Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is a program
bringing you news,
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views and discussion
and a lot of insights
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into religious liberty
events around the world
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and in particular
in the United States.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty Magazine
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and my guest on this program
is Gregory Greg Hamilton,
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President of the Northwest
Religious Liberty Association.
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And you're not a first
time guest on Liberty Insider.
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No, many times.
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Thank you for having me again.
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I know you can talk about
almost anything on this topic
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without any preparation
but there is something
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that I know you
just bubbling over about,
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all of us
watching the television
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in the last few months
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in the beginning of
the US presidential race,
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but watching each
party chose their candidate,
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it's been, it's been
historic, not good but historic.
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But it raises the question
in religious liberty circles
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or religious liberty principles,
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how involved do
you think a Christian,
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a Seventh-day Adventist,
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somebody that
believes in religious liberty.
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How involved should we be?
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Are we free to
become political creatures
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and become part of the presses?
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What's at play here?
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Well, you know, as a
Seventh-day Adventist
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Christian growing up in devout
Seventh-day Adventist home,
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in Bakersfield, California.
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We would drive up as kids,
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my dad and mom
would get in the car
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and they drive up to
Fresno, California to see my,
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his folks and my grandparents.
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And invariably after
church and after lunch,
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grandpa and my
dad and my brother
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and I would go
to the living room
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and grandpa would
kind of hold forth.
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And he was on politics,
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and it was either
theology or politics
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or social issues of the day.
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And he was an FDR or
Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
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New Deal Democrat.
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And my dad who was
the only child mind you,
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he decided he was
Barry Goldwater Republican.
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Okay, so...
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I remember that era,
that was very contentious.
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The Goldwater era in
my view was the closest
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to what we're
going through right now.
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He was portrait as
the end of freedom,
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you know, it's going to
be the big mushroom cloud
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if Goldwater was
elected and in retrospect
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when I read about
him, probably not so bad.
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Not so bad in
retrospect but still
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at least he was a senator,
at least he had common sense...
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And a track record.
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And so I wouldn't exactly
compare that to today's brace.
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No, but the panic in the Fuhrer
at the time was comparable.
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But I listened to
their conversations,
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it was
interesting because they just,
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they were quite direct
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and could be
quite emotional at times
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and I will never forget, I
mean this invariably happened
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almost every time
we visited up there,
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that wasn't just over Goldwater,
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that was all
elections after that.
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My mom and grandma
would come into the room
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where they were washing dishes
in the kitchen and they tell,
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"You guys quite
arguing and fighting."
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And Grandpa would look
up and Dad would look up
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and say almost harmoniously.
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We are having a
wonderful discussion,
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Go back and wash dishes
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which was kind of
sexist for the day,
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which I'm glad more
and more women are actually
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involved in the political scene,
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it's a fantastic thing.
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And one of the
things I learned from that
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and specifically
from my grandpa later on,
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he shared with me
Mark 12, the Christ being,
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His encounter with the
Pharisees and Herodians
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who said teacher, we
know you are man of integrity,
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you weren't swayed by men,
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you know they were really
trying to like good lobbyers
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trying to puff him up.
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And he says, because they say
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because you pay no
attention to who they are,
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but you teach the way of
God in accordance with a truth.
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Then they ask, is it right
to pay taxes to Caesar or not?
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Should we pay or shouldn't we?
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And Jesus knowing
their hypocrisy said,
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"Why are you trying to trap me?
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Bring me a denarius
and let me look at it.
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They brought the
coin and he asked him,
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whose portrait is
this and whose inscription.
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And of course
they said Caesar's,
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and then Jesus said to them,
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give to Caesar what is Caesar's
and to God what is God's.
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Now lot of people say,
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well how can you
get anything out of that
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in regard to voting.
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You can't, but would
you can get this one thing,
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and this is what my
grandfather taught me,
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and that is, you know,
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we have a responsibility
for good citizenship
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as Christians on this earth.
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And that's what
Jesus is saying here.
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Give in to
Caesar what is Caesar's,
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which is our citizenship duty.
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All right, so to speak.
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And then given to
God what is God's.
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So we have a role to play.
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So evangelical Christians
who assume that we should be
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isolationist and go
somewhere is, is not true.
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Second of all, the whole idea
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of not voting is
actually an American tradition.
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If you go back to the
beginning of elections,
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Protestants would
stay home many times
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and not vote as
a means of protest.
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And so even Mark Twain
has commented about this
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and the idea of staying home
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and protesting by
not voting is actually
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a long held American tradition.
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Maybe not a good tradition
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because I'm sure you
can argue from history
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some rather
abhorrent things have happened
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over the years because
only a minority of people voted
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when the people that might have
thought otherwise stayed home.
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Well, that was my
grandfather's point is that
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we really do have a
role as citizens to play
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and we really
should exercise that role.
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And I think
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one of the most
wonderful opportunities we have,
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privilege that we
have, a right if you will,
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is the right to vote.
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And I think we
have to exercise it.
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And you know they're better...
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well, not better,
that was some good text
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and I've used
that mostly to share
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that we should
stay out of politics.
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And it is interesting,
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the Pharisees and the Herodians,
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they were a political faction.
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Right, so Jesus did think that
they were trying to trick him,
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but remember Jesus Himself said,
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didn't he say Herod that fox.
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So he tilted against
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not a political
faction in the modern sense
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but with the political force.
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So he wasn't silent on that.
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But there is no
evidence Jesus was occupied
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but to emphasize your point,
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I think if Jesus was
giving an example of abstaining
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from the real
hurly-burly of the world.
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He'd been like, perhaps
John the Baptist type to know,
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but the Assyrians,
you know we think that
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John the Baptist
part of these things,
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community aside somewhere,
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just studying and contemplating.
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Like the
forerunners of the monks.
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Right and we know
that Jesus didn't do that
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with His disciples,
they traveled around
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and they were
part of everything.
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Right.
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And one of the things
I've noticed is wherever I go,
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I run into so many Seventh-day
Adventists well meaning,
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wonderful Seventh-day
Adventist Christians,
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wonderful folks who
say especially, you know,
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the little old
grannies and the grandfathers,
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well we shouldn't vote
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because Ellen White
says we shouldn't vote.
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And I say, well, show me that.
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Invariably they'll
come up with this reference,
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from Fundamentals
of Christian Education,
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page 475 by Ellen G. White.
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We should spell out a
little for our viewers,
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and show regular
viewers are familiar
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with this but
Ellen G. White was a...
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really a pioneer of Adventism
in the most practical form,
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she and her husband James White
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and the few others
Loughborough and so on.
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They were the guiding
lights in the formation of
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what is now a church.
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But as well as that she
was the women that had visions
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who was seen as
the visionary prophet,
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so she had a dual role,
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but she was
looked up to her a lot,
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not always accepted
automatically by the Adventist,
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so they tested
the spirits big time,
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but what she said on
this carries a lot of weight
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with Seventh-day Adventists.
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Well, and, you know,
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I look at Ellen White's example,
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and if you look
at her life I mean,
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she encouraged people to
get out and vote on issues,
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we know that.
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She says by voice and pen,
we should be against alcohol,
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we should be for prohibition.
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Well, that was
her big, big issue.
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It was her big issue, but
there was also dress reform,
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there was the biggest
issue of our country's history
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the anti-slavery movement.
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The Abolition movement
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which she was a
huge advocate for.
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In fact, even had visions saying
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that the angels were
on the side of the north
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but the north was
culpable and just as guilty
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for holding on to
slavery as long as they did
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as the south and so on,
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and that's in the first volume
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of the
Testimonies for the Church.
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Fascinating reading.
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Although, I
should throw in something
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which I don't
think undercuts your view
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on political involvement.
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But she directly
said that God's punishment
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rested on the south for
their embrace of slavery.
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Yes.
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But she was the leading
light among the forming church
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and saying that we shouldn't
be involved in military service.
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Yes.
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Even though, it was
just war if you'd like.
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This was still not enough
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for Seventh-day
Adventist Christians
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to justify their
involvement in something
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that overall was
not a good process.
00:10:13.41\00:10:15.51
But in reference to voting,
this is what's fascinating
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because people will say, well,
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but she didn't
believe in voting.
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Well, let me
give you an example,
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you can find this in
the book of Temperance.
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She had an incident one day
where the mayor of Battle Creek
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had a newspaper
interview and it was published,
00:10:30.66\00:10:33.06
and Ellen White read
it one Sunday morning
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and the mayor said
"Well, I'm in easy shoe
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to get related
here in Battle Creek
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because Adventists
won't come out to vote.
00:10:39.27\00:10:42.10
So it's easy for me.
00:10:42.14\00:10:43.64
Now, this really got
Ellen White upset, all right,
00:10:43.67\00:10:46.94
because here this guy
was a known womanizer,
00:10:46.98\00:10:50.01
a drunk, a gambler, and
as corrupt as all get out.
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All right?
00:10:53.38\00:10:54.72
I mean, she got appointments
00:10:54.75\00:10:56.08
from church to
church throughout that town,
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Adventists and non,
you know, not sermons
00:10:57.95\00:11:02.06
but just
announcement period time,
00:11:02.09\00:11:03.66
hey, you know, get out and vote.
00:11:03.69\00:11:06.46
You know, she
didn't say who to vote for
00:11:06.49\00:11:08.80
but get out and
vote, this is important
00:11:08.83\00:11:11.33
and I think that that
showed that her activism
00:11:11.37\00:11:15.40
took another step, it
went to another level.
00:11:15.44\00:11:19.31
And when I look at fundamentals
00:11:19.34\00:11:21.04
of Christian Education, page 475
00:11:21.08\00:11:23.04
it's easy to
misinterpret this to say
00:11:23.08\00:11:26.05
that she says
that we shouldn't vote.
00:11:26.08\00:11:28.58
It's so easy to misinterpret it.
00:11:28.62\00:11:30.49
Let me read
several portions of it
00:11:30.52\00:11:33.02
and we'll dwell on
certain aspects of it as we go.
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She says and this
is in reference counsel
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to educators in our schools
00:11:40.10\00:11:42.30
especially with our
impression with children
00:11:42.33\00:11:44.57
where teachers would
be debating about politics
00:11:44.60\00:11:47.87
and who to elect and
advocating for certain people,
00:11:47.90\00:11:50.97
which she says we should not do.
00:11:51.01\00:11:54.18
And we as church believe
very much in not doing that
00:11:54.21\00:11:57.71
and we should not ever endorse
any candidate as a church body.
00:11:57.75\00:12:01.75
Well, she spoke against
partisan or party politics.
00:12:01.78\00:12:05.85
We were not to be involved
in party political factions.
00:12:05.89\00:12:09.19
Yeah, we will get to that,
00:12:09.22\00:12:10.96
but the context behind
this was this background
00:12:10.99\00:12:15.66
regarding school teachers.
00:12:15.70\00:12:17.57
The Lord would have his
people bury political questions.
00:12:17.60\00:12:21.50
Now obviously she
was involved in the...
00:12:21.54\00:12:27.04
She was a national spokesperson
00:12:27.08\00:12:28.58
for the Women's
Christian Temperance Union
00:12:28.61\00:12:32.81
and which later unfortunately
was very much involved
00:12:32.85\00:12:37.15
with the National
Reform Association
00:12:37.19\00:12:38.75
and Lord's Day Alliance
to push for Sunday laws.
00:12:38.79\00:12:41.76
She found herself
walking a very fine line,
00:12:41.79\00:12:45.03
a tight rope so to speak
00:12:45.06\00:12:46.39
because she was very
much against the Sunday laws
00:12:46.43\00:12:48.23
even commissioned
AT Jones, Alonzo T.
00:12:48.26\00:12:50.80
Jones, famous evidence
pioneer to on Sunday law issues
00:12:50.83\00:12:55.64
to go and testify
before Senator Blair
00:12:55.67\00:13:00.61
in the Senate
Labor and Education
00:13:00.64\00:13:03.88
Committee in 1887 and 1888.
00:13:03.91\00:13:07.52
So, you know, she
was clearly astute
00:13:07.55\00:13:13.46
and nuanced in her
approach to understanding.
00:13:13.49\00:13:15.52
Absolutely, absolutely.
00:13:15.56\00:13:16.89
We will continue
this after a short break.
00:13:16.93\00:13:18.93
Stay with us.
00:13:18.96\00:13:20.30
Come back for this
interesting discussion of
00:13:20.33\00:13:23.43
whether Christians should vote
00:13:23.47\00:13:25.23
and what are the
real issues at hand.
00:13:25.27\00:13:26.80