Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Paul Anderson
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000313A
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00:22 Welcome to the "Liberty Insider."
00:24 This is a program that's designed to bring you 00:26 discussion, updates, news, views, 00:30 and all around information on religious liberty 00:34 an important topic 00:36 and we will discuss it from a world view 00:38 and from North American view. 00:39 My name is Lincoln Steed, Editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:42 And my guest on the program Paul Anderson, 00:46 a chaplain and head of the chaplaincy program 00:49 for the North American Division 00:50 of the Seventh-day Adventist Church 00:51 and a man of great experience including 00:54 commander in chaplaincy in the military. 00:56 Thank you. 00:58 I want to discuss terms, 01:01 you invoked George Orwell in another program. 01:05 I seem to remember George Orwell did a lot about 01:07 how what language in his novel particularly 1984 01:11 was used to sort of subvert reality. 01:14 In fact, say the opposite and I believe that, you know, 01:17 we've been long in that sort of dynamic 01:20 in our society. 01:21 Even in the military, you know, 01:23 it was one of the missiles the Peacemaker. 01:27 Curiously. 01:29 I guess the peace of the dead is peace. 01:31 But it's more than that. 01:33 I mean, that's sort of a cheap shot. 01:35 But where it troubles me 01:38 is in terms relating to religion 01:41 and I can remember as a kid 01:43 to be called a fundamentalist wasn't the bad thing. 01:47 It was sort of the southern Baptist sort of religion 01:50 someone that that's pretty, pretty sure their faith 01:54 and they took the Bible as red 01:57 and it was pretty non negotiable 02:00 but they were reasonable person. 02:03 But when I say fundamentalists what do you think now? 02:07 Well, I think that back, I think that term harkens back 02:11 to the southern Baptist in the mid, 02:16 in the '60s I believe it was where they were 02:20 trying to determine orthodoxy and decided okay, 02:24 these are the fundamental things 02:26 that define who we are. 02:29 As Seventh-day Adventist we've got 28, 02:33 that a lot of fundamentals. 02:35 But we know they are meant to the degree 02:38 that we are congruent with them 02:41 and the scribe wholeheartedly to them. 02:43 We be fundamentalist. 02:46 Right. 02:47 But if you read a daily newspaper 02:49 fundamentalist is-- 02:51 I mean, there's just no upside 02:53 to that term nowadays that I can see. 02:55 Yeah, I think it's become pejorative 02:57 because perhaps the fundamentalists 03:01 were less loving in their assertion 03:07 that this is the way to go walk in it. 03:10 Yeah. Yeah. 03:11 I mean, there's no question on that 03:13 where the fix is really in as we're dealing with 03:17 so called fundamentalist of Islam 03:21 that have taken to some terrorist acts 03:24 and, you know, 03:25 that's a big another big discussion 03:26 of how truly they represent their faith and so on. 03:30 But we all agree even the Islamic world 03:34 in relating to the west 03:35 that these fundamentalists are dangerous. 03:37 So that term has become totally pejorative, isn't it? 03:41 So how when we are talking about 03:43 our personal faith, 03:45 the Seventh-day Adventist Christians 03:46 or indeed any other, 03:48 how can we say that, you know, 03:49 this is what I believe, it's important to me, 03:52 I'm truly convinced of it 03:55 and you this is the bottom line for me 03:57 and I'm gonna live it 03:58 and, you know, don't take it from me. 04:01 You know, when I was in the military 04:04 when an Adventist or a Muslim or someone 04:08 in a nontraditional faith practice 04:12 asked for a reasonable accommodation 04:15 for to practice their faith or for dietary accommodations. 04:21 One of the things that was done was an assessment 04:24 of their long held and deeply felt beliefs 04:29 so perhaps rather than these are the fundamentals upon 04:34 which I plant my faith. 04:35 We could use a different term. 04:38 I have held these views for a long time 04:43 and they are deeply felt. 04:46 Long held and deeply felt beliefs. 04:48 Well, that's a very satisfactory explanation 04:52 but a term is sort of a shorthand way 04:53 of getting it something. 04:54 True. 04:56 So what term can we-- I haven't found one. 04:59 But I think something analogies in the general world 05:04 and certainly in the political climate 05:06 that we live in there has happened, 05:08 what happened within our own church on-- 05:13 wasn't the change in the term 05:14 but pejorative use of a legalist. 05:18 Anybody that was trying to live 05:21 an exemplary Christian life from a biblical ways basis 05:24 and then our church stand up 05:26 for the distinctives of our church, 05:29 an internal dispute, they were sort of put under a shadow 05:32 as though thereby they were legalists 05:34 and of course a Christian legalist thinking 05:36 that their actions saved them. 05:37 Right. That's pointless. 05:39 But it created a climate 05:41 where nobody wanted to be called a legalist 05:43 and standing for their faith 05:45 and it became very counterproductive. 05:47 So I see the same happening now 05:49 and it's tending to cower people 05:53 of a number of other faiths 05:56 than the radical fundamentalist terrorist types. 06:00 They don't want to-- you know, 06:01 the guilt by association charges are great 06:04 that they are now becoming sort of generic in their faith. 06:09 You know, I think that goes back 06:11 to the historicity of nomianism 06:16 and antinomianism that law, anti-law thing 06:20 and the idea that some people want 06:23 heavy restrictions to guide them, 06:25 others want no restrictions. 06:27 And when you come into that clash it, 06:34 it becomes a matter sometimes of might makes right. 06:37 Let me tell you something and please interject 06:40 because I don't want to just lecture to my guest 06:43 but I don't know that I've shared on this program. 06:45 I've been worried for a number of years 06:48 since the previous Pope Benedict 06:52 took a sermon in Regensburg, Germany, 06:56 that fired up the whole Muslim world. 06:58 Remember there were riots in his first sermon. 07:02 I think ill-advised and not warranted 07:04 but anyhow that really wasn't his sermon, 07:07 that was just the opening illustration. 07:09 I've read his sermon 07:10 and I'm troubled by what he was really saying. 07:12 Because he threw out an example of violence 07:15 in Islam of the time that he quoted 07:18 when they were besieging Constantinople. 07:21 And then the pope, he just took that as granted 07:24 and it totally-- 07:26 because it was only an anecdote 07:27 to set him up for his point, anyhow it is what it is. 07:30 But then he said, 07:31 Christianity too was once violent. 07:35 Now, I don't agree with that 07:36 because my understanding of Christian history 07:40 is shortly after Christ's death 07:42 and until Constantine took Christianity 07:45 under the imperial wing, 07:48 Christians were persecuted pretty freely 07:51 and the Romans were bemused 07:53 that they seemed gladly to go to the lions. 07:56 So they weren't violent but-- 07:58 Was he referring to the crusades? 08:01 No, I don't think so. 08:02 I think it was just wrong because he says, 08:05 listen to what he says there. 08:06 He says, Christians in the early days-- 08:09 He might have been, it's true they were violent. 08:13 But he said, "What took away the violent tendency 08:16 was the adoption of Hellenistic rationality." 08:21 So that would precede the crusades. 08:23 That's true. 08:24 You know, what I think he might mean 08:26 by that Hellenistic is that this was the insertion 08:29 of a philosophical concept from the Greeks 08:32 which I can see in the New Testament myself. 08:34 Not necessarily the same as, as heresy or doctrinal change. 08:39 Perhaps in the church he is describing 08:41 that might have been true. 08:43 But what really troubled me is what he says next. 08:46 He says, "The reformers by their insistence 08:51 on sola scriptura 08:54 exposed the church again to violence." 09:00 Interesting. 09:01 But fundamentalism, the idea that the Bible 09:05 is the only thing and you will live or die by it 09:08 and it's non-negotiable, that's fundamentalism violent. 09:13 But the follow-through on that was not that the believers 09:18 in sola scriptura were violent. 09:21 Violence was perpetrated against them because of that. 09:24 What, you and I know that, but in his logic 09:26 he set up his own logical progression, 09:29 it's based on syllogism basically-- 09:32 They based on the history perhaps. 09:33 Yeah. 09:35 But I thought that was not fair 09:37 and if anyone should have been rioting in the streets 09:40 it should have been Protestants, not Muslims. 09:45 I don't think the intent of that speech 09:46 was to have a shot at Muslims. 09:48 It could have been a flat-footed use of an example 09:51 which showed he didn't understand them. 09:53 They could have been upset about that 09:54 but he was not targeting Muslim. 09:55 True. 09:57 He was targeting 09:58 what he was trying to portray fundamentalist 10:01 Protestants who are as dangerous 10:04 as what we are now seeing with religious violence. 10:09 And that's kind of an amazing statement 10:14 that you made because it then pulls 10:17 the shroud away from what fundamentalist 10:22 in any belief system will do 10:25 if you are so fundamentally persuaded 10:30 that your right is ascendant 10:34 then it can dehumanize someone who doesn't see things 10:40 the way you see it. 10:42 And once that happens-- 10:43 If it's projected aggressively you are right. 10:45 And this is what the beginning-- 10:47 I haven't said it for a long time 10:48 but it struck me as important after 9/11. 10:51 We should be condemned everywhere 10:55 people that are willing to kill for their faith, to project it. 10:58 But we should be and we should admire people 11:01 who are willing to die for their faith. 11:02 There's a difference. True. 11:05 We don't want people who want to die for their faith, 11:07 that's sort of sick. 11:11 Kind of the impetus to-- 11:13 Like the Heaven's Gate and so on and all those people, no. 11:16 I mean, and certainly true 11:19 Christian faith is a life giving faith. 11:21 It's positive. It wouldn't throw things away. 11:24 Right. 11:25 But if push comes to shove and you are restricted, 11:29 you would remain faithful as the Bible says, 11:32 even unto death. 11:33 But that's not the same 11:34 and it could never be acceptable. 11:36 Don't you agree, in religious circles, 11:39 that I use force to compel you to believe what I believe? 11:42 That's just-- 11:43 That kind of works against the idea 11:47 that God creates individuals as free moral agents. 11:50 Right. 11:52 Yet there is that sense among fundamentalists 11:57 to compel especially youngers to walk in this way 12:02 and then the condemnation of those who don't 12:08 is a kind of violence 12:10 that that we some tension about 12:15 and if we didn't operate that way 12:20 there would be no reason or value to evangelism. 12:24 But we have to evangelize 12:26 because we do see that there are some-- 12:29 some things that are ascendantly right. 12:32 Well, you know, evangelism 12:33 you are getting onto a topic 12:35 we could have a whole program on. 12:37 Evangelism and liberty. 12:39 Well, well, proselytization. 12:42 The tendency all around the world 12:45 and at the United Nations in particular 12:47 is to restrict your ability 12:49 to project your faith to other people. 12:52 More and more there are some allowance 12:56 of religious freedom within a certain construct 12:58 but you stay that way. 13:01 And in my view it's-- 13:03 derives a little bit from religious nationalism. 13:05 You know, you are a Russian 13:09 therefore you're an eastern orthodox. 13:11 We need to take a break. 13:13 Let's pursue this very interesting topic 13:15 after a short break. 13:17 So stay with us we will be right back. |
Revised 2016-01-01