Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Nicolas Miller
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000353B
|
00:04 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:07 I hope you're finding this a good discussion 00:10 with author Nick Miller. 00:12 And this is as good a chance as any to... 00:14 You have to hold up in front of us 00:16 'cause the green screen isn't... 00:18 Yes, that's a good point. 00:19 Yeah, so it's The Reformation and the Remnant. 00:21 So tell about this book 00:22 that you've recently put together. 00:24 So it's the 500th years as we've been discussing 00:26 of the Protestant Reformation and so I wrote a book here 00:30 called The Reformation and the Remnant 00:33 which gives an overview of the Protestant Reformers 00:37 and especially how some of their central ideas 00:41 relate to issues in our church today. 00:43 The Seventh-day Adventist Church. 00:45 Well, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, 00:46 but many Christian churches. 00:48 I just thought you want to particularize it 00:50 'cause not all of our viewers know the point of reference 00:54 that we have for Seventh-day Adventist. 00:55 Sure, but really any Christian church 00:58 appreciates the lessons of the Reformers, 01:00 The Reformation and the Remnant, 01:02 you can get it on Amazon or on Kindle. 01:05 But it informs some of the discussions 01:07 we're having today, 01:09 particularly about wanting to talk about the relevance 01:12 of some of Martin Luther's beliefs 01:15 to our world and country today, 01:18 and I mentioned earlier in his 95 Theses, 01:22 he's talking about the authority of scripture 01:25 and that leads to the duty 01:27 and right of each individual to read 01:29 and interpret scripture for themselves. 01:31 We call this the priesthood of believers. 01:33 Which is something that even today 01:35 the Roman Catholic Church post Vatican II 01:38 and other modernizations, 01:40 it's still uncomfortable with the average person 01:43 being there using the Bible as its own interpreter. 01:46 Well, it becomes a democratization 01:48 of the church, doesn't it? 01:49 That everybody is expected to read 01:51 and understand for themselves 01:53 and it's not that we each become our own little pope, 01:56 but that we are part of a community 01:59 and all of us need to read and study 02:01 and decide together as a body 02:03 what it is we think the Bible teaches. 02:07 Now this was, 02:08 sounds like a revolutionary spiritual idea, 02:11 but this becomes a revolutionary political idea 02:14 because you can see the implications. 02:16 Martin Luther saw some of them in his day, 02:18 but backed away from them, 02:20 you mentioned the Peasants' Revolt. 02:22 He became concerned about civics stability, 02:26 but he originally taught 02:28 and some of his followers picked up on the idea 02:30 that the civil magistrate should not decide 02:33 what was heresy and what was truth 02:35 in religious matters, 02:37 that this was for the church and believers to decide. 02:39 And you can see the logic involved in saying, 02:42 if the state passes religious laws, 02:45 it must take the Bible and interpret it 02:47 and apply it to your life. 02:49 Well, that interrupts this relationship 02:52 that you're meant to have with God 02:54 and the Bible yourself. 02:56 But he needed to continue that argument 02:58 because that would only strengthen 02:59 the prerogatives of the papacy 03:01 that was set against him at that point. 03:04 The papacy was wanting to use 03:08 the civil state to enforce spiritualism. 03:11 No, but they would use them and that was the, 03:14 you know, the marriage of church and state 03:16 that made that the persecution even worse, 03:20 but the church itself absent the state would still have gone 03:26 for Martin Luther, of course, 03:27 they had inside church discipline and... 03:31 But there was a very clear teaching 03:32 that the church itself 03:34 could not use the swords civil force 03:36 and so, in a sense the medieval church 03:39 believed in a separation of church and state. 03:41 It's just that the priest couldn't wield the sword 03:43 what would happen is the priest... 03:44 I know they would stick the state on to them. 03:46 They would pass the ruling, "This man is a heretic." 03:49 And then they would turn them over... 03:50 But they had no hesitancy to excommunicate someone, 03:54 but in medieval society meant, you couldn't function, 03:57 you couldn't buy, sell or... 03:59 Because the civil, there were civil penalties 04:02 that went with that because today, we still, 04:04 we don't call excommunication, we call it disfellowship, 04:07 but we'll do that today 04:08 but it doesn't have a civil ramifications function. 04:13 In Roman Catholicism 04:15 and even in the early Protestant era, 04:18 when you were cut off from the community, 04:22 no church member could deal with you 04:25 or they would be excommunicate, 04:27 so since it was a uniform body of believers, 04:31 you would be cast into utter darkness. 04:33 Well, this was... 04:34 Didn't depend on civil power directly. 04:36 Well, but the reason you could be cast into utter darkness 04:39 is because the civil authorities 04:40 were carrying along with it, I mean that's... 04:44 Once you get contemporary, 04:45 the local baker wouldn't sell you a cake 04:48 because he would be cast off and when he was cast off, 04:53 the church members wouldn't buy his other ways. 04:56 Well, this could really only happen in very controlled... 05:01 Which they lived in. 05:02 Mono-religious cultures which Geneva happened to be 05:07 and so I'll give you that was the case, 05:09 and indeed at what you're pointing out is that, 05:11 in Protestantism itself, there was a split, 05:13 and for many years the magisterial Protestants, 05:16 the Lutherans and the Calvinists 05:18 continued essentially 05:19 a medieval church state arrangement. 05:22 It was the Anabaptists who picked that up. 05:24 Thank you, I'm glad you're picking on to that. 05:25 On Luther's... 05:27 The Anabaptists were the real revolutionaries 05:29 of the Reformation. 05:31 Right, yes. 05:32 And many of them ended up as refugees 05:34 into the United States. 05:36 They were persecuted by both the Catholics, 05:38 the Lutherans, and the Calvinists. 05:40 Yeah. 05:41 And how did their ideas come to America? 05:43 A few of them actually came... 05:45 Well, even the... Most of them didn't... 05:47 Even the Amish and the Mennonites. 05:53 Amish and the Mennonites... 05:55 They're Anabaptists. 05:56 Are inheritors of the Anabaptist tradition, 06:00 but also the English Baptists, the pure, 06:03 some Puritans came over to Holland 06:04 at the end of the 16th century and met some Anabaptists 06:09 and took on some of their views, 06:10 not all of them, 06:11 but freedom of the will at all baptism 06:14 and the separation of church and state. 06:16 And they returned to England and began writing these things, 06:21 they didn't actually have direct impact 06:23 in England themselves, 06:25 they were always a sideline minority, 06:27 but they influence some very important people, 06:29 some names you recognize John Milton, John Locke... 06:34 My literate hero. 06:35 And Roger Williams. Yeah. 06:37 And so, in through those vehicles, 06:40 these ideas about the separation 06:44 of church and state 06:45 and the state only having jurisdiction 06:47 over the physical outward manifestations of conduct 06:51 and not religious belief or conduct. 06:54 You know, what's coming out of this is the Reformation 06:56 was an incredibly rich, blossoming of religion, 06:59 and political destinies. 07:03 Religious thought impacted philosophical thought. 07:08 I'll bounce of you, you know, 07:10 I really got to recommend this again, this is wonderful... 07:13 One with your chest because they don't say it 07:14 in the front of the green screen, 07:16 apparently it doesn't work. 07:17 Not as good. 07:19 It needs to be contrasted, the real author is concerned 07:22 about the integrity of the book, 07:24 but, you know, I can't recommend this too highly. 07:29 We need to talk about and restudy the Reformation 07:32 and this is a very pertinent study, 07:36 but, you know, the Reformation goes 07:38 many different ways and I'll bounce this off you. 07:41 I believe our whole modern political order 07:45 basically derives from something 07:47 that the Reformation produced. 07:50 A bad thing of the Reformation apart from German nationalism 07:54 were the religious wars in Europe, 07:55 30 years of war, but they were religious wars 07:58 between the old Roman Catholic order 08:01 and the countries that supported it... 08:03 And the new Protestants. 08:04 And the new Protestant civil states 08:06 or emerging states. 08:08 The Treaty of Westphalia settled the 30 years war 08:11 which was devastating to Europe 08:13 and established the modern nation state, 08:15 which we still live under that concept. 08:17 1648. Yeah. 08:19 If you remember from your high school history. 08:21 And I picked up on this from Henry Kissinger, 08:23 I mean I've studied this before, 08:24 but it really resonated with me 08:26 when Henry Kissinger recently pointed out 08:29 that the zone, not zone, drone strikes, 08:33 and other things like that and wars of, 08:38 where we just march in and change the rulers 08:41 because we don't like them. 08:43 All of that threatens the order established 08:46 at the Treaty of Westphalia, and as we pulled down 08:48 the nation state and the integrity 08:51 that the state has even to do bad things. 08:54 We're actually going back... 08:56 To the medieval period. To the medieval period. 08:58 And many other things might reemerge along with that. 09:02 Well, that's really an interesting observation, 09:05 that, and I think, we see a reinjection 09:10 of religious identity into some of these wars. 09:13 Now you're getting into my thinking. 09:14 I think, I wrote on it recently, 09:17 it's like we're going backwards. 09:19 It's we're devolving, not in the exact same order, 09:22 but many of the same, the main elements 09:25 of being devolved back to a pre-Luther era. 09:29 And even Luther, as you know, you were mentioning him before 09:33 and his key role and importance today, 09:36 but there's been an agreement 09:38 between Rome and the main Lutheran body, 09:41 saying it was all a mistake. 09:42 Well, I think that what's happened, 09:44 especially in the last 150 years 09:46 has been the rise of secularism, 09:48 and the rise of secularism 09:49 has caused many religious people 09:50 to overlook the differences they have with other religions 09:54 and say our common enemy is secularism, 09:57 and unfortunately, what that's causing is 10:01 for some people to choose a medieval outlook of the world 10:05 over against secular French Revolution 10:08 outlook of the world and this doesn't, 10:11 I think give fair credence to the difference 10:14 in the medieval view and the Protestant view. 10:17 The Protestant view saying 10:19 we shouldn't create political divides along religious lines 10:22 that we shouldn't infuse a us versus them in the war 10:26 on terror based on religious identities, 10:30 and this sort of clash of civilizations class 10:33 of religions is taking us back as you're suggesting 10:37 this earlier more dangerous period. 10:38 And we don't want to get back to that. 10:40 I think part of their security is in at reinventing 10:44 the Reformation if you like. 10:47 In an earlier program, 10:48 I mentioned el-Sisi saying it to Islam, good advice, 10:52 but we can say it to Christianity too. 10:54 We need to reinvent the Reformation. 10:56 If the separation of church and state 10:58 was originally a religious idea, 11:01 not a secular or a communist idea 11:04 as some people propose, but it was based 11:06 not on hostility towards religion, 11:09 but on the importance of religion between man and God 11:13 and it didn't mean 11:14 that there couldn't be a moral concern for the state. 11:17 And this is where the separation 11:18 of church and state goes too far, 11:20 where it becomes a separation of morality 11:22 and the state. 11:23 And in our next program, we're gonna talk more about 11:25 what is this morality going to look like 11:27 when we separate church and state. 11:29 But we have to learn the first lesson 11:31 which is that the priesthood of believers, 11:33 the right of private judgment 11:36 in matters of Bible study and religion 11:38 is a key foundational pillar of Protestants. 11:41 Well, the priesthood of all believers 11:42 is thoroughly biblical idea, not a Luther's idea. 11:45 Well, not just Luther's idea, 11:47 it's one he founded from the Bible. 11:49 He got it from the Bible. 11:50 And absent the Old Testament priesthood which was literal. 11:54 As Paul says, 11:56 "Now that you know the gentile male or the female, 11:58 and we all come to the Father through Jesus, 12:02 but we do it individually." 12:04 So the central thrust of the Protestant message 12:07 was one that laid the principles 12:10 for religious freedom and pluralism, 12:13 it's in a religious idea 12:15 which we need to embrace and not discard. 12:19 I've been to Rome and seen pilot staircase 12:22 where a little over 500 years ago, 12:25 a Roman Catholic monk named Martin Luther, 12:29 suddenly had a blinding inspiration 12:32 that this was a futile activity 12:34 and that the just shall live by faith. 12:38 In reality, that guiding call of the Reformation 12:42 has continued all of those 500 years 12:45 since he nailed the Theses 95 of them, 12:49 to the door of Wittenberg, Cathedral. 12:52 But in reality, beyond that, it was the growing, 12:56 learning of the time, it was the 80,000 books, 13:00 mostly Bibles, that was surrounding him 13:03 as he moved out and made his stand. 13:06 It was in his day, the equivalent of the internet 13:10 and the widespread dissemination of information 13:13 that today we must make sure continues 13:16 our sense of reformation. 13:20 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2017-04-06