Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is the program bringing you
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discussion, analysis,
and up-to-date information
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on what is the most
important topic today,
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religious liberty.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty magazine.
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And my guest on this
program is Dr. Nic Miller.
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I don't have
enough time to give you
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a full
introduction but a lawyer,
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a history professor
at Andrews University,
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an author.
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We might talk
about one of your books,
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the more recent book soon.
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But let's talk
about The Reformation
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and what effects it
has had and is having
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on maybe civil rights
and secular rights today.
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In the modern world,
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so previously we've
talked about Martin Luther
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and the 95 Theses, to
modern religious freedom.
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And there is a
pathway to be traced there.
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Well, and this is the
500th anniversary, so...
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500th anniversary, yeah.
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It's gonna be a
lot of discussion
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in the next few months about
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the significance
of Martin Luther,
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but he's not just
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an ancient
historical figure, is he?
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No, he's had a
continuing influence
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in the West, and in some ways,
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even increasing as time passes.
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A question that
you might ask is,
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modern civil rights in America
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owe a lot to
Martin Luther's namesake,
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Martin Luther King Jr.
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who gave a very famous speech
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450 years after 1517.
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Are you talking about
the "I have a Dream" speech?
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Well, it wasn't the
"I have a Dream" speech,
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that's even more famous.
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He gave many more speeches.
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But he gave one
on actually the year,
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the 450th anniversary year,
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where he broadened his working
for civil rights beyond race
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to include all
races and classes.
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And he made a
famous speech condemning
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the Vietnam War
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which was
controversial at the time.
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I've read that speech, yeah.
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And yet he did
it because he felt
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that there was a
brotherhood of mankind
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that included not just blacks
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but anyone who is
being oppressed anywhere,
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including the Vietnamese.
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And he spoke, and in some ways,
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this is what ties
him to Martin Luther,
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not just he's a namesake,
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he comes in a similar tradition,
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he's a Protestant
with Baptist roots.
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So he comes out of this
importance of the individual
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which I think is what drives.
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He talks about humans being made
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in the image of God.
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But that all humans,
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not just Americans,
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not just American
blacks and whites,
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but those overseas,
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and he calls into,
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calls to account
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the American use of
corporate and military power
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to oppress people overseas.
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And he says, "This
can't stand as a Protestant."
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And I think it's, as
we discussed earlier,
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Martin Luther gained
the world's attention
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not just because of
his spiritual beliefs
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but his willingness to stand up
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against the power
structure of his day.
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Very importantly,
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and he didn't just
copy Martin Luther,
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he copied
Gandhi in non-violence.
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And in some ways,
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then it became a
little like Martin Luther
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where violence
erupted around him
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and he backed off from it.
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Remember, the
Civil Rights Movement,
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it was toying with the
violent reaction often.
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The Civil Rights
Movement was predicated,
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both Gandhi and
Martin Luther King Jr.
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were significantly influenced
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by Christ's Sermon
on the Mount, right?
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Even Gandhi
"Turn the other cheek".
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And it was the theory of
the Civil Rights Movement
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that as you displayed kindness
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and love in the face of violence
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that those looking on would see
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which was the superior pathway
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and that they would
respond accordingly.
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And therefore,
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this pathway of
civil disobedience
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but non-violence
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could defeat a violent enemy.
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And it certainly
succeeded in both cases.
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Although the point's
being made about Gandhi,
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I don't remember reading
it about the civil rights era.
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The British imperial
power was cruel in turn,
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in its own, you
know, different times
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but it wasn't, say
like, the Nazis and the Jews,
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you know, it
wouldn't have mattered
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what the Jews did to Nazis,
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"We're gonna destroy them,
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they rolled the tanks
over them regardless."
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But I think the best
thing what you're saying
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with both Martin
Luther King and Martin Luther,
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I'm sorry, Martin
Luther King and Gandhi,
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they were hoping to bring out
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the better nature
of their opponents.
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You seem to, "Hey,
there needs to be a conscience
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that can be awakened
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for your act of
civil disobedience,
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non-violent civil disobedience
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to be
appreciated and respected."
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Yeah.
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So where are we today?
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The Civil Rights
Movement succeeded, fine.
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Where do we go now?
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Well, this is the
question though, isn't it?
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I mean, the
Civil Rights Movement,
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it certainly has
brought improvement.
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We've just finished two terms
of our first black president,
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at least a half black president
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which would have
been unthinkable.
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It was progressed,
and yet it seemed to me
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that we backpedaled a
bit during his presidency.
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So what happened? So
this is a good question.
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We seem to have fallen back
into greater levels of violence
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against ethnic minorities,
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against the black
community in particular, unrest,
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the demonstrations,
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The Black Lives Matter movement,
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how do Christians relate now
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to this new
outbreak of ethnic tensions.
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So where do we go?
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I do think that, I mean,
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we're gonna say the
Trump administration
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but I'm not
really down on Trump yet.
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It's not right to
criticize a leader
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just because they
stand in for all this.
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Now the Civil Rights
Movement is behind us
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but it brought us
for better or worse
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into the gay rights
movement, it's brought us...
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Well, not brought us,
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but we're now to a point
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where the civil
rights is rolling backwards
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or at least the sensibilities
that were encouraged.
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And we're in the
500th anniversary
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of the Reformation.
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So can we approach,
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can Christians approach this
with the non-violent approach,
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or are we sort
of stuck in a rut?
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Well, I think I'd
like to make a distinction
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between the racial
Civil Rights Movement
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which had its roots
deep in Protestant thought
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to Martin Luther King Jr.
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and the black
churches had an understanding.
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Martin Luther King in his letter
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from the Birmingham jail
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tapped into and referred
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to the long line of natural law,
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natural morality,
tradition in Christian thought.
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And use this to
build an argument
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that was based on
religious foundations,
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about the nature of men
and the nature of equality.
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The LGBT gay
rights movement, frankly,
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comes from a
different stream of thought.
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I think it does, but I linked up
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because other
people have thought
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that it's interlinked.
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In people's
minds, there's a linkage.
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I agree with that
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but if you look at the
ideological roots of it,
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the two are actually opposite.
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The racial civil rights movement
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is making
arguments on natural morality
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where as the LGBT movement
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is effectively
rejecting natural morality
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and imposing a human creates...
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You know, in Liberty magazine,
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I got into trouble
with some of our peers
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because they didn't like
that Liberty was challenging
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the assumption
that the gay movement
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was a Civil Rights Movement.
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And I don't think it
was. It should have been.
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They made a linkage
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but, you know, I
think it's insulting
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to people of an ethnic identity
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that we're penalized purely
because of their ethnicity.
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And here's a moral opposition
that, at least a large group
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of that category have decided
this is how they will behave
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and they wanted an
acceptance from it.
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That's a whole different thing.
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So there's a
difference between an identity
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and a series of moral
choices that will refer to...
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Right, and that's
another way of saying
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what you were saying.
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Yes, I think that's
right. But, you know, yeah.
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I believe Martin Luther
has to be relevant today.
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I mean, not has to
be, is relevant today,
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but yet how do we uncover him
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because as we said
in another program...
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the Lutherans have
disavowed him in essence,
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said that his original
dispute with Rome was...
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No longer relevant
today. No longer relevant.
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We all accept
justification with faith.
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Right.
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So you and I as
Adventist Protestants
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think that he
was on to something
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but that's not what
the world around us sees.
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And we're going
toward the end of this year,
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we'll see the Pope of Rome
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celebrating Luther's reformation
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in Scandinavia somewhere.
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So they've sort
of brought him out.
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Trying to bring him
back into the full...
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So we need to uncover
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what was really going
on with Martin Luther.
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It must be little bit different
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than just a
gentleman's self-awareness,
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just an objection to
the abuses of the church
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which were real, and
some have been changed,
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some have been apologized for.
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I don't think
the deep theological
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differences have been resolved,
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but this doesn't seem
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to be a big
present-day argument.
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But what I think you're
on to is we need to emphasize
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Martin Luther's linkage
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to the rights and dignity of man
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as creatures of a creator God.
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And that is with us still.
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And I think what
Martin Luther did
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was that he brought a
fundamental rearrangement
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between the linkage,
between the individual,
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the church and
the state, and God.
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And he put that individual
directly in touch with God
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through prayer and Bible study,
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and not having
those things mediated
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through the
church and the state.
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The church and the
state are important,
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they're important institutions
to support the individual.
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But as soon as you
suggest that those institutions
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play a role in determining
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what is truth
for the individual.
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And I think that's what we
have to fear most in our society
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in our politics
right now is that,
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we are facing a time
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when we are going to rely
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more and more on government,
governmental institutions,
00:11:02.26\00:11:05.96
the rise of
populism, the majority,
00:11:05.99\00:11:08.60
and a dismissing
of minority rights,
00:11:08.63\00:11:11.40
and the image of
God in individuals
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of whatever creed and
color and religion they are.
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Okay.
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What I'd like to talk with you
00:11:18.74\00:11:20.21
in this
relation you reminded me,
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Martin Luther spoke
of the two kingdoms.
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Yes, he did.
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And I read quite
a bit of it recently
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and it can be a
little bit problematic
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if you follow his
line of reasoning too far.
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And yet on the face of
it, I like what he was saying.
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Well, I think the two kingdoms
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is an
acknowledgement essentially
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of the roots of American
church state separationism,
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you know, he said...
00:11:43.90\00:11:45.23
You think you could
trace our separationism today
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from Martin Luther?
00:11:49.07\00:11:50.41
To Martin Luther's two kingdoms.
00:11:50.44\00:11:51.94
He starts off and in fact,
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he begins to
develop it that way.
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And then, you've
mentioned the Peasant's Revolt
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and the Revolution.
00:11:57.78\00:11:59.11
And he got cold feet
and backed away from it
00:11:59.15\00:12:02.18
because he saw
that perhaps society
00:12:02.22\00:12:04.55
was a fragile thing
and it would dissolve.
00:12:04.59\00:12:07.19
But early on, his
view of the two kingdoms
00:12:07.22\00:12:10.19
was such that he
said that the magistrate
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should not have oversight
over what is heresy, right?
00:12:12.83\00:12:16.97
This is something for
the church to persuade,
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not for the
legislature to mandate.
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Interesting, interesting.
So the two kingdoms, you know.
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Let's take a break and
we will be back shortly.
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