Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is the program
bringing you news, views,
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and up-to-date information
on religious liberty in the US
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and indeed around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty Magazine.
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And my guest on
this program is Andy Im.
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Welcome, Andy.
It's good to be here.
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For our guest's information,
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you are communication director
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for the Michigan Conference
of Seventh-day Adventist.
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Even more important
from my understanding is
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you are very much
involved with campus ministry.
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Yes.
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With young people.
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And you've been
religion lecturer
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at a self-supporting college.
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Yeah.
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So you've got wide experience
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and I know from
talking to you already,
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you have some insights
into religious liberty dynamics
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that I think we need to discuss.
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Sure.
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Now, you and I both
Seventh-day Adventist.
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Yes.
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Seventh-day Adventists have had
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a long history of
religious liberty concerns,
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haven't we?
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We have, yes. Why?
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Why do you think
it's so important
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for Seventh-day Adventist?
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Well, I think
it's very important
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for Seventh-day Adventist
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simply because
we worship on a day
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that the evangelical community
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does not worship on,
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which is the seventh
day, the Saturday or Sabbath.
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And so it's very important to us
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that we have the
freedom to worship on the day
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that we believe is biblical
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and also we wanna
protect that religious freedom.
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Not just for us as
Seventh-day Adventist,
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I believe that the freedom
of conscience is a principle
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that extends even beyond.
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So there's an
altruism that comes from
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that biblical perspective.
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Absolutely, absolutely.
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Now, I'll play the
devil side to get it more.
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Sure, sure.
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To be accommodated
because we're different,
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that's really not
quite religious liberty,
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that's,
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that is religious accommodation
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or religious
privilege if you like.
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Yes.
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What's the difference?
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What is religious liberty?
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This is what I'm trying to get
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an awful lot of our peers.
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Yes.
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And I think many of
our Christian brother
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and sisters out there
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and perhaps even
others of other religions,
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they think religious
liberty is a structural thing,
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getting the right to do
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what I want to
do in the community.
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In the US the
constitution makes that easier.
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But is that really
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what religious liberty is about,
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a legal construct
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or a rights oriented
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construct?
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I don't like the word 'right'
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when I think of
religious liberty.
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I think of it in the context
of liberty of conscience.
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Meaning that I believe that
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it's a God given reality
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for each individual to choose,
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I think, I believe that freewill
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is a very important notion
that involves religious liberty
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because it gives or
provides every individual
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the opportunity
to follow through
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his or her own conviction.
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And I don't know
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if that's quite
answering your question,
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maybe you're gonna have to
get a little more specific.
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I'm setting up not road blocks
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but the things we
need to deal with.
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You know, the US Constitution,
famously and admirably,
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it speaks about
inalienable rights by creator,
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doesn't really spell out
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whether it's talking
about the God of the Old
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or the New
Testaments or indeed anything
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other than just sort of deity
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that could cover
pagan and Christian deities.
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But it does give it a
sort of a divine attribute
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and I think that's very
close to the truth, isn't it?
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It is.
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Because a Bible
believing person has to believe
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that goes right
back to the creator.
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It's harder to prove it
seems to me from Christian
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and religious history
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because mostly through the ages
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religious leaders didn't grant
conscience rights to people.
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Yes, and you make a
very important point.
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I believe, for example,
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I think it's one
thing in terms of
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my own religious
conviction not to
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and I'm an ordain
minister, so I may refuse.
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Me too by the way.
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Yes.
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Well, praise the Lord.
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I may choose not to
marry an LGBT couple,
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if you will.
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Having said that if I
owned a grocery market
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or a store I certainly,
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I think that's
a different issue,
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I certainly
would have no problem
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in selling a product,
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you know, an item for
them to eat or and so forth.
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Well, you're jumping
into a contemporary issue
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that I might have wanted
to cover on another issue,
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another program,
but that's a good point.
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Yes.
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And that's exactly how I see it
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but it's not my view.
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And I don't think
it's just your view,
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this is a
thoroughly biblical view.
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Yes.
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We can't, as it says God
is no respecter of persons.
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That's right.
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It's not given to us
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to cast someone
into outer darkness
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because they're
different from us.
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Yes.
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And God will
ultimately reject people
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because of a bad decision
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but he doesn't cast them away
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or take away
their right to choose
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because they're
gonna chose wrongly.
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No.
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As a matter of fact.
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So they have every right,
as much right as you or I.
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That's right,
as a matter of fact
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the later part of
Matthew 5 speaks to this issue
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when Jesus
describing the father,
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states very explicitly
that he causes the rain
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and the sunshine
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to fall on both the
just and the unjust.
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And that's not
condoning the unjust behavior
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but nevertheless
God extends his graces
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to all of humanity
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so that they can make
choices to serve a God,
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you know, serve
him or to reject him.
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And he gives us
that freedom to do so.
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Back to the
principle of religious liberty,
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and I'm trying to make
not so much a distinction
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but make clear
religious liberty,
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biblical religious liberty,
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is something
distinct from enlightenment,
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self-determination which is good
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and as enabled religious liberty
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but it's not the source of it.
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There's no question
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that around the
time of the reformation
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there was a general
opening of human understanding
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in the sense of the
autonomy of the individual
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which was
historically anomalous.
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Yes.
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And they developed the idea
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that as that poem Invictus says,
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I'm the master of
my soul and my destiny.
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Well, that hadn't
been evident in society
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or religion to that point.
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And some elements of it
can really lead to sort of
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shaking your fist at God
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as they did in
the French Revolution.
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But I think it was
wonderfully enabling
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and inform the constitution
which in spite of what some of
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our fellow
residents in the US think.
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It's not biblically
based, it's a secular construct.
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But it definitely
empowered the practice of
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what is really a more true
biblical religious liberty.
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The idea, and I say this a lot,
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that we have been
liberated by the life
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and sacrifice and
resurrection of Christ,
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liberated from the power of sin.
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That is the true
liberty I suppose,
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it's a gospel of liberty, right?
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Absolutely.
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And we're
proclaiming that, I'm free.
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Yeah.
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The constitution
doesn't give it or can it,
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nor can it take it away.
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No, absolutely not.
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And so once you
see it on that level,
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I think it turns into a
little different direction.
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Yes.
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And now back to
Seventh-day Adventist.
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Do you think we're in danger
of sort of seeing it internally
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and just while
we get accommodation
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in the workplace
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and maybe some tax deductions
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and so on for
ourselves or our institutions
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and then we're happy?
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Yeah. Does it go beyond that?
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I do believe it
goes beyond that.
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Ultimately the way that
I see religious liberty,
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and you hit it right on the nail
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is a God given right for us
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to choose who our
creator is and so forth.
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Another thing that I'd
like to also bring out is
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that in society today
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you have really too
conflicting world views.
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You have more of
a secular world view
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that's really pushing
very aggressively their agenda
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whether it'd be, you
know, much of it deals
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with sexuality and so forth.
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I think the danger for
us as Seventh-day Adventist
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is to react in kind
using the same methodology
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as our secular
brothers and sisters are doing.
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Because we may be
about homosexual, not--
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We may oppose homosexuality,
same-sex marriage,
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and some of these issues
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because the Bible
speaks out against it.
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Having said that, I
think it's very dangerous
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when we as Seventh-day Adventist
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get into this mentality
and push morality in the way
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that secular society does.
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I believe true
transformation or true change
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does not come from any
enactments any legislation
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but through the Holy Spirit
who truly gives us freedom.
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And you touched
upon that earlier,
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he frees us from
the bondage of sin
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only conversion talked about
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in John 3 is the remedy,
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it's the true
remedy for society's evils.
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Well, you've also have touched,
talking about touching on,
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you touched on a
pet theory of man,
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that it's always an illusion
to confuse passing a law
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with changing society.
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Yes.
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And I go back to
the social contract.
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You really can't enforce much
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beyond what people in
the aggregate buy into.
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Yes.
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And if we could
somehow snap our fingers
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in the religious right,
for want of a better term,
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wish they can snap their fingers
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and create legislation
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and forbid
certain immoral behaviors.
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Yes.
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They wouldn't stop. Yes.
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And even if people
openly stop doing it,
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they would be dissatisfied
and rebellious underneath.
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That's right.
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So we have to seek to change
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again the term
of the Vietnam War,
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Hearts and Minds,
that's what we're about.
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Yes. And I'd like
to add one other thing.
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I've heard some
academics in the discussion
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saying that Christians,
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and there are
Christian academics saying,
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I have the right
to have an atmosphere
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or a society that is in
line with my Christian thinking.
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And I'm very
hesitant to agree with that
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simply because that imposes
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on the rights of
other individuals
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who live out their conscience.
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Absolutely. And that's--
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And where does
that right come from?
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Exactly, exactly, and
so, and I don't believe that,
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that's God's way of doing it.
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We're getting close to our break
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but the way I express it what,
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a lot of what passes
for religious liberty
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is really religious entitlement.
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Absolutely.
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And this is the right idea
that I'm entitled of my view,
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I'm entitled of a country
and a society that enforces
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or narrowly
encourages just my view.
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Yes. And bad luck to you.
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Yes.
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And that might be fine
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if you could know ahead of time
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and everybody could
be certain ahead of time
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that you had the right view.
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But you're not
dropping the conviction
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that you and I
have within ourselves.
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When you talk
about society as a whole
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and many
different belief systems,
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many different political view,
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you can't make that
decision for everybody.
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Everyone else thinks that
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they're right and you're wrong.
00:13:17.23\00:13:18.56
Yes.
00:13:18.59\00:13:19.93
So we need to give
this level plank field,
00:13:19.96\00:13:21.53
this open agenda for people
to make up their own minds.
00:13:21.56\00:13:26.74
It's the only fair way
00:13:26.77\00:13:28.10
and that's how God
acted in the beginning.
00:13:28.14\00:13:30.77
That's right.
00:13:30.81\00:13:32.14
You know, he says, you
know, let's reason together.
00:13:32.17\00:13:34.94
He's not gonna compel.
00:13:34.98\00:13:36.78
We're very close to
halfway through our program.
00:13:36.81\00:13:39.31
It always happens so quickly.
00:13:39.35\00:13:41.78
If you'll stay with us,
00:13:41.82\00:13:43.15
we'll be back shortly
to continue this discussion
00:13:43.18\00:13:45.35
with Andy Im.
00:13:45.39\00:13:48.82
Deep searching discussion
00:13:48.86\00:13:50.19
on what is religious
liberty not just for Adventists
00:13:50.23\00:13:52.99
but for all Christians.
00:13:53.03\00:13:54.36