Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000342A
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00:27 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:29 This is the program bringing you news, views, discussion, 00:32 up-to-date information on religious liberty 00:36 around the world and in the United States 00:39 particularly at the moment 00:41 as we have just gone through 00:42 the gauntlet of a presidential election. 00:44 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:48 And my guest is Dr. Stephen Mansfield, 00:50 New York Times best selling author, lecturer. 00:55 Maybe if we have another program, 00:57 we can talk about your role in manly men. 00:59 Oh, great. I love to. 01:01 I've even wondered if that's a take off on your name, 01:03 Mansfield. 01:04 I think the publisher intended that way. 01:06 Yes, they get sometimes get clever like that. 01:08 Sure. 01:10 You know, religion has been, 01:11 long been a powerful force in American society 01:15 not to mention worldwide, I mean, 01:18 you know just not love that makes the world go around. 01:19 It's faith in God. 01:22 Of course, I can say God, 01:23 someone else can say mantled in or 01:25 whatever God is different to different people. 01:27 I don't think human beings can exist without 01:31 spirituality and a divine 01:35 calling if you like. 01:37 But where do we go after 01:39 the recent US presidential election, 01:43 some very religious and irreligious debates. 01:46 What's the role of religion 01:48 as we move into the 21st century 01:51 and big brother in 1984 writ large, 01:53 earlier that sounds even ancient to mention it 1984. 01:55 Sure. 01:57 Well, I mean there may be what, 01:58 it ought to be in a lot of people's minds, 02:00 but I immersed it right down what it is, 02:02 the reality is that it's having 02:04 profound influence on our politics. 02:06 Again, if people just reflect on this recent election, 02:08 everybody on the Republican side 02:10 was faith based in some way 02:12 and the frontrunner for the Democratic side 02:14 was one of the most faith based politicians in our generation, 02:17 I let mister, you know, Sanders offer for... 02:21 He says he's not religious, 02:22 I'll leave him alone on that subject, 02:23 but the fact is religion is having 02:25 a profound influence on our politics, 02:27 and so going forward we've got to begin 02:29 as I say in the titled we ask the right questions. 02:32 We've got to get the press engaged raising these issues. 02:34 We've got to educate people better about these matters, 02:36 and this is a responsibility for churches 02:38 as well as in our schools, a public schools, 02:42 well, why can't a church take seminars on Islam 02:44 and what have you, 02:46 but we are setting ourselves up for problems 02:48 and some of them that I'd say that 02:50 of the top five problems in the world, 02:52 three of them are faith based, faith oriented. 02:55 And so we're flying blind here 02:58 because we've been taught to expect 03:00 that religion would eventually end as John Lennon sang, 03:03 imagine there is no religion, 03:05 and we can imagine it 03:06 but that's not the reality of our age. 03:07 Yeah, our God died one in the '50 or '60. 03:11 In 1963 I think. 03:12 Yes, well, I mean they said that, 03:14 I remember the headlines God is dead 03:15 but He hasn't died, 03:17 He will come back. 03:19 You know, Mel Gibson's film was exhibit 03:22 a how powerful the appeal of the older Bible story is, 03:27 not really God's not gone away but He's moved a lot. 03:29 Yes. 03:31 And a lot of things are done in the name of God 03:32 that are not good and that's what bothers me 03:34 about uncritical involvement of religion in politics, 03:40 because it can easily lead to religious demagoguery 03:43 and an agenda that's very sectarian, 03:46 you know, of particular sect view. 03:48 Well, that's what I... 03:50 There is no question that's true. 03:51 It also is having a massive impact on our public policy. 03:55 Consider for a moment that Barrack Obama 03:57 entered into office opposed the same sex marriage, 04:01 reversed himself in office 04:03 and claim he did it 04:04 based in his reading of the Sermon on the Mount. 04:07 Now may be that's all window dressing, 04:09 but that was the presentation. 04:12 Hillary Clinton reversed herself 04:14 on six or seven different massive issues 04:16 and now, you know, 04:18 is of course a major player in our politics. 04:20 So my point is that we are fools 04:22 to not be asking these questions in advance, 04:26 and by the way let me make a quick side point 04:28 which is that the more non traditional 04:30 we become about religion, 04:32 the more millennials are sort of cafeteria religious 04:35 or cafeteria Christians they're putting together faith. 04:38 You know, I was in Iraq with the soldiers 04:39 and I asked one young man what he believed. 04:41 He said, well, two part Sunday school 04:43 and little bit of Sunday school, 04:45 little bit of church 04:47 and then some Deepak Chopra and some Oprah... 04:48 And he actually said that. 04:49 Yeah, and a couple of fortune cookies he said, 04:51 that's a little what he said. 04:52 Well, so my point is that in the future 04:54 we will be looking at just trying to understand what... 04:56 It's like a charm blazer. 04:57 Exactly, exactly. 04:59 What does it mean if a presidential candidates says 05:01 they're Catholic or Methodist, 05:02 the word doesn't mean today anymore 05:04 because people are curating their own face, 05:06 putting them together on their own, 05:07 which means we have to ask even more questions, 05:09 if I patch together nine or ten different religious views 05:12 and made it my faith, 05:14 you've got to ask a lot of questions 05:15 to find out what I believe. 05:16 We'll have that kind of person running for office. 05:18 Yeah. 05:19 Well, the big issue that's 05:21 I don't think it's peaked yet 05:22 and you led to us is same sex marriage 05:24 and the conflict between the rights 05:28 of that coalition and Christians, 05:31 where do you think that's going, 05:32 because that does seem to be 05:34 two immovable or at least, 05:39 two groups that aren't ready to backup in anyway. 05:41 Right. 05:42 I think that's going to be 05:43 one of the defining issues of the next era. 05:45 I think we're looking at legislation in some states, 05:47 California for example 05:49 that could literally close down our religious schools. 05:52 Yes, I intend to have a program on that issue. 05:54 Good, good. 05:55 And our religious liberty group 05:57 from the Adventist church have discussed 05:58 this at great length. 06:00 It's a huge issue. 06:01 We believe it will come back and come back 06:02 until they get what they want on this. 06:04 And the part of the problem is that 06:05 I don't think the churches know 06:08 how to fight in the public realm. 06:10 We're not real good at the lawsuits, 06:12 we're not real good at the case law, 06:14 and so we're right now we're started to the victims. 06:17 And unfortunately at least part of the problem is 06:19 it's the negative pay off for churches taking state money. 06:23 Right. 06:24 So the state somewhat legitimately sees them 06:27 as bought institutions. 06:29 And I have to say that I believe 06:30 that's going to be a massive trend in the future, 06:33 the Christian schools, 06:34 Christian churches will stop taking state money. 06:37 And go back to their origin. 06:38 Exactly, which may be a pure 06:41 and we're pure in our faith that we have been. 06:43 Absolutely, that's what I think. 06:44 I mean it's gonna be very traumatic. 06:46 But I do think that that's, it's either that or the church 06:50 will unfortunately do as it did under Nazism co-opt. 06:55 Yep. 06:56 And that's not going to be good. 06:58 Well. 06:59 Which could happen that because you know, 07:00 the Episcopal church with the gay bishops 07:02 and all the rest, 07:03 I mean they showed that it's almost their limit, 07:05 where the Catholics from Biblical absolute 07:07 you can go anywhere into church. 07:08 Absolutely. 07:10 And by the way that's where Protestantism is in America. 07:12 It's interesting, 07:13 speaking a lot as I do about faith of Hillary Clinton 07:15 or the faith of Barrack Obama, 07:17 faith of George W. Bush. 07:19 Many times I'm in discussions and people were asking, 07:21 well, how did they get so extreme 07:23 talking about Obama and Hillary Clinton. 07:25 The fact is that's exactly 07:27 where mainline Protestantism is. 07:29 People are surprised to find that 07:30 most of the major Protestant denominations are pro-abortion, 07:34 are pro-gay have taken where it's questioning 07:36 the authority of scripture etcetera, etcetera. 07:38 So just because they bear the name Protestant 07:41 does not mean that they're in anyway Orthodox, 07:43 and that is mainstream Protestantism 07:45 right now in America. 07:46 Yes. 07:48 It's good to hear you say that, 07:50 and you know, we can't, 07:52 shouldn't condemn them for that, 07:53 just feel saddened 07:56 that they've lost their merit moorings. 07:57 Yeah. 07:59 You know, and early Adventist author Ellen White 08:01 writing to a pioneer group, 08:03 she used a very harsh word for that phenomenon. 08:05 She said apostate Protestantism. 08:07 Yeah. 08:08 You know, we're used to hearing apostate with the Muslims 08:10 as a up rated. 08:12 Sure. 08:13 But it shouldn't be that way but it may, 08:14 just mean sort of drifting away from their founding principles 08:17 and you're right, the drift is quite extreme. 08:19 Yeah. 08:20 And for example when we're talking about 08:22 Barrack Obama's faith. 08:23 He is a member of the United, 08:24 he was the member of the United Church of Christ, 08:26 that's the only church he ever attended. 08:28 It's the most liberal Protestant 08:30 denomination in America. 08:31 They had their first gay clergymen in 1972. 08:34 So in essence here you had this unchurched young man, 08:38 he entered the Protestant church 08:40 and the Protestant church taught him 08:42 what he became religiously. 08:43 Well, we can be upset with that, 08:45 we can disagree with that and I definitely do, 08:47 but the fact is he sat in church for 20 years 08:49 in an American Protestant church 08:51 and that's what people aren't getting is that 08:53 the majority of Protestantism leads that way. 08:55 Yeah, I agree with you 08:57 and we've spoken about it privately. 08:58 I think this crazy charge over the years 09:01 by some of his worst detractors that he is a closet Muslim. 09:04 It's just not founded on anything 09:06 and even if it were true it's not unconstitutional, 09:09 I mean that say no religious test. 09:11 In theory we can have an atheist president 09:14 we never have, 09:16 because no one would openly acknowledge it. 09:17 Well, the charge that he is a Muslim 09:19 and the charge that he wasn't born in the US, 09:21 it's been a huge waste of time. 09:22 Absolutely. 09:24 A huge waste of money and of course 09:25 the Right has on its face on this and other issues. 09:28 And I wish, I'm not trying to paint myself as the hero, 09:32 but I tried to get through the back of that topic, 09:34 I mean I asked them to play it through 09:36 even if there had been legitimate charges 09:39 that he wasn't born in the US, 09:40 the lawsuits would have taken longer than his presidency, 09:43 it was a waste of time and now we look stupid. 09:45 And it would have been... 09:48 Well, it would have been, 09:50 I was going to say not a constitutional crisis, 09:52 it would have been a political crisis 09:54 because the issue like 09:56 Clinton would have been one of false testimony and so, 09:59 but people have forgotten why that's even a clause. 10:03 They didn't early on this new Republic 10:07 separated from England, 10:08 they didn't want a carpet begging Englishmen 10:10 coming taking over. 10:11 And I can remember just before Obama was elected, 10:14 the Republicans were anxious to put Arnold Schwarzenegger up, 10:17 and they wanted to change the clause to him in. 10:21 So all you really need now is a residency requirement 10:25 that says that this person is truly "American" 10:29 but now that was never a big issue, 10:31 it's certainly the religion that just hearsay... 10:34 Yeah, that's right. 10:35 To malign someone. 10:37 Well, it's also based on ignorance, 10:38 I mean in fact... 10:39 And you have to judge on his actions and he is... 10:41 Exactly. 10:42 You know, he tried to play, cave the Muslims 10:43 but I see no direct evidence of, 10:47 even slightest that he was pushing an Islamic agenda. 10:50 Well, and again you know, to become a Muslim, 10:53 you have to as an adult have made that confession 10:58 and practice from that point on. 10:59 Well, Barrack Obama wasn't even, 11:01 did not live in the Islamic world, 11:03 and after he became a teenager 11:06 and once he became a teenager, 11:07 he was secular and then joined a Protestant church, 11:09 so it was an assumption that 11:11 because he had lived in Indonesia for two years 11:13 and gone in one case to a Muslim school for while 11:16 that he was somehow a Muslim. 11:18 People just don't even understand 11:19 how you became a Muslim 11:21 and they were like knocking his door, 11:22 and again it really made people to really look foolish now. 11:25 And, you know, it's always good to mention, 11:27 I mean it's not his personal narrative 11:29 but the Treaty of Tripoli was very... 11:33 I'm not sure you're historian, 11:36 where there even Muslims living in the US 11:38 at the time of that treaty, very unlikely. 11:41 There were some, there were some, very few. 11:42 They were probably on one hand. 11:44 Yeah, very few, mostly slaves. 11:45 But they purposely went out of their way to say that 11:47 this country is not founded on religion 11:48 and it's for every one Muslim. 11:50 What do they say, 11:52 Musalman or whatever it is an old term. 11:53 Yeah. 11:55 So it's non issue. Right. 11:56 But you're right, 11:58 religion has been a very prominent 12:00 part of President Obama's tenure 12:05 and of course the religious war big time. 12:08 Yeah. 12:09 And we can almost have a separate program on it, 12:12 but I note that 12:15 Putin and Russia have declared a holy, 12:18 like a holy war against terrorism, 12:21 they not mean any terrorism, they mean Islamic terrorism. 12:23 Right. 12:25 So we're very close to global religious war 12:27 and the US is amidst all in it. 12:28 Yes, no question. 12:30 And we don't, we're not seeing the trends. 12:31 The Russian Orthodox Church is on a dramatic rise in Russia, 12:35 Putin is a champion for it. 12:37 The same diametral playing out elsewhere, 12:40 and so these are the factors 12:42 and I'm not sure that we're aware 12:43 of how this collision is coming. 12:46 Yeah. 12:47 Now we're telling people now. 12:49 They would hopefully, hopefully 12:50 I hope they're getting, they get it. 12:51 I mean it's not so much to rev people up. 12:53 We don't want paranoia 12:54 or religious fanaticism on the loose 12:57 but people need to be aware of the dynamic 12:59 not just willfully ignorant. 13:01 We're thinking at something else which... 13:02 Exactly, exactly. 13:04 Either thinking and saying consequential 13:05 and not understanding it how it's consequential, 13:08 both of those are problems 13:09 and I think it's going to continue to be an issue 13:11 because we're not a less religious people, 13:13 we're a more religious people, 13:15 and then there is more customization of religion. 13:17 Yeah. 13:18 You know, you talk to millennial, 13:19 they may not be patching it from religion. 13:21 You're right, it's do it yourself religion. 13:22 Exactly. 13:23 You have to ask, you have to dive into the details. 13:25 On one level it's troubling 13:26 but another level it's very good 13:28 because it shows people are more consciously 13:29 reaching towards something outside themselves. 13:30 Right. 13:32 We need to take a break. 13:33 Stay with us, 13:34 we'll be right back to continue this discussion, 13:36 religion and where is it going in the US 13:38 and I guess by extension in the world. 13:40 We will be back. |
Revised 2016-11-17