Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is a program bringing you
discussion, news, evaluation,
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up-to-date information
on religious liberty.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty Magazine
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and my guest on the program
Dr. Nic Miller, lawyer, author,
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college professor,
history professor...
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Andrews University.
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At Andrews University.
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Really a
multifaceted, renaissance man.
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Oh, you're very kind,
Lincoln. Yeah. Good on you.
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And...
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Am I gonna kick him
under the table today?
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I was...
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You got ahead of me.
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I thought better of the joke
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but years ago when we
did the program we used to...
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Kick each other under the table.
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Cue each other under the table.
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It was Lincoln's first, he
used to preach all the time
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and he wasn't
used to give and take
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of a television program.
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And so he'd
launch into a monologue
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and I have to
remind him where he was,
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where he could...
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Well, I think...
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He's developed over the years.
Position that you relies over.
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Anyway the
topic for today. Yeah.
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Let's talk more about
the Protestant Reformation,
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which again
I'll boost your book.
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500 year anniversary of
the Protestant Reformation.
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Reformation and
the Remnant discusses
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the ideas of many of
the leading reformers
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and, help, how
they help solve problems
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in our church today,
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few churches
discussing or even arguing
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about creation and evolution,
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ordination, ordination of women,
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last day events
anything along those lines.
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I didn't know you
got all those covered.
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The reformers have
something to say about it
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and so it's a book,
can be got on Amazon
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and in Kindle and
in various places so...
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Very good.
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But we were
talking about the last time
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the building of the
separation of church and state
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based on the teaching
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of Luther's
priesthood of all believers.
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I think it's the
most important thing
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to come out of the
reformation in some ways.
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Well, and, you know,
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justification by
faith is pretty important.
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But as far as an
impact on civil society,
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I think that the
priesthood of all believers,
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which lead to broader acceptance
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of democratic
kinds of government
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but also the
separation of church and state.
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But we left with the question
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once you
separate church and state,
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what realm or what room is there
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for the state to deal
with matters of morality?
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You know, some people
say, "You can't legislate."
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Once you believe
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in the separation
of church and state,
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you can't legislate morality.
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Well, it seems to me
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the state does
legislate morality, doesn't it?
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Well, I think so
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but there are
some people today...
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Is it Christian
morality that's maybe?
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Okay.
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But the state is dealing,
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by definition is
dealing with morality.
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Murder, theft, perjury,
adultery all these things...
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It deals with interrelations
between human things.
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Human things.
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That's morality.
Which are morality.
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Well, let me put it,
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let me put the
argument to you like this then.
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I had a professor at
university that I attended
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who was devout
Catholic historian.
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And he made the
argument that he and I agreed
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that the
priesthood of all believers
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led to this
importance of the individual
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and the separation
of church and state.
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Well, he argues
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that the
separation of church and state
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lead to societies
that we have in the West
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that cannot agree
on any moral values
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except for the
production and consumption
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of more things, of goods.
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And, therefore, human rights,
and order, and the environment,
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the environment
itself through global warming
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and degradation
we are threatening
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because our only shared value
is production and consumption.
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Well, yeah, he is
right, but think about it.
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Is that what
Protestantism has done?
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Is he right about that?
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We need to return
to the medieval church?
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It seems to me that
the Protestant Reformation
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is, as I said in
another discussion,
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led directly through the
wars of religion in Europe
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to the establishment
of the modern states.
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The secular, pluralist state
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that allows room
for all religions.
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Right.
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And then continuing
beyond that was still rivalry
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between Catholic states
and the Protestant states.
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And then, you know,
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I'm very
Anglo-centric on English history
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but, you know,
we studied endlessly
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the rivalry
between Catholic Spain
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and Protestant England.
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And there is no
question that England,
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and the Netherlands,
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and other
emerging Protestant states
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became very business oriented.
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Right.
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Because it
released the individual
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from a certain status
to control, church state,
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it was very centralized
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and I think
it's not just random,
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I think business and trade
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and all the rest
blossomed under Protestantism.
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And then as Protestantism became
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about the passage
of time less spiritual,
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we've got capitalism.
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I think
capitalism came straight out
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of the Protestant Reformation.
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So is this
Catholic critique correct
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that therefore you
only thing you have left
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is the production and
consumption of goods...
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If you lose your spirituality.
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Protestantism
devoid of spirituality
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is capitalism in its
purest nastiest form.
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But if... But if...
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And I'll even go one further.
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And then the next
stage of that is fascism.
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Well, if so...
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And we're on that way.
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If Protestantism believes
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in the separation
of church and state,
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how is that not just devaluation
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or the loss of spirituality
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but we would say
essential teaching
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of it is separation
of church and state.
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Therefore, my
Catholic friend would say,
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"No, it's not the
dissolution of Protestantism
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that's coming up
with raw capitalism.
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It is the very
logic of Protestantism
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when you separate
the church and the state,
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you separate the state
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from all moral
transcendent values."
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What do you say to
that? Well, to a point.
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I think it's true.
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But the missing element,
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and I'm always talking
about this in Liberty...
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Well, I put it
another way, what I said once,
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there is way too much
religion in the world,
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way too much religion,
not enough spirituality.
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All right.
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And religion
without spirituality
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taken to its extreme
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was the old world
church and state conflation.
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And they didn't have to
worry about spirituality,
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you control religious behavior.
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Right.
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That sort of short
circuited the thing.
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The ideal is what
Protestantism brought about,
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separation of church and state,
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where the private spiritual life
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is vibrant and alive,
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and the state just facilitates
the mechanical operation
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of individual lives.
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But you take away the
spirituality in the society
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of a Protestant structure
like the United States was,
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you've got real trouble.
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And I think that's
true but I do also think
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that there is something
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that my Catholic
friend is overlooking.
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And that is there
was a robust heritage
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of natural law morality
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that Protestants cultivated,
kept alive, developed.
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And so they believe
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in the separation
of church and state
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but that didn't mean
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the separation of
the state in morality.
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You're not heading
towards Jefferson, are you?
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Well, not just Jefferson,
all the American founders...
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But the view that
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they would talk about
wasn't a Protestant view.
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Well, the
Declaration of Independence
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uses language, life and liberty,
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that all men are created equal,
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they are
endowed by their Creator
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I like the language that
their idea of natural law
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on the testimony
of Jefferson alone
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was something more...
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Well, it was
certainly non-Christian,
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it was more esoteric.
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Well, it wasn't...
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And let's get real direct on it.
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It was more what the masons
are pushing as the grandmaster
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that lies even beyond
all religious designation.
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It wasn't anti-Christian.
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It was consistent
with Christianity.
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No. No.
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It saw itself as
superior to Christianity,
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Christianity was
just a later development.
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John Locke was a
strong exponent of it.
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And John Locke was a
head of Puritan background
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and was a committed Christian.
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Jefferson was lucky
and his view went to this,
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I mean, nearly all
masons not by accident.
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Because this is
what I was trying
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to get in another discussion.
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There is really a line
of secular rights of men
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that you can't say was developed
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by the reformation, it
sort of a yin-yang thing.
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Well, it came from
the French Revolution
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had a rights of
men, didn't they?
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Well, the French Revolution
is where it came to a bad end.
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Fraternity, equality...
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Because it wasn't
linked to biblical faith.
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It wasn't related
to a Christian outlook.
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But the French
Revolution, people forget,
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it had its genesis
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nearly as much as
Luther's rebellion
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in the overreach and
the votary of church.
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No, I think that's right.
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But Madison, even the more
orthodox Christian founders
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and Madison was more
orthodox than Jefferson,
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they had a strong belief
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in natural law
and natural rights.
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And this was a
distinctly going back
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to Hugo Grotius, John Locke.
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Right.
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And these were
exceptional Protestant thinkers.
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It's all coming together.
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These were convergent
streams but I think...
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So they believed in a
morality that could be accessed
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through human reason,
intuition, and understanding
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that wasn't
dependent on the Bible per se,
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was consistent with the Bible.
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But you could
legislate it without violating
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this separation
of church and state.
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My point is that
actually was a developing
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human sense of
individuality and secularism
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that was distinct
from religious expression.
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Well, I would
say they were two...
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I'm trying not give
it labels, some labels.
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But there were two
kinds, there were two kinds
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of natural law reason
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of one which was
more of reformation,
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one which was less religious.
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And so there is a
much more secular version
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that has become more dominant
in 20th century America.
00:10:07.60\00:10:11.21
But...
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Because the
spirituality and even the,
00:10:12.84\00:10:14.94
not just personal spirituality,
00:10:14.98\00:10:17.11
even the acceptance of
the authority of scripture
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in its divine
origin and so gone.
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No, wouldn't be accepted
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by the secularist
view of that morality.
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No, even by religionists.
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You know, the Church of England,
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I can remember...
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Forget the Catholic
Church for this argument.
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But I can
remember a few years ago
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one of the
archbishops of Canterbury
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headlines in
Australia was branded
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as the atheist archbishop,
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he didn't believe
in the virgin birth,
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he didn't believe in miracles,
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he didn't believe
in the resurrection.
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You know, that
sort of the bitter fruit
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of logic applied
to spiritual things.
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Yes. Yes.
00:10:56.38\00:10:57.72
You know, that is true.
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I think we...
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And it's part of what I'm saying
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is the devolution
of the reformation.
00:11:02.39\00:11:04.23
Well, at our founding
there were three options
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in approaching
religion and public life.
00:11:08.13\00:11:10.87
And we only
sometimes remember two of them,
00:11:10.90\00:11:13.64
so there was
Puritan, New England,
00:11:13.67\00:11:16.27
which basically had
a theocratic outlook.
00:11:16.30\00:11:18.64
And was not keen on
separation of church and state.
00:11:18.67\00:11:20.04
Was not keen on the separation
of church and state and said,
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you only get
morality through the Bible,
00:11:22.61\00:11:24.31
and the state needs morality,
00:11:24.35\00:11:25.71
therefore you have
to combine the two.
00:11:25.75\00:11:27.22
Then there was
00:11:27.25\00:11:28.58
the South
Virginia and Jefferson,
00:11:28.62\00:11:31.09
which was more
secularist enlightenment,
00:11:31.12\00:11:33.49
Bible as a side
we only get morality
00:11:33.52\00:11:35.92
through humanism effectively
which is over Christianity,
00:11:35.96\00:11:42.16
and sets Christianity aside
00:11:42.20\00:11:43.93
but the middle colonies
00:11:43.97\00:11:45.73
which is where the
dissenting Protestants win.
00:11:45.77\00:11:48.30
We talked about the Anabaptists,
00:11:48.34\00:11:49.70
and the Baptists, the Quakers,
00:11:49.74\00:11:52.14
they had a healthy
regard for biblical truth
00:11:52.17\00:11:55.88
but that was for
the privates' fear,
00:11:55.91\00:11:57.55
but in the public's fear
00:11:57.58\00:11:58.91
there was truth
00:11:58.95\00:12:01.02
that was
consistent with the Bible
00:12:01.05\00:12:02.72
but derived from
natural law and principles
00:12:02.75\00:12:06.19
that was
applicable in the state.
00:12:06.22\00:12:07.62
The Quakers were
sort of I'll shoot to it.
00:12:07.66\00:12:09.92
They didn't have much parallel
with other religious groups.
00:12:09.96\00:12:12.56
Well, they came,
00:12:12.59\00:12:13.93
they were essentially related
to the radical reformation,
00:12:13.96\00:12:16.03
they have things in
common with the Anabaptists.
00:12:16.06\00:12:17.90
They were less biblical than...
00:12:17.93\00:12:19.43
The internal life.
00:12:19.47\00:12:20.80
Like being our church,
00:12:20.84\00:12:22.17
you know, the spiritual
formation type of Christianity
00:12:22.20\00:12:24.51
where you think long and hard
00:12:24.54\00:12:26.04
and the flooding of knowledge
will coming into you sort of...
00:12:26.07\00:12:29.11
They emphasize
the internal light
00:12:29.14\00:12:31.08
but it did give
them a strong sense
00:12:31.11\00:12:32.45
of the importance
00:12:32.48\00:12:33.82
of individual
spiritual preferences.
00:12:33.85\00:12:35.18
And they were persecuted
pretty strongly in Boston
00:12:35.22\00:12:37.95
and another places.
00:12:37.99\00:12:39.32
Yes, they were. Yes.
00:12:39.35\00:12:40.76
I think this is a
good time to take a break.
00:12:40.79\00:12:42.49
I can see you, you
wanting me to interview you.
00:12:42.52\00:12:44.89
You're right.
00:12:44.93\00:12:47.06
We'll be back
shortly, stay with us
00:12:47.10\00:12:49.56
and, you know, I want
to bring out some more
00:12:49.60\00:12:51.80
contemporary aspects
00:12:51.83\00:12:55.60
of what the
Protestant Reformation
00:12:55.64\00:12:57.17
means to us today.
00:12:57.21\00:12:58.54