 we'd be headed into what looks like a dead end 09:42 and we're rescued. 09:44 But you're going to see Muslims going to say the same thing 09:46 about trying to get people into fight against them 09:48 in Syria, the Islamic State. 09:50 So I can understand the seculars looking back 09:52 and going religion is the problem. 09:55 But we need-- that's one of the reasons 09:58 religious liberty is so important. 09:59 We need to be coming across with a prophetic viewpoint 10:03 that is also pushing religions liberty in it 10:05 and the liberty of others-- 10:06 And also emphasis 10:09 the individual's spiritual life and fulfillment-- 10:12 Yes. 10:13 And I do think Islamic State and so on, 10:16 they've-- even though they have sympathy with Islam 10:19 there is a danger that they're all focused 10:21 on a political movement 10:24 to advance their religion 10:25 but not emphasizing as much the spirituality 10:28 of their own faith. 10:30 That's always a danger. 10:31 I know that they-- 10:32 they have their own religions police 10:34 in the areas they conquer 10:36 but it strikes me as it's more 10:37 an army of religious occupation 10:40 than spontaneous religions expression. 10:44 And they get the booty of war in multiple ways. 10:46 Yes. 10:47 And there's a really twisted viewpoint of mixing 10:52 the booty of war with religious viewpoint. 10:55 Well, I believe that the war 10:59 and religion are largely incompatible. 11:00 Obviously God fights out wars on our behalf 11:04 so He's the ultimate general. 11:05 But we shouldn't be involved in this, we should-- 11:09 I agree. 11:10 There's hymn that says, by deeds of love and mercy 11:12 and not by swords land clashing. 11:14 Yes. 11:15 So, ISIL, where is it going? 11:19 What's gonna happen with this? 11:21 It's sort of a summation is it? Yeah. 11:24 The threat that's going away 11:25 or is it the beginning of the worse? 11:26 ISIL, I don't think it's gonna go away. 11:28 It's going to continue to morph into maybe other things 11:34 but ISIL will ultimately be focusing in-- 11:39 Well, let me do say this, radical Islam, 11:41 it may not be ISIL 11:42 but radical Islam will continue to grow 11:44 until it's ended in one way or another. 11:49 Outside of the Islamic world I don't think too many people 11:52 give a great deal of thought to the crusades 11:55 but the history books explain it quite well 11:57 and they tell that one of the most fearsome aspects 12:00 of the crusader efforts to move into the Holy Land 12:03 where they continuing attacks that they received 12:06 in an underhanded way often from the assassins, 12:10 these were group of religions zealots 12:13 that came out of the mountain fastness 12:14 and were all but unstoppable 12:16 because they were so fanatical, so blood thirsty, 12:19 so unexpected in their attacks 12:23 that it was almost no defense against them. 12:26 In some ways ISIL was fulfilling that. 12:29 It spread panic in their own area 12:32 and in the larger worlds it's made us aware 12:35 that this perhaps a force that 12:37 there's no congenital answers to. 12:40 But as always we need to realize 12:42 that prophecy is at work here 12:44 that faith ultimately has to be rewarded 12:47 and it should not be intimated 12:49 just because someone threatens your faith. 12:52 And I believe as we enter into what could be characterize 12:55 as this new crusades of thoughts 12:57 that ultimately alternatively faith, 12:59 not violence will win the day. 13:03 For Liberty Insider, I am Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2015-07-23