Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is a program
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that we've been doing
now for several years.
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The topic of this
program is Religious Liberty,
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issues, analysis, and discussion
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both from the US
and around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty Magazine.
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And my guest for this
program is Amjad Waryam Alam.
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Yeah.
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And even not reading it well.
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I think I'm getting
more familiar with your name.
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We've done a couple
of previous interviews.
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You're doing
well. You're doing well.
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Had some discussions.
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You had a wide experience,
you're a literature evangelist,
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sometimes part of the year,
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you're a regular evangelist
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even back in your homeland
of Pakistan, other times,
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I guess a vocalist, a singer,
and a long time Adventist.
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We're on a program,
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talking about religious liberty.
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How do you see
religious liberty?
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What is its
importance and how does it work?
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What is it? What is this?
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In United States...
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It's like a song,
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"What is this
thing called love?"
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What is this thing
called religious liberty?
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I think we have lot of
freedom in United States,
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only thing is we are not
making use of it, you know.
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And we, whereas we
have a good chance of our,
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you know, for our
churches to grow, our, our...
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especially
evangelism through publication,
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through printed materials.
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For example, I just
wanted to share with you.
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Even now, that students
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when they work as colporteur
or literature evangelist,
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they are going door-to-door
and they get response.
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And in that freedom they
have, even people don't buy,
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they leave a sign, a
glow, you know, the small,
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you know that...
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A little pamphlet.
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A little
pamphlet, you know that.
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And people receive it
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and many lives
change even from that too.
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And look at the freedom,
they can talk to somebody,
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they can talk
about, and they can pray.
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And even they are
welcome in their homes,
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but many people do
not even respond also.
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But generally, the freedom
is there to approach people.
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There is no problem,
I don't see any problem.
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But you might not even be
aware of this some years ago,
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I guess, I would
say about ten years ago,
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there was a strong move
in many different communities
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across the US to restrict
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any sort of door-to-door
solicitation or selling.
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And there were local ordinances,
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there were people arrested.
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And the challenge
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thankfully went up
to the Supreme Court
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was brought by the
Jehovah's Witnesses.
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And the Supreme Court endorsed
what is in the constitution.
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"Yes, you have a right to go
door-to-door and talk to people
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in this case about your faith."
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But for that
Supreme Court action,
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what you were saying
is, "We have the freedom."
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It would have been gone.
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Yeah, would have been gone.
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And even some
places still, there's a...
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Oh, there's difficulties.
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There is a sticker
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or you can say
there's written that,
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"No soliciting."
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It mean no approaching.
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Matching the sort of
netherworld of their rights
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and their rights and so.
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But we had a
case not too long ago,
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where one of these
groups of young people
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during the summer
selling mega books.
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I know what it is
that, magazine books.
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People think mega,
they're not mega, they're big.
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But they are about four times
thicker than Liberty Magazine
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and the same trim size.
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And they're on health pro topics
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or another one on
the life of Christ
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and so on.
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And they sell this, and
this group were down south.
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I know the town,
but I won't mention it.
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And the local
police chief pulls up,
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arrested their leader.
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He was in jail for 24 hours.
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And action was
brought against them.
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And in the end, when the laws
were made clear to that town,
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they were at
least sent on their way.
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But there was an
intend to restrict and harass.
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It is also sometimes...
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And that's not totally unusual.
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It can happen. It can happen.
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You know why it
happens to us sometime too?
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If somebody complains,
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police even
come and talk to you,
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and they give you warning.
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And they, "Okay, you're warned
and next time when you go,
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then you're in trouble more."
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It's may be their
privacy, you know,
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that they are very careful.
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And if somebody complains,
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you can get in
serious troubles, you know.
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Yeah.
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And, you know,
I understand that.
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I get nefarious groups
and people coming around.
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Sometimes you think that
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they're not
really selling anything,
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they're casing
out the neighborhood.
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So you get a little suspicious.
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Yeah, little suspicious...
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It's like everything
on religious liberty.
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This is a balancing of rights,
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but there should be
an overall commitment
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to allowing people to share.
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Share their faith and discuss
faith issues with others.
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I think that there is
a very good like a way
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to approach is like student wear
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same kind of
T-shirts or uniform site
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and even Review and Herald
or Pacific Press at the moment,
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they issue ID card.
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These are the two
publishing houses that we had
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in the Seventh-day
Adventist church here.
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Oh, yeah.
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There are two, Review
and Herald or Pacific Press,
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you know, and in
that there's a department
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called Home Health Education
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that deals with
colporteurs, you know.
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And they issue their
ID cards. Book salesman.
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Book salesman.
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Very few Adventists
or otherwise will know
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what that term
means nowadays, I'm sure.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And now they issue the ID
card which is very good to have,
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you know, when people
see your badge, your ID card,
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or your uniform,
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then they will see that
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some profession
people are going.
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Otherwise, they are
very careful, you know.
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So the approach
is very important.
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Maybe we need to sell
sort of Girl Scout cookies
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with Bible text on them.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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No, because there's
certain thing like that
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the people feel
are well endorsed
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by a larger group,
and there's no resistance.
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And there is a
problem I feel like,
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again it's not nice to
say, but our church should hold,
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you know, some kind of a program
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or some kind of like
promotional time in different,
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in working days,
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especially to inviting people
to look at our books, you know,
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our own material, you know.
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Sometimes we are
just approaching all other
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and neglecting our own,
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you know that people don't know
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that church here supports
or organization support,
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it helps a lot.
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And why not, this...
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I was trying to tell you
the freedom we have for like,
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we have churches, colleges,
universities, hospitals,
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but this is all is
to bring honor and glory
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to Lord Jesus Christ.
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So when we cannot promote Jesus,
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we cannot promote our own,
you know, what you say that,
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denominational,
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you know, structure and
we cannot explain people.
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So I think we don't
have freedom inside,
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we have freedom outside.
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Well, that's a
secondary thing. Yeah.
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Within a certain
group, and even...
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I have questions
on this all the time.
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If there are doctrinal
disputes within a church,
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that's very unfortunate
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and it can even bring disrepute
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on what spiritual commitment
that church stands for.
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But that's not narrowly speaking
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of religious liberty issue
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because as the lawyers will say,
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"A church within the
church is free association.
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You're not
compelled to anything."
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But that's very regrettable.
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But what we need to talk
about is in the larger...
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But opportunities are
there in large overall...
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We're not taking
advantage, you are right.
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Yeah, we are not
taking advantage.
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But you are the one that
is trying to take advantage
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on out and around.
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You see firsthand
that the United States
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where you are working
does have societal commitment
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to religious liberty.
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You don't have,
see gross examples
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of restrictions of your
right to witness, right?
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I was at the airport last night.
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And there was a
lady, a couple sitting.
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And I just introduced myself.
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I'm a Seventh-day Adventist,
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and I'm a missionary evangelist,
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you know, and I have a
ministry called God of Life.
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And I told them,
and they were very nice.
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And they were from
Missouri and St. Louis.
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And they said, "Oh, yes."
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And I told them about
3ABN and they didn't mind it.
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And I said, "Can I
give you my brochure?"
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I was keep further.
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And I took a
brochure from my bag
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and give it to
them, God of Life.
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And she read it, and she
said, "Thank you very much."
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And she kept it.
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So I see that it's...
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there is at the airport
even, you don't have resistance,
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you know, you can
still talk to people.
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That's a wonderful thing.
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I can't say that's...
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That's a freedom, you know that.
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Yes. Liberty.
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Beyond the law,
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that's a freedom
created in the society
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and openness.
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And I don't think
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even in my homeland of Australia
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that quite exists,
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the legal freedoms of
religion are equal to the US.
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If people don't like
you to talk about religion,
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so they might spit back at you.
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Don't bother me, so and so.
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Get away, you know,
they could use their freedom.
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Yeah, there is always a case.
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That happens a bit here,
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but in the US to
give it a full due,
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you can talk
religion with most people.
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They will not
automatically be offended.
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I think general rule,
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I see the freedom of this
religious liberty of freedom
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is that I learned
that from my friend
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that if we talk something good,
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I think people will not react
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and religious
have something good
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to give it to the society.
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Yeah, giving it in
the right attitude,
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not forcing
religion on someone...
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Yeah, yeah, but not forcing...
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But it's one human being
that cares for the other,
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here I'm sharing
something with them.
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And there's a way to approach,
I said in the beginning also.
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How you approach to people?
00:10:03.73\00:10:05.10
Are you just telling
them, "Oh, we are just,
00:10:05.13\00:10:09.17
like a Seventh-day Adventist,
or we are religious people,
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you should follow us."
00:10:11.44\00:10:12.77
No, you show
Christ like character
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that people are
get attracted to you.
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You should have your
personality built up enough
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that influence why
people should see that.
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And that helps also
but the freedom is there.
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We need to take good
advantage of that, I would say.
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Yeah.
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What do you think
we can do, you know,
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you're in this culture now.
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What can people
in western countries
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and in particular
the US do to encourage
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and continue a
commitment to religious freedom
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and religious openness?
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I feel that
evangelism is a one way.
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Any form of evangelism,
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you do it through
literature evangelist
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or through the
meetings or through the gospel,
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singing, preaching.
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If we do that, you know,
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that I think the
work will finish soon.
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And even specially
encourage the young people...
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Well, you're using the term
maybe regular 3ABN people know,
00:11:07.96\00:11:12.07
but I need to explain that.
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You say the work
will finish soon.
00:11:13.47\00:11:15.77
It's an interesting fact
of Christianity in general,
00:11:15.80\00:11:18.87
and even when I look to
other religions like Islam,
00:11:18.91\00:11:21.88
that there's a sense of
the end of the human story
00:11:21.91\00:11:25.68
where it goes to another phase.
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And in the Bible, I read
that after things have declined
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and the principles of
rebellion to God's system,
00:11:31.72\00:11:36.76
once they've worked through
00:11:36.79\00:11:38.13
that God will come
and set things right.
00:11:38.16\00:11:40.80
And so we're working
toward that grand point,
00:11:40.83\00:11:42.96
aren't we, when you
said the work will finish.
00:11:43.00\00:11:45.23
Seventh-day
Adventists, we are waiting
00:11:45.27\00:11:47.24
for second
coming of Jesus Christ.
00:11:47.27\00:11:49.10
And we've been
given a gospel commission
00:11:49.14\00:11:51.17
to spread the word far and wide.
00:11:51.21\00:11:53.44
And when that's
done, Christ will come.
00:11:53.48\00:11:55.48
Yeah, Matthew 24:14 said that,
00:11:55.51\00:11:59.11
"This gospel of kingdom
00:11:59.15\00:12:00.52
shall be preached
to the whole world,
00:12:00.55\00:12:02.68
to the all world,
then shall end come."
00:12:02.72\00:12:04.82
So that is what I
was mean to say that.
00:12:04.85\00:12:09.99
I'm jumping back to
your homeland of Pakistan.
00:12:10.03\00:12:12.86
But does that help you
in dealing with Muslims,
00:12:12.89\00:12:15.50
because I know Islam
has this same concept...
00:12:15.53\00:12:17.27
People read about Bible.
00:12:17.30\00:12:18.63
People...
00:12:18.67\00:12:20.00
But Islam has the same
concept of the end of the world,
00:12:20.04\00:12:22.67
and of a setting
everything right,
00:12:22.70\00:12:24.07
and Muhammad and
Jesus, and the 12th Imam,
00:12:24.11\00:12:28.21
the whole heavenly host
come back and settle things.
00:12:28.24\00:12:29.61
Let me just tell you something.
00:12:29.64\00:12:30.98
Muslim people do believe
that we have the Holy Book.
00:12:31.01\00:12:34.58
They respect Bible.
00:12:34.62\00:12:36.38
And they believe in the
Bible, you know, I feel that,
00:12:36.42\00:12:40.06
because they
think and they believe
00:12:40.09\00:12:45.33
that we have the Holy Book.
00:12:45.36\00:12:47.86
And Jesus Christ is a prophet.
00:12:47.90\00:12:50.13
Oh, they accept
him as a prophet,
00:12:50.17\00:12:51.70
but not in the same fullness.
00:12:51.73\00:12:53.10
We believe it.
00:12:53.13\00:12:54.47
Let's take a break and come back
00:12:54.50\00:12:55.84
and continue this discussion.
00:12:55.87\00:12:57.54
We'll take a break
now and be back shortly.
00:12:57.57\00:12:59.37
Stay with us.
00:12:59.41\00:13:00.74