Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Greg Hamilton
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000326B
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00:05 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:07 This is the program bringing you news, 00:09 views, discussion, argumentation, 00:12 insights on religious liberty events 00:14 in the United States and around the world. 00:17 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty magazine. 00:21 And my guest Gregory Hamilton, 00:23 president of the North-West Religious Liberty Association. 00:26 We've been really into the weeds on history 00:28 on this discussion of, lately, neo-fascism, 00:34 moving in even to the citadel of democratic liberalism 00:38 in the United States. 00:39 And of course, the ramifications 00:41 for religious freedom, along with that. 00:44 Because it was just fascism, 00:46 which is not a good system, 00:48 still Christianity and religious freedom 00:51 might not be encouraged, but you live with it. 00:54 From the Bible, I don't see any charter 00:57 for Christians to overthrow whatever the order is, 01:00 we live within that system. 01:01 Right. 01:02 But describing it, we have to call despite-despite 01:05 and fascism is not a good 01:08 structural development for civil 01:10 and religious freedom, is it? 01:11 No, it isn't. 01:13 And I contemplate a statement out of the book, 01:15 The Great Controversy, page 443, that goes like this, 01:18 "In order for the United States, 01:20 our country, to form an image of the beast," 01:23 now when we talk about the beast, 01:24 we're talking about the ancient Roman Catholic power 01:28 or the holy Roman Empire... 01:30 And an image is a copy. 01:31 In which the church dominated and controlled, 01:34 the state manipulated and controlled 01:36 the will of the state, the will of emperors and kings, 01:40 so as a church type paradigm, 01:42 in which the church controlled the state. 01:45 "In order for United States to form an image of the beast, 01:47 or in a likeness of that model, of church in state, 01:51 the religious power must so control the civil government, 01:55 that the authority of the state will also be employed 01:57 by the church to accomplish her own ends." 02:01 So if that's the future, which is clearly foretold here 02:05 in Great Controversy of page 443, 02:07 we see it in Revelation 13, we see it in Revelation 17, 02:11 then what kind of government is that, 02:15 it's very clearly a government 02:17 that is manipulated and controlled 02:20 by religious factions or religious peoples. 02:24 Because in the United States, 02:25 you have so many different religions, 02:27 you know, a big melting pot of religions 02:29 and so they got to come together 02:32 on something that's common, 02:34 and usually it's economics or it's, it's... 02:38 Or the environment. 02:39 ...political desperation. 02:41 Yeah, the environment. 02:42 The environment seems to be doing that. 02:43 And so there seems to be all these, 02:45 now do you mean the climate change issue... 02:48 Or the degradation of the world. 02:50 ...or the political environment. 02:51 No, that the world environmentally is collapsing. 02:56 And the very, as, as the Pope says 02:58 in his document on, 03:02 I'm trying to think of the Latin term, 03:06 my mind is getting blank, 03:08 but it came out just a year ago 03:10 and he says there that 03:11 the very survival of humanity is dependent upon this. 03:14 Well, when that's at stake 03:17 and you're presenting it from a religious point of view, 03:19 who's gonna resist it. 03:20 Yeah, absolutely. 03:22 I do think, as a prelude to that, 03:26 religious fundamentalist terrorism, 03:30 99 percent of it from Islam, 03:32 is acting as a foil to bring some of these changes about. 03:38 But I think the real survival issue is the environment. 03:42 Islamic fundamentalism doesn't threaten that very being. 03:47 No, it doesn't. 03:48 And a lot of people use that as a big poster child, 03:51 the big bugaboo, so to speak, to, you know, 03:55 to state all kinds of outrageous things. 03:59 But the problem I'm having is this whole idea of religions 04:05 coming together, in a common cause, 04:08 to basically turn the nation around back towards God. 04:12 I mean if you looked at 04:13 one particular Republican candidate, 04:15 during the primary season, he was clearly into that, 04:18 in the name of restoring the constitution 04:21 and religious freedom, ironically. 04:23 That particular candidate was into dominionism. 04:27 Yes. 04:28 And dominionism, 04:29 most people don't know about it, 04:31 but it's the first cousin to Christian reconstructionism, 04:34 which is the Christian version of the Taliban. 04:37 An Old Testament legal framework, 04:40 where there's death for Sunday breaking, 04:43 and death for abortion and things like that 04:47 or those that are involved with abortion. 04:50 It seems that there seems to be 04:52 a potential paradigm shift, you know, 04:54 the pendulum swinging. 04:56 A lot of people say "Well, okay." 04:58 What if this image to the beast is formed? 05:02 In Seventh-day Adventist terms 05:03 of understanding Bible prophecy, 05:05 does it come from socialism, the social left? 05:08 And many, many Adventists still believe 05:11 that it comes from the socialist left, 05:13 that somehow we're gonna get a Sunday law, 05:16 national Sunday law, not just Sunday Blue laws 05:18 for closing business and about worship laws, 05:21 from the left, okay, which is interesting. 05:24 Because when it says that religion or religious powers 05:28 must so control the civil government, 05:30 that the authority of the state will also be employed 05:32 by the church to accomplish her own ends. 05:34 I don't read anything about socialism in there. 05:37 Atheism, secular humanism, 05:39 it's just the opposite and I think 05:41 it's a pendulum swing. 05:43 What we see here is, as we move more towards 05:46 social programming on the left, towards democratic socialism, 05:50 there is this lashing out from the right. 05:54 And I want to add this. 05:56 It's a pattern of history anyway. 05:57 Most, most 05:59 dictatorships throughout history 06:00 or governments that are oppressive, okay, 06:06 tend to be just a slim or not a majority 06:11 but a large minority, in other words, 06:14 they are not actually the majority, 06:16 which is interesting, how they come to power. 06:18 Well, you don't-- 06:20 We're back to a previous discussion you and I had. 06:22 And it boils down to the country and the people. 06:24 In a country where most people don't vote, 06:26 you are in need of that minority 06:28 to still win a morality in the actual election. 06:29 Exactly. And people don't realize that. 06:32 And so if you just sit back 06:34 and stay home and you don't vote, 06:37 which is very American, to protest, not vote, 06:40 but think about what you are doing. 06:42 You're allowing even a significant minority 06:46 to control the country for a long period of time, 06:50 in a very detrimental way. 06:52 In order for evil to prosper, 06:54 a good man just need to do nothing. 06:56 Well, the Christian right currently, 06:57 and this is my example, the Christian right in America, 06:59 which is basically made up of evangelical Protestants 07:03 and evangelical conservative Catholics, 07:06 all right, are clearly a minority in this country. 07:10 They represent about 38 percent in the election, 07:12 and so when you take that factor, 07:16 if they come out and vote in force, 07:20 and democrats, liberals, 07:22 who basically outnumber republicans by two to one 07:26 in terms of voting registration rolls, 07:29 if they stay home, that's why they end up losing election. 07:33 And so, I mean, we saw with Bush versus Gore, 07:37 I mean it was handed by the Supreme Court to Bush, 07:40 but it was such a close election. 07:42 But in that election, evangelicals came out in force, 07:46 all right, and people forget that. 07:49 Now there is nothing wrong with evangelicals 07:51 coming out in force, I'm one of those, 07:53 evangelicals coming out in force, 07:56 who vote for a president that upholds the constitutional 07:59 separation church date and will appoint supreme court justices 08:02 who uphold the constitutional separation of church date 08:05 and the free exercise of religion. 08:06 So... 08:08 But that said, if you go down the road 08:11 of voting for candidates 08:14 who appoint supreme court justices, 08:17 who want to tilt a direction of religious authority 08:23 in this country, 08:26 it will take us down a road of a different type of fascism 08:30 than we've ever seen, 08:32 because a national Sunday law is a form of nationalism. 08:36 Nationalism as properly defined, 08:39 is a form of socialism. 08:41 So people forget about that. 08:43 When you nationalize the auto industry, 08:45 you socialized it. 08:47 Think about that. 08:48 Yeah. 08:49 Now we are playing with it is as a system. 08:51 And it's explainable, 08:53 I don't think the American Electorate 08:55 have any hankering for despotic systems. 09:00 But they're delivering themselves, 09:02 almost inadvertently into this sort of a structure. 09:05 You know, this grand power of the state, 09:08 where they defer to it on every thing. 09:10 And, there is a readiness 09:12 for some sort of a religious renewal to the country. 09:17 People don't have to be religious, and this is, 09:19 you and I know, there are a lot of people, 09:22 we discuss this with, say, 09:24 oh, you know people are less religious than before, 09:25 you don't have to be religious in your personal spirituality, 09:30 necessarily to be behind 09:31 the movement for public morality, 09:34 and that's growing up, same in Europe. 09:36 Secular country, 09:38 but the religious identities are very strong. 09:40 And I believe that there is a reaction there 09:43 that's gonna take on a religious flavor very shortly. 09:46 And add to that, 09:47 if you've got a dysfunctional congress, 09:50 and you end up with more and more presidents, 09:53 you know, thinking they've got to have 09:55 more and more executive orders, 09:57 where does that take our country. 09:58 Not a lot of people say what president Obama, 10:00 he hasn't been the worst in terms of executive orders. 10:03 Now when you consider 10:04 Woodrow Wilson has some like 1100 of them, 10:07 when you consider that Franklin Delano Roosevelt 10:09 had about 1800 of them, 10:11 when you consider that Ronald Reagan 10:14 had something like 900, 10:16 Bill Clinton had a little about, little over 1000, 10:19 then you have George W. Bush, who had 497, I think it was, 10:24 and then president Obama comes along, 10:26 and he barely has a little over 200, 10:29 you know, so I think, he's got the bad rap on that. 10:33 But that said, there seems to be some executive orders 10:37 that he's put forward, they say, 10:38 they're so egregious, which, 10:40 you know, I can understand that. 10:42 But the point is this, 10:43 if you got a dysfunctional congress in the future 10:46 that becomes increasingly dysfunctional, if it does, 10:49 become increasingly dysfunctional, 10:51 then that gives right to an all powerful presidency, 10:55 and an all powerful executive branch, 10:58 which is not what the constitutional 11:00 founders intended. 11:01 And so when you look at the definition of fascism, 11:05 which involves a centralized, autocratic government, 11:08 headed by a dictatorial leader, I mean, 11:11 the constitutional founders intended 11:12 a strong central government 11:14 but not a strong central autocratic government. 11:16 Are you sure they intended 11:18 the strong central government? 11:19 Yes, they did. 11:21 I firmly believe that. 11:22 In the Alexander Hamilton tradition... 11:23 They intended it to be strong, 11:25 but it had to defer to the south state sovereignty. 11:28 It was only in defense, they wanted it, 11:33 and in interstate commerce. 11:34 Yeah, I don't agree with that at all, yeah. 11:37 That's, I mean, that's plainly stated... 11:39 We can have another discussion on that. 11:42 The constitutional founders intended 11:44 a strong central government. 11:46 And they didn't however intend a strong central, 11:50 autocratic government by a dictator. 11:53 And so we have to understand this, 11:54 when we are talking about fascism, 11:56 we need to be as careful 11:57 as a nation of going down the road, 12:00 of a fascism that is the fascism of the future, 12:03 a fascism in which church and state are joined together, 12:07 which is the most dangerous form of government, in history. 12:11 History has proven that very much. 12:13 So let's remember that, 12:15 let's be responsible citizens and go down the road 12:20 of upholding religious freedom. 12:23 We tend to think of fascism 12:25 as a purely secular phenomenon. 12:29 But if you think back to the recent experiments 12:32 with fascist socialism, if you like, 12:36 both the Nazis and the Italian fascists 12:40 had accomplished their gain on power 12:43 by a close alliance with the church. 12:47 Today, as we drift toward a form of democratic fascism, 12:52 if you like, 12:53 I think there is the very real likelihood, 12:56 because it's already partially apparent 13:00 that religious forces will be the enablers 13:03 in this new dynamic that creeps upon us 13:06 in a democratic gauze. 13:09 But the end result will be a fascist totalitarianism 13:14 that not only worships the instruments of the state, 13:18 but has us directly worship the gods of the state, 13:22 and the religious and secular goals 13:25 melted together of that same state. 13:28 History never quite repeats itself, 13:31 but the models of history are clear 13:36 and we are drifting 13:38 in a rather fascist direction today. 13:43 For Liberty Insider, I'm Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2016-08-04