Welcome to the Liberty
Insider, this is the program
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and I hope you have
been following it regularly
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that brings in
news, views, discussion,
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up-to-date information,
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and analysis of
religious liberty events
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in our world today.
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And my name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty Magazine
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and my guest on the
program Dr. John Graz.
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Pleasure to be with you.
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Man of many
titles and many skills.
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Thank you. I will just pick one.
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You have been head of the
Religious Liberty Department
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for the Seventh-day
Adventist Church for,
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at the
headquarters for 20 years now.
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Yeah.
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When I think back
on church's history
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and the principles
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of religious
liberty by extension,
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it's significant that
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there was a lot of
persecution of early Christians,
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but the turning
point, both good and bad,
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was when the government
endorsed and supported
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and protected
religion by Constantine.
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And yet
theologically you can trace
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a lot of the
troubles from that point.
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Yeah.
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But it was very important
for the early Christians to,
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change from being a
persecuted minority to being,
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to having good
relations with the government
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where they were supported.
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Is that still
important today, you think?
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No, I think you
cannot ignore the government.
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You know, you are
part of the community
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and the government is
part of the community.
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That's not really our
philosophy to be isolated.
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We want to be
part of the community.
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We want to help the community.
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We want to be a
plus for the community.
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You know, and there are
so many ways to do that.
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Just when I went to
Peru, a few weeks ago.
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I was associate to a big event,
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you know, young people,
thousands of young people,
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planted 40,000
tress in the city of Lima,
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and in the city of Salvador.
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Then how are they
gonna grow in Lima?
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I have been in Lima.
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They claim, no, yes.
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In Lima they claim
that it never rains, never.
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Lima never rain?
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Yeah, that you
have to put some water.
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Yeah exactly never.
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So I hope you've got to
follow up watering through.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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Exactly, and this is
what happened also in Villa,
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as Villa EI
Salvador, but that was--
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you know it means that we
are part of the community,
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we want to do something...
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Oh, great positives.
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When we organize the
meeting on religious freedom,
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it's part of the community,
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we want to
involve the community,
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we want to involve those
who represent the community
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because, you know, government
normally represent people.
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Now I set you up a
bit at the beginning
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and you didn't quite answer
to the imputation I was making.
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With Constantine,
the problem was not
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that he protected
and supported Christians,
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the problem was that he entered
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into theological fields
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and dictated what sort
of orthodoxy was acceptable.
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Yeah and also it become...
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And we are not
encouraging that with leaders.
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You know, I think the problem--
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the problem comes when you
have the question of power.
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You know, why
politician and government
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are interested in religion.
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It's just a question of power.
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You know, Constantine,
it's a very interesting story
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because Constantine,
you know, came at the time
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when Christian were persecuted,
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terribly
persecuted during 10 years
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and Constantine
come and he said that,
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"I want to give
freedom to Christian.
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But not only
Christian, to all people.
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Stop persecuting
people for their religion."
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That was a fabulous thing.
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Can you imagine the
story of the Roman Empire,
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if he had stopped there.
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But the problem is, of
course when you are in a power,
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you need allies and
Christian became his allies.
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And he needed them
and they needed him.
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And they've made a kind of deal.
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And he threw in
his luck with them.
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And of course the
church was divided
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and Constantine said that
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I don't want to
have a divided church
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because if you are divided,
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what about my power?
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And people forget.
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In fact, I had a dispute with
one of our authors over this
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that people forget
that right out of the gate,
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Constantine persecuted
at lower level persecution
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than his forbearers
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because once he
had given his authority
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to the church leadership
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and then called a council
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where they chose
the correct books,
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then he is the power
of the state to persecute
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those who were
using the wrong books.
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Disagree. Yeah, of course.
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And used the power of the state
to destroy the wrong books.
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Yeah, that was, you know,
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you had a
moment, a fabulous moment
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and after you had
a kind of corruption.
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And also, you
know, that's always,
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you need to have
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a good relation
with the government,
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but always be careful,
the government can corrupt you
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because it's a matter of power.
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You can corrupt
the government too
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and the
government can corrupt you.
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Because, you know,
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a Constantine gave a lot
of privileges to the bishops
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because the
bishops were everywhere
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and if you had
some one of influence
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in every city of the empire--
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He wanted to use those
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as exhibitories
of the government.
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That gives the
fabulous power to you.
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Yeah.
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This happened in many places,
you know, I think about Russia,
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where the
church were persecuted.
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Now, you know, the
relation with the church
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and the state are very good.
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It could be good, it could
be, we have to be very careful.
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And the same,
then now you are church
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and you have a good
relation with the government,
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but as a church or as
a religious organization,
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you have also decadents.
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You have people
who disagree with you.
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Yeah.
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And if you have
a good connection
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with the government, you know,
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that is very
simple, it's natural.
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The government said,
"What can you do for us?"
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And you say, "What
can you do for us?"
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Now we have a deal.
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I think it is unavoidable
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when it's
particularly in a democracy,
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when-- as we do, you
make a representation
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to the government from our
view, to explain ourselves,
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their interest is
heightened as they see
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your numbers representing
voters or constituency
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that's unavoidable.
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But I think we need
to-- you understand it fully,
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we need to avoid
this cross pollination.
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Yeah, we are, you know...
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Where we perhaps
might allow the state,
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as Constantine did to act
partially towards religion
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and we ourselves shouldn't think
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political powers end in itself,
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the church is
never helped by that.
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You know, as Adventists we
are in minority everywhere.
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But there are some
interesting country.
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We had a festival
of religious freedom
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in Jamaica.
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Very well organized by...
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Very high percentage's of
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Seventh-day
Adventist in Jamaica.
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Nigel Coke, you
know, he did a good work.
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We met the head of
state, who is an Adventist,
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the senate
president who is an Adventist,
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we had, we met several leaders.
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But that was interesting
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'cause the
leader of the opposition
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is also an Adventist or
his family are Adventist.
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It means you have--
Adventists are on both sides
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and that is healthy ways,
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you know, the
government cannot say,
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"Oh, you are
voting in block form."
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I mean for what?
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But I have the example,
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of although some of the
churches around the world
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where I saw that,
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where the leader
of the church said,
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"We vote for
this political party."
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And when the political
party get the government,
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they receive a
lot of privileges.
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And you can see a lot
of building and so on.
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That is not healthy.
That is a corruption.
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And I think that we
have to be very clear.
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This is why having good relation
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with the government,
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it's something we
have to do, you know.
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But be careful, good
relation doesn't mean
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that you sell your
soul to someone else.
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You keep, you know,
the mission you have,
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you have a responsibility,
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you represent
the kingdom of God,
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you represent the values of God.
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You don't want to
seal it, to sell it.
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And yet I think from
the Bible, in one case,
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I think we probably,
if the occasion warrants
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we might wonder over each.
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Remember it wasn't the
group that said to Paul,
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you know, "You want
to make a Christian."
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I think it was Felix or...
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Or Felix, it's either Felix
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or a group of one
of his representatives.
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Yeah, yeah.
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I would hope that as we
represent religious liberty
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and a Seventh-day
Adventist promoting that,
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while we are not seeking
favoritism from the government
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but we should be
missionary minded about it.
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It's not just an abstract
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civil construct
versus religious activity.
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But to come
back to the Christian
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after being persecuted
during three centuries,
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you know, when you
live in the countries
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where people look at you,
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what is your religion
and they look down at you
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and you see that
because your religion,
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you will be
excluded, exterminate--
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not exterminate
that would be the worst.
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Sometimes.
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Discriminate--
sometimes it's true.
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But discriminated.
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You have no right,
you know, to do any--
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even to think
because of your religion.
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And of course and
suddenly you have someone
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who came and say,
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I accept the
difference, I accept you.
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The temptation to make
a deal is very important
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but at least you know,
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I think there are some limit
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where as believer, citizen
of the kingdom of the God,
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we say no.
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That's the limit on my
values, you know, I cannot--
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This is why Christian
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who are too much
involved in politics,
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may lose the vision
of the kingdom of God.
00:09:19.89\00:09:23.02
I think so.
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We are first citizen
of the kingdom of God,
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and governments
needs people like us
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to say this is the correct way,
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we don't want to interfere in
the politic business and so on.
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But in term of values,
this is the correct way.
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Well, we are witnessing
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the government as
well as to the society...
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And...
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Can you explain to
me, exactly how it works?
00:09:42.88\00:09:47.65
You had an associate
whose primary charter is to be
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a liaison mostly
with the US Congress.
00:09:52.69\00:09:56.12
US Congress and the
White House and Soviet Union.
00:09:56.16\00:09:57.96
Yeah, how does that function?
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Or how would you discriminate
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or differentiate
that from lobbying.
00:10:02.73\00:10:06.63
Yeah, that's--
that's a good question.
00:10:06.67\00:10:08.44
I think that he-- first,
00:10:08.47\00:10:10.11
you know, he has
to represent a church.
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Our associate they
represent the church.
00:10:11.97\00:10:14.34
It means, he have the feeling
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that he is an ambassador
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or the ambassador of a church.
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And everywhere in every meeting,
00:10:21.12\00:10:22.45
he has to be in
harmony with the church.
00:10:22.48\00:10:25.12
He receive the order, I
should say the influence
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and the
guidance from the church,
00:10:28.72\00:10:31.19
not from the government.
00:10:31.23\00:10:32.99
And of course, if
imagine an associate
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is not doing
these work correctly,
00:10:35.10\00:10:38.23
we have to say sorry
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but you have to
correct your way.
00:10:39.63\00:10:42.40
That's...
00:10:42.44\00:10:43.77
Yeah, well that could be.
00:10:43.81\00:10:45.14
But I don't think we've had
00:10:45.17\00:10:46.51
a charter in over a
longer period of time.
00:10:46.54\00:10:47.88
So it's not really
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too depended on the individual
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what is our aim in
having somebody there.
00:10:52.41\00:10:55.65
Yeah, our aim, you
know, first is to know
00:10:55.68\00:10:57.55
what's going on there
and especially in Washington.
00:10:57.59\00:11:00.29
You know, we
believed that one day,
00:11:00.32\00:11:02.86
the Sunday law will be imposed,
you will have a persecution.
00:11:02.89\00:11:05.76
We believe that America
00:11:05.79\00:11:07.13
will play a very
important role in the last days.
00:11:07.16\00:11:09.86
It means we have to be there
00:11:09.90\00:11:11.23
and to give the
right information.
00:11:11.27\00:11:12.60
So it's to inform ourselves
00:11:12.63\00:11:13.97
about what's
happening with government.
00:11:14.00\00:11:15.34
To inform our self
about what's going on
00:11:15.37\00:11:16.71
and not to let rumors
spreading every day and so on.
00:11:16.74\00:11:21.14
And secondly also to inform
the authority about ourselves.
00:11:21.18\00:11:25.01
The authorities has
to know who we hire.
00:11:25.05\00:11:28.22
It's not, you know,
people in charge of the power,
00:11:28.25\00:11:31.15
they have decision to take,
they are under the pressure,
00:11:31.19\00:11:34.26
they manipulate to,
00:11:34.29\00:11:35.79
they're under the
pressure of the media,
00:11:35.82\00:11:37.39
they are under the
pressure of people.
00:11:37.43\00:11:39.43
They need to know, who really,
what kind of group is it?
00:11:39.46\00:11:43.03
What kind of religion is it?
00:11:43.06\00:11:44.73
If nobody is here,
00:11:44.77\00:11:46.10
this is why we start this
campaign of church ambassador.
00:11:46.13\00:11:49.14
If our seat is
empty, close to the...
00:11:49.17\00:11:52.74
Someone else will speak for us.
00:11:52.77\00:11:54.31
Someone else will
speak and that's the point.
00:11:54.34\00:11:57.61
If they want to
persecute people, okay,
00:11:57.65\00:12:00.72
but they have to know really
what kind of people are there.
00:12:00.75\00:12:03.18
But a lot of persecution
does arise from an ignorance
00:12:03.22\00:12:05.89
or lack of knowledge
about what someone stands for.
00:12:05.92\00:12:09.96
Some, it depends...
00:12:09.99\00:12:11.33
At the end of the day, some
of the difference are insoluble
00:12:11.36\00:12:14.56
because we do have
doctrinal differences
00:12:14.60\00:12:16.83
say with the
Roman Catholic Church.
00:12:16.87\00:12:19.33
But you know that might
00:12:19.37\00:12:20.70
create its own complications
in certain scenarios.
00:12:20.74\00:12:24.04
But to marginalize or to
have some legal penalties
00:12:24.07\00:12:28.71
within even a free
country because they think
00:12:28.74\00:12:32.08
that Seventh-day
Adventists are a total sect
00:12:32.11\00:12:34.38
to sort of like
Jones town group.
00:12:34.42\00:12:36.42
That would be the
worst and that could happen.
00:12:36.45\00:12:38.09
Yeah, that could happen
00:12:38.12\00:12:39.45
All it would take would
be one advisor of a ruler
00:12:39.49\00:12:42.59
who has a skewed
view and in the absence
00:12:42.62\00:12:44.89
of the accurate
information that would carry.
00:12:44.93\00:12:47.13
Yeah, may be we could
come back on this idea,
00:12:47.16\00:12:49.30
that's a good, you know,
00:12:49.33\00:12:50.97
what is really at the
origin of the persecution.
00:12:51.00\00:12:53.77
Yes. Well, we
will have to comeback.
00:12:53.80\00:12:56.00
Take a break now.
00:12:56.04\00:12:57.37
So stay with us
and we will continue
00:12:57.41\00:12:58.94
this discussion
with Dr. John Graz.
00:12:58.97\00:13:00.68