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Welcome to The Liberty Insider.
This is the program based on
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religious liberty news
developments, late-breaking
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issues that you need to
know. This discussion here is
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something that I think will
give some power to this topic.
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My guest, Dr. Stephen Mansfield,
best-selling author, lecturer,
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and the manly man idea, maybe
we can mention that a little
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later in the program. I didn't
say that lightly because the
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the topic I want to discuss is
the reformation. 2017 is a the
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500th anniversary. You know when
I think of the reformation, I
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think of Martin
Luther, the manly man.
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Yeah, that's right.
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It took a lot of moxie for
him although he started somewhat
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inadvertently. But to stand
before the Holy Roman Emperor
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with all the German princes
around and, more dangerous for
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him, the papal
legate, determined to send him
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to the stake. So, you know, this
is what I believe. Here I stand,
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I can do nothing else.
That's right. And that isn't the
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reformation in toto but he's
become the lightening rod, or
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quickly became the lightening
rod and pretty much the
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towering figure of the
reformation. How do you see the
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the reformation playing into
our present reality? Is it worth
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celebrating or is it
just things of bygone ages?
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No, it's absolutely worth
celebrating. I'm going to be
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actually in Germany for that
500th anniversary. Oh great!
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It's also the 500th anniversary
of Berlin where I grew up as a
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boy. So I think it's important
that we celebrate it because it
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really gave birth to the western
world, I mean, in a very serious
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sense. The reformation,
Protestantism that came out of
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the reformation, the issues of
the reformation, feeds into our
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politics. It was Lord Leopold
von Ranke who said that John
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Calvin was the virtual founder
of America and he was making a
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connection between the
reformation thinking and the
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founding of this country and
really the birth of the west in
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it's modern sense. So it's
essential that we remember that
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time. Tell me more. How did he
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connect Calvin? I wouldn't
have chose him. I mean, I'm not
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saying it couldn't be him.
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Sure. Well many of the ways that
people thought politically came
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out of Calvin's governorship
of Geneva, his thinking about
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church and state. You know
Calvin taught that church and
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state are alike in
faith, separate in function.
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This could... This
could join governance to
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theology. Right, not so much
the T.U.L.I.P. acrostic or the
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salvation doctrine, soteriology,
but certainly politically
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basically one other historian
said that America at it's
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founding was
political Calvinism.
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Yeah, I tend in my mind to link
America more to John Wycliffe
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and the Lollards and the English
reformation which through
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Puritanism lead directly to a
religious governance after the
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Civil War with Oliver Cromwell.
Then all of the disaffected or
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the
disillusioned, revolutionaries
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flooding into the U.S. I truly
believe that that's set, you
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know the city set on a hill,
even though that terminology
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was early. But the city
set on a hill and the American
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exceptionalism, I trace it
straight back to Cromwell and
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his era. Well and
even more broadly than
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what we're discussing right now,
the fact is that the protestant
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break from the Roman Catholic
church, the protestant embracing
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of the nation state in a sense.
Again, this is how Protestantism
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worked. It gave birth to
Scotland, it gave birth to
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modern Germany. It gave birth...
So, so many political ideas came
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out of the reformation even
apart from its more theological
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and ecclesiastical reforms.
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But can it be
removed from its theology?
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Yeah, I think it can. I mean,
not legitimately, but I mean I
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think there can be a
secularizing of almost any
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theology and still for that
theology in some form to have
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impact. In fact, that's
probably what's happened.
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Let me just ask the question.
Martin Luther is a great hero,
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but I think even his greatest
supporters now sort of wince
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when they read some of
his diatribes against Rome.
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They might have been
theologically correct but they
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they were very immoderate. Even
in the United States, even the
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Klu Klux Klan, people just think
of it as racists, but it was
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white, protestant America which
meant often killing Catholics.
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No human being with any decency
would endorse that today. But
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all of that said there were very
real, palpable differences that
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led between the dominant church
of Rome and the reformers, which
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led to Protestantism. While the
protestants may have forgotten
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them those are still significant
issues. So how do we recover
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them? Well you
know I think one of the
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things we have to do is
remember we have to see a
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person in context with their
times. There's not any figure
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in history who doesn't
look a little foolish judged by
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modernism, judged by our modern
standards. I mean, Lincoln who
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we revere in this
country was, had...
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If we'd written a book
on his religious journey...
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He had racist attitudes, he
tried to commit suicide twice.
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I mean, if we're going to start
going down that path we can
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dismiss everybody in history.
Yeah, Martin Luther used
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language that was vile and
he may have been slightly drunk
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when he wrote some of his
sermons. He wrote them in pubs
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you know. His wife was a
brew mistress and if you're anti
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alcohol well then of course
that becomes evidence. We can
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just start adding to the list.
But I think the important thing
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for us to remember is that had
there not been the protestant
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break from the Roman Catholic
church and had there not been...
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We'd still be in the
dark ages. Exactly, exactly.
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Or maybe a slightly more
enlightened version of them.
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Or this would be a Christian
version of the Keller faith.
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There's no other way to say it.
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And so many concepts of freedom,
many concepts of federalism, the
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very idea of the separation
of church and state while still
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being like a sort of a
philosophical foundation, all of
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these are protestant ideas. None
of these came from the middle
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ages or from early Christianity.
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Yeah, so this is what I think
is the challenge for protestants
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and the protestant-based society
of the U.S. in 2017. Have it
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celebrated, reinvigorates
without acting unchristian or
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belligerently toward Roman
Catholics. We're a more global
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community and America wants to
be a civil society. They're our
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brothers on a human level but
we've really got to just ideally
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stand on our theological guns.
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Absolutely. At the same time
we have to realize that Roman
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Catholicism has changed. Much of
what Luther was contending for
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the Roman Catholic church
has absorbed, they have repented
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for certain actions. They
no longer teach certain things.
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You know, I do a lot of pro-
life work and therefore work
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with Catholics and priests and
what have you and we have long
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discussions about theology in
our spare time and the fact is
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half to three-quarters of what
Martin Luther was contending as
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as a reform for the Roman
Catholic church has actually
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become Roman Catholic doctrine.
So, again, I'm not Roman
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Catholic myself but I'm just
saying it shouldn't be too hard
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for us to celebrate the
reformation without necessarily
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condemning the Catholic Church
because this is almost the Roman
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Catholic church the protestant
reformation helped produce.
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Well I notice that Pope Francis
is going to be celebrating the
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reformation at a church
in Scandinavia, I'm trying to
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remember. A very significant
part of there, it's a protestant
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church. Well, you know, that's
find. I wouldn't say he couldn't
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but it does trouble me a little
bit when they're taking full
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ownership because it's not done
yet. It's not the same church.
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None of us, the pope included,
lived back them so we can't be
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as their document Memory and
Reconciliation said you can't
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easily ascribe today's sins to
people of another era or guilt
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for people today for
what was done yesterday.
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We should also keep in mind that
had we been living at the time
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of let's say 50 years after
Luther, you and I would have
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been put to death. Absolutely.
Well John Paul II called us his
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departed brethren. That's
a radical transformation, a
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radical change. So there's far
more unites us than divides us,
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I believe, especially when
it comes to facing society.
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As long as we can accept that in
the familial sense of creatures
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of a Creator God but
not drop our theology.
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Not our theological
distinctives, no. I don't think
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they're asking that
and we're certainly not.
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It's a very interesting
_ And of course I need to
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reiterate for our viewers the
principle of religious liberty
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as I see it is very close to
the constitution. In fact, it's
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essentially the same though
because we're all created by
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God, we have dignity and rights,
we should be free to choose or
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reject anything on this nature,
worship any God or profane any
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God even if there might be a
consequence later. And I have to
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respect your right to hold
whatever you have. In fact,
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more than that, defend your
right to believe what I hate
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with my life if it comes to
it. Exactly. If we carry that
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forward we couldn't have
anything like the inquisitions
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and all the rest of the past.
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Right, well in sort of a
secular way that comes from the
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reformation document, the
priesthood of all believers
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In other words, you're a priest
unto God. We have a certain
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amount of autonomy in these
matters and you don't rule over
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my conscience and I don't
rule over yours. That comes from
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the reformation, that leads
us to this condition where I'm
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fighting to defend in a civil
sense what I don't agree within
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I can throw a very strange
wrench into this discussion
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philosophically. I didn't
see the full movie but there's a
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movie, Inception. It seems
to me as a society with the
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technological tools, we're
moving closer to thought control
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to even the genesis of a
thought that's unacceptable.
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If the state has some control of
that it's very unlikely that the
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divergent religious views will
escape oversight. So this high
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ideal that you and I share,
we talked about, really in our
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technological society is
becoming more religiously
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charged, really under some
threat. There's a plan on the
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horizon. Yeah. I
till you too, it was
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very interesting, I wrote a book
called The Faith of the American
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Soldier and I was embedded with
U.S. troops in Iraq during the
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time. I was interviewing the
soldiers asking them about what
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they believed and so on. One of
the issues at the time was that
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there was precisely this issue
of technology you raised and
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that is chaplains aren't really
allowed to speak about the
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justification for the war
and framing the war in religious
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terms, so the soldiers were
getting that, those who wanted
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that kind of framing. They were
getting that from pastors back
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home. They were getting that
from various prominent speakers.
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So you'd have views of Islam
believed by soldiers who are
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fighting a Muslim army and
they're getting their views of
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Islam from pastors back home on
pod cast. This was contrary to
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military doctrine, contrary to
the U.S. position, but this was
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how they were feeling because
it's become so individualized.
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I think that's the
direction our society is going.
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Yes. The genie's out of the
bottle. I'm giving the danger.
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I don't really know the
answer of course but I see the
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tool is being supplied that's
very liberal and threatening to
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this exalted nature of the
individual prerogative and the
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sanctity of your own inner
thoughts. As you know even in
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the Soviet Union in its hay day
allowed religious freedom, they
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said. They didn't allow
religious practice but you were
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allowed to believe what you
want. But we're approaching the
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point with some justification
because we know with the
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terrorists you don't see it
until they blow themselves and
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you up. So you get to ask what
is their thinking that might
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give rise to that. So we're
very close to thought _ in my
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view. Right.
Well and our Catholic
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friends would say, speaking
of Catholicism, they've got this
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magisterium, they've got this
body of teaching and they are
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trying to preserve it.
Protestantism, not having that,
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has allowed
hyper individualization
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that has just allowed the
fundamentals of the faith, I
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don't mean in the fundamentalism
sense, but the foundations of
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the faith coming out of the
reformation to be discarded.
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The majority of protestants in
America don't believe anything
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like reformation faith. And
that's part of the contention
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we're having in our society for
how do you have any standards
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about belief.
Very good summation.
00:13:32.94\00:13:35.74
Good point to take a break. Stay
with us viewers. We'll be back
00:13:35.78\00:13:39.21
after a short break to
continue this discussion of the
00:13:39.25\00:13:41.98
reformation and it's
ramifications for today.
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