Welcome back to Liberty Insider.
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Before the break,
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you saw a video
with an interview,
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an interview with a gentleman
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from the Middle East,
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from Egypt, and my guest,
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you are not from Egypt,
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you are not
from the Middle East.
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No.
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Good old USA,
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but you know we see
the world wide events
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and, Andy, I'd like to
talk a little bit further about
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how we can address
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this as
Christians and as westerners
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because I believe that
there is a real conflict,
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a clash of civilizations
and different religions
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that come with it.
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So you can't just sort of wish
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the thing away or
will it away by tolerance.
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There's
something heavy going on.
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But as you said about France,
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perhaps they were
overzealous in restricting
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something that in
itself was pretty harmless.
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But the facts are that they knew
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what it represented,
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this was sort
of the camel's nose
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in the tent flap
on a larger issue.
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Do you agree with that?
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I would, yes, absolutely.
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I think, of course,
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the issue has to do
with one's fundamental right
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or the freedom
of one's conscience
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to carry out their conviction
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and I think any laws
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especially that French
law in about 30 cities,
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I know it's been
overruled in some of them,
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but I do think that,
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that infringes on a person
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to carry out their
religious conviction
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and I would oppose that.
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Yes, and this is the catch.
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You have to have neutrality
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toward religious practices.
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Religious Liberty works
for all or it works for none.
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Once you start carving
off and in the United States
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ironically with
the President Bush's
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faith based initiative,
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they were very quickly
on the way to doing that.
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I remember talking to
one of their representatives
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for the faith based initiative
in the Justice Department
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and I said, "You're
funneling all this money,
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government money
through to the churches."
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You clearly have
a process of vetting
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who gets the money or not.
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So after while you
have a list of churches
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you trust and
churches you don't,
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and that's a very bad way
for the government to act.
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They should be out
of the church business
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and allow all
churches to operate.
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And if any church
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or Christian or any faith person
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in practicing their faith
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does something that
harms the fellow citizens
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or something dangerous,
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illegal, violent or whatever,
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they should be punished
under the law like anyone else.
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No hesitation,
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but don't mess with their
religious practice per se,
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and this is the danger
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of the French
thing I agree with you.
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Yeah.
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It's not good
that they have chosen
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to restrict this
particular religious practice.
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They're doing in
the name of secularity,
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but they could
just as easily say,
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you're not
allowed to pray in public.
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That's right.
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We don't want that.
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You see someone
bowing their head, fine.
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Yes.
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I mean they're
not about to do that
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but in theory they could
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or if there was a
change of administration.
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Yeah.
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You know what we are
seeing in society is a conflict
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of competing worldviews
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whether it be Islam,
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whether it be Christianity,
whether it be secularism,
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and I sincerely believe
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that we're reaching
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a stage in this earth's history
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where there
really is no solution
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and the anti is
being pushed toward,
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the envelop is being
pushed further and further
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to a point where these,
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where these conflicts
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are going to be
increasingly more.
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We're going to see them on
wider scale more frequently
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and that, that's
troubling and having said that,
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ultimately the ultimate solution
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will be the
second coming of Jesus
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and it behoove us as Christians
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to really work that much harder
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not in political
or social activism,
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but in again
taking the gospel message
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to the world.
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As far as religious liberty,
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way too many of my fellows
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Seventh-day
Adventist Christian say,
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exciting what you
just said, well listen,
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we know it's not going to end.
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We know that Jesus
coming is the only solution.
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And we know that there
will even be harassment,
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persecution of
certain religious groups
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so let it come.
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Let's have it.
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Why fight it,
let's just go through.
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And I think that
is misunderstanding
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the whole dynamic
and you're not saying
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that we should just fold
our hands and say let it come.
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Absolutely not because
that would be irresponsible
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for me as a
Christian to just say,
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you know what, Jesus
is going to come anyway,
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so let things roll as they are.
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No, Jesus gave us
the responsibility
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to stand up for the poor,
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the afflicted, and the abused,
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and the victims of society.
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And so I think we
need to play an active role
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in terms of helping and
assisting those in need.
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Whenever we can,
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at the same time
our eye should be set
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plainly toward
that second coming
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and gathering other
people to be with us.
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That's right.
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And of course,
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along with that we have
to deal with the religions,
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we have to be
charitable toward other people.
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We would defend religious
liberty because it enables
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what we're doing
as well as protects
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the inherent God given
rights of other people, right?
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That's right.
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But this thing in France
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and France is
not the only country.
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I think it's important
because I don't think in the US
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they quite understand
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what's happened to
France and Germany.
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There have been so
many migrant workers come in
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and so many immigrates
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from the once colonial outposts
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in parts of Paris.
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I remember a few years ago,
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I drove from one side
of Paris to the other,
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it was a mistake of the GPS.
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Rather than specifying shortest
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I specified most direct
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so I drove from
one side of Paris
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to the other, street by street.
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And I can tell you
there are whole stretches
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of miles upon mile.
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You think you're
in central Africa
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and not a nice
part of Central Africa,
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they're burned and
abandoned cars everywhere.
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Gutted buildings,
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decrepit buildings
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with people milling around them.
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They have...
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They were on the verge of losing
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social control over
parts of their own country.
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That would be bad period
but then when you throw in
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an intractable religious element
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that refuses to
not only to assimilate,
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but is an antagonistic toward
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both the secularism and
the religion of the France.
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They've got a problem
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that I'm sure
the secular leaders
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are just wringing their hands,
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they don't know
the answer to it.
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Their very identity
as a country is at stake.
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And you can say
the same for Germany.
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And I understand a
lot of this from seeing
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it but the only
thing I freely admit
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I don't understand
is who opened the gates
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last year and let those
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hundreds of thousands of
people flood into Europe.
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There's a plan somewhere
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and I don't even know
what the end point is,
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but it's easy to
see what it's creating,
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it's social conflict
and religious conflict
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on an unimaginable scale.
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And I do believe
these issues are too complex
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for you and I to even
attempt to solve them...
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No, but we need to discuss that
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because this is very important.
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These are acting as
trigger environments
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for some very untoward
religious liberty situations.
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That's right and
ultimately they're going,
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I mean it's being
discussed in our country.
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What to do with
the refugees in Syria
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and other countries and certain,
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and some of our
presidential candidate,
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candidates have very
specific views on that
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but, you know,
for me as a Christian
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I don't believe
it's my responsibility
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to engage that
debate in terms of policy
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and the politics of it
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but, what I do believe
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is a theological biblical matter
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is how I am to
treat and perceive
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those of faith communities
that differ from my own,
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and I don't,
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I don't believe we
should be branding them
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or articulating
how they are enemies
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and using pejorative language
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to describe any group of people,
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because ultimately we want
to win them to Christianity.
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Well, and this is the reality
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anyhow in France and in the US.
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It's unlikely that
enough buses could be,
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got to get at the ship all
of these people somewhere else.
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When you're dealing
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with tens of millions of people,
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it's the reality says somehow
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society is short of
the second coming of Christ
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needs to
minimize these conflicts
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and you're right.
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The principles of
Christian charity,
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the overarching
principle of religious liberty
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and the right of
all people to believe
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as they believe
and not to compel
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me to believe as they
believe which is part of us.
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No compulsion in religion,
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that principle
needs to be applied
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and it's the only way
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toward semi-peaceful
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or a peaceful society.
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Absolutely.
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We are, you know I love history
00:10:44.41\00:10:47.91
and there's no question
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we were at a
break point of history
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with even the nation states
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that date back to
just after Martin Luther
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and the 30 years war in Europe,
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states are breaking down,
societies are breaking down,
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religion is
erupting in violent ways
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and something needs to be done.
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Absolutely.
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And one thing that
I want to highlight
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as we close is that we
need to be very careful
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that we as Christians
00:11:14.84\00:11:17.11
do not take on the
viewpoints of news commentators,
00:11:17.14\00:11:22.38
of social media
in terms of how we,
00:11:22.41\00:11:24.85
how we view others
00:11:24.88\00:11:26.21
but we need to
have the Bible inform
00:11:26.25\00:11:28.48
how we view
others in other faiths.
00:11:28.52\00:11:33.09
Modesty
obviously has its limits.
00:11:33.12\00:11:36.52
And certain religious dress
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such as the full burka
may have revealed them.
00:11:38.59\00:11:42.60
But it's worth remembering
00:11:42.63\00:11:44.70
that in the Victorian era
00:11:44.73\00:11:46.50
and other times
in western society,
00:11:46.53\00:11:50.31
poems were written.
00:11:50.34\00:11:52.17
Many men were driven to
distraction by the sight
00:11:52.21\00:11:55.61
of a few inches of ankle.
00:11:55.64\00:11:58.81
We should be of
course understanding
00:11:58.85\00:12:02.25
of religious sensibilities
00:12:02.28\00:12:04.62
that after all are
aiming at the same respect
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and honor toward God
00:12:08.56\00:12:11.06
that Christians and others
would want in their behavior
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that we see in
this case Muslim dress.
00:12:14.56\00:12:19.93
The Seventh-day Adventist Church
00:12:19.97\00:12:21.44
as religious liberty
department has been careful
00:12:21.47\00:12:26.98
to help this concern.
00:12:27.01\00:12:28.34
I know in Oregon,
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we were one of
the main proponents
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of a religious dress
bill that definitely advance
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the principle of freedom
00:12:37.85\00:12:39.65
for religious
dress of all faiths.
00:12:39.69\00:12:42.26
But we must never think
00:12:42.29\00:12:44.79
that this is something
that we can dismiss out of hand
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just because the
social norm flies against it.
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Religion is not to be
equated with social norms.
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For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:12:58.34\00:13:01.98