Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Nicolas Miller
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000354B
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00:06 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider
00:09 with guest Nick Miller. 00:10 Before the break, if you remember, Nick, 00:12 we were talking about the Reformation 00:15 and I was trying to relate it more to today. 00:18 Temporary events like I do in my in my book, 00:20 I have a chapter on... 00:23 This is devolving very quickly to sales pitch issues. 00:27 But it is a book that I hope our viewers 00:29 can pick up and read. 00:31 But let me give you an example of what I've seen lately 00:35 that contemporizes the Reformation 00:38 in this case in a bad way. 00:40 A few years ago, when he was pope, Benedict, 00:44 actually at the beginning of his papacy 00:45 he gave a speech at Regensburg University. 00:48 It caused rioting all around the world in the Muslim world, 00:50 because they were offended by an opening illustration. 00:52 But that really was not what his speech was about. 00:56 He put out the idea 00:57 of a certain religious violence, 00:58 and then he said that Christianity was once violent, 01:02 which you and I would disagree with, 01:04 because it was passive in the early days. 01:06 Well, it was once it became violent 01:07 in the Middle Ages, right. 01:09 The early Christianity was very pacifist... 01:12 And the Roman... Peace oriented. 01:13 That were persecuting them, 01:15 thought they went too easily to the lions. 01:17 But you accept his view, 01:18 he says, they were once violent, 01:19 but he said what made them nonviolent 01:23 was accepting reek rationality, Hellenistic rationality, 01:29 which I think is a compromise that's when... 01:31 Right, things went bad. 01:33 The paganism crept in. 01:34 But then he gave for the rest of his speech three points 01:38 as to where we're heading back to that violent potential 01:43 for Christianity, two of them were secularism, 01:45 which he had a burden on. 01:47 The first start item was this, he said, 01:48 "The reformers by their insistence 01:52 on Sola Scriptura expose Christianity 01:56 again to violence." 01:58 Yeah, that's quite a charge, isn't it? 02:00 Yeah, I thought it was rude. 02:02 Well, and, in fact, if you go with Sola Scriptura, 02:07 you have to take seriously Christ teachings about peace, 02:10 about turning the other cheek. 02:12 And I think it's not an accident 02:15 that those elements of the Reformation 02:17 that took the Bible most seriously, 02:19 the radical reformers, 02:20 the Anabaptists were the most peaceful. 02:23 Absolutely. 02:24 It was those reformers that took along 02:26 some of the church tradition from Middle Ages, 02:28 that actually continued using the sword in some manner. 02:31 And what I think Benedict's intent was has been borne out 02:35 in later statements, not just pope's 02:38 but particularly, now three popes have told us 02:42 to beware of extremists and fundamentalists. 02:45 And that's what he's linking to. 02:47 The idea was to posit the Reformation view 02:50 of Sola Scriptura only as fundamentalism, 02:53 which it is, in the best sense. 02:56 A kind of fundamentalism. 02:57 And it has become an extremist view. 03:00 Well, I think we have to differentiate 03:03 there is a American historic fundamentalism, 03:07 which is a strain of evangelical Christianity, 03:09 which has committed itself 03:10 to a verbal inerrancy view of inspiration, 03:14 which actually Seventh-day Adventists 03:16 historically haven't embraced. 03:19 But to take scripture seriously, 03:22 even without verbal inerrancy 03:24 in the secular eyes of the secular world, 03:27 is to be fundamentalistic. 03:29 So we're fundamentalistic in that latter sense, 03:31 but not in relation to the verbal inerrancy of scripture 03:35 which we don't... 03:37 Yeah, this is what all devolves into definitions and words. 03:42 Like gay, for example, used to mean something, 03:45 it means something else now. 03:46 And I think extremist and fundamentalist are words 03:49 that are being shifted around 03:52 and presently as most people see them, 03:55 very threatening words. 03:57 Well, they're being used to marginalize certain groups, 03:58 aren't they? 04:00 And I think we were wanting to bring 04:03 to bear our earlier discussion 04:05 where we talked about Protestants 04:08 didn't view morality 04:10 as being separated from the state. 04:12 And a good example is the violence 04:13 you're talking about. 04:15 We think that the state should be able to guard 04:17 against the immoral use of violence, right? 04:21 But what other things 04:22 can the state legitimately get involved with? 04:25 And since the 1970s, we've had a growing movement, 04:29 the sexual liberation movement, the sexual revolution, 04:33 raises questions about things ranging 04:36 from abortion to pornography, 04:38 to prostitution, to LGBT rights and same sex marriage. 04:43 Can Christians say anything about any of these topics 04:47 without violating 04:49 the separation of church and state? 04:51 Well, I hope we can say something. 04:53 Christians can say something about everything. 04:54 Well. 04:56 There's a different between saying and doing or enforcing. 04:59 Can we say anything in relation to public policy? 05:01 Of course, we have a teaching 05:02 within the church on all of these topics, 05:05 most conservative Christian churches do. 05:07 But is it appropriate to speak in any way 05:10 as a Christian citizen 05:11 in relation to public policy on these questions? 05:14 And requires that public policy incorporate... 05:17 These Christian views. And allow the state. 05:19 to somehow reward 05:22 or penalize your approach to these questions. 05:26 Well, it's fraught as you probably know 05:28 for Seventh-day Adventist because in the early days 05:30 of our church one of the Adventist Pioneers, 05:34 with a capital P in this case, 05:37 Ellen White was front and center on the... 05:40 Temperance Reform. 05:42 Well, it became known as the Prohibition Movement 05:44 and resulted in the prohibition amendment of the constitution. 05:47 So it wasn't just about persuasion, 05:48 this was actually about passing laws, 05:50 a constitutional amendment to impact the moral choices 05:54 that some people were making. 05:55 And yet I could make a, you know, I'm a contrarian 05:58 and I try to, and on this side, 06:00 I see that while she was coming at it 06:03 from a religious point of view, 06:04 there was a matter of public safety, 06:07 and crime, and the integrity of the family 06:10 which was threatening the stability 06:11 of the society and so on. 06:13 Well, this is a very important point because... 06:14 So I don't think it was a purely 06:16 doctrinal religious campaign. 06:18 No, that's absolutely right. 06:20 She felt that it did have a spiritual element, 06:22 but in her writings you'll discover 06:24 that she talks about men 06:26 who drink alcohol being abusive to their wives and children. 06:29 Which was true then and now. And continues to be true now. 06:32 Using money for liquor instead of the education, 06:35 and clothing, and food for the children, so it was... 06:38 Her social activism was based on the belief 06:43 that these had very real impacts on the family, 06:46 and on society. 06:47 Yeah, so, you know, I threw that out 06:49 to get it out of the way, but as a generality, 06:52 I really do not think that Christians have a right 06:56 to impose their particular moral 06:59 or behavioral viewpoints into state law. 07:04 But secularists do. Well, maybe. 07:07 This is what you're saying is that 07:09 because those with the secular point 07:10 of view can impose there is... 07:12 Well, if their secularism is atheism or, 07:16 you know, we say secularism, 07:17 but more and more these are people that are like 07:19 Newdow and Freedom from Religion Foundation 07:22 that's what they want, no religion, no morality. 07:26 That's not the same as Paul says with the state 07:30 that they exercise the sword for public order. 07:34 Well, what if you could make out the argument 07:36 that many of those things 07:37 which we call Christian views of sexuality, 07:40 or the family, or morality, or even abortion 07:43 are actually also views that are supported 07:47 by general philosophical moral arguments 07:50 and many non Christians in the past 07:52 and the present hold those views as well. 07:54 So conceivably you could argue as a Christian 07:57 for a public policy in relation to say sexuality or marriage, 08:01 and as long as you weren't making the arguments 08:04 based solely on scripture, 08:05 but you were making the arguments 08:07 based on empirical research 08:09 about the impact of sexuality on teens and children, 08:13 and the impact of two parents, 08:15 a mother and father on children. 08:17 You could construct arguments that were legitimately 08:21 moral arguments and not biblical arguments, 08:23 and you would be okay, wouldn't you? 08:25 Right, and I think that's why it's so important, 08:28 still important, to have people of spiritual morality 08:33 or even if they're a secularist 08:35 of a moral sensibility in public positions. 08:38 You don't want someone there that is just, 08:40 you know, absent without leave and have no moral guidelines. 08:45 So a person of faith clearly 08:49 should be admirably suited for public service. 08:51 It's not a negative, you cannot... 08:54 You want to have a morally serious person. 08:56 But you can't divorce, 08:58 you know, as a Christian or as an atheist, 08:59 you can't take away your worldview 09:03 when you enter into public service. 09:04 Of course, it affects it. 09:06 And I think the framers of the US Constitution 09:08 expected the moral baseline that made-up this society 09:15 to be present in their leadership. 09:17 Because they start that it was supported 09:18 by both the natural moral law... 09:20 They didn't see a contradiction. 09:22 As well as a biblical law. 09:23 And Ellen White, who you've invoked earlier, 09:25 in a statement once said, "There's three things 09:28 we should especially teach to students." 09:30 And the first thing she mentions 09:31 is moral philosophy. 09:33 And then she says the Bible and then physical health. 09:36 Well, most of us don't know what moral philosophy is. 09:39 Some of us may think it's morality from the Bible, 09:42 but in actuality Protestant universities 09:45 always had a course 09:46 on moral philosophy in the 19th century. 09:47 It's a good point, I never thought of it. 09:49 And it was a course on learning about morality 09:51 from non scriptural sources, human nature, 09:54 human experience, human intuition on reason. 09:56 It's that book by Fulgrim, isn't it? 09:57 Everything I learned about 09:59 something I learned in kindergarten. 10:02 So you can learn a lot about moral philosophy... 10:04 You don't throw sand 10:06 in the kid's face or steal their toys. 10:08 But in the, yeah. 10:10 And in his day, Thomas Jefferson 10:13 really entails the same thing. 10:14 He challenged the idea that common law 10:17 was based on religion and he went back 10:19 to the beginning in Anglo-Saxon culture. 10:22 And yet it always had a moral component. 10:25 There's a morality to human interaction. 10:27 God speaks through two books, doesn't He? 10:29 And the problem was is that this fundamentalism 10:33 I mentioned earlier in the 20th century said, 10:35 "Oh, we only get morality through the Bible, 10:38 we can only study it there." 10:39 And they rejected all philosophy. 10:41 And unfortunately, as Adventists, 10:43 we did some of this ourselves. 10:45 So we woke up in the 1970s with a flood of abortion, 10:48 and pornography, and sexual revolution, 10:51 LGBT issues, 10:53 and we didn't have the vocabulary... 10:55 Yeah, it's a good point. 10:56 ..to deal with it because we only had our Bibles 10:58 which we can't use in church state... 11:01 And I think we need to speak, we Adventists, 11:04 we Christians, and people of faith, 11:06 and a religious morality, of course, 11:09 we need to speak to the society. 11:12 We just can't demand it with separation 11:15 of church and state by law 11:17 that they obey us automatically. 11:18 But if, you know, a modern society like us, 11:24 if the public mood changes 11:26 within their agreed upon framework constitution, 11:30 they can change the law even if its origin 11:32 was of a religious sensibility, 11:35 but a person has no right to force religion on others. 11:38 So as Christians were citizens of both the earthly kingdom 11:42 and the heavenly kingdom. 11:43 We can't take spiritual rules 11:45 and impose them as public policy. 11:47 But as citizens of this world, we do have a role 11:50 in studying morality, human nature, 11:52 and informing the laws of our state 11:55 and our nation. 11:58 Lately I've been working 11:59 with the Liberty Magazine designer 12:01 to put Luther on the cover, Martin Luther, 12:04 the great reformer 12:06 of the Reformation 500 years ago. 12:10 It amazes me how dated those pictures are, 12:13 they seem to be so few pictures of him 12:15 and the few that we see are not accessible. 12:19 He doesn't seem like a man of today, 12:22 of course, he wasn't. 12:24 But when I look at Luther's ideas, 12:26 when I look at what he accomplished, 12:29 I think he's every man, 12:30 he's as real as the reformer today. 12:33 He's as real as the spiritual challenges 12:36 we face in society. 12:38 And I'm positive if Martin Luther 12:39 were here today, he would be to the fore, 12:43 as his namesake was in the Civil Rights Movement, 12:45 he would be to the fore in any moral endeavor 12:48 and challenge to the established order, 12:51 and to a lack of spirituality 12:53 which is the prevailing sin of our age. 12:57 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2017-04-13