Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break if you remember
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with Nic Miller, I
was twisting your knots
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on interpreting Martin
Luther, not Martin Luther King
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but Martin Luther
to Martin Luther King.
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And we were looking at
the Civil Rights Movement.
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But more than that
what I want to pursue
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is the principle of democracy
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that we have today in the West
and then in the United States
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which I think we assume
and perhaps it's correct
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that this is biblical
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and even a Protestant viewpoint.
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Well, it's hard to say that
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the Bible promotes
explicitly a democracy.
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But if you look
at the Old Testament,
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there is a growing
body of scholarship here...
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contemporary body of scholarship
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that's looking at
the 18th and 17th...
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17th and 18th centuries.
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And recognizing
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that a lot of the
people that were promoting
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democracy were
drawing from the Old Testament
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in terms of seeing a
separation of powers there.
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The king was not
meant to function
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as a priest and vice versa,
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the prophets
were a separate group.
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And then even God's not
wanting there to be a king,
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that there was a
kind of a representative
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form of
government through the elders
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overseen by judges and prophets.
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And so, there's
been more of an influence
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from the scripture
on modern democracy
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than it's been acknowledged.
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Let me throw another
cat among the pigeons.
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I agree with you,
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but perhaps
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the more biblical
concept of democracy
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or democratic system
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is what the United
States actually has,
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a representative government
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where the free
will of the people
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can be expressed
through public actions
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rather than what the Bible says,
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"Elsewhere everyone did
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what was set right
in their own eyes."
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Right, right.
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And I know that
the American framers
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had a deep fear of sort
of the will of the people
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in the group run amuck.
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They were not in
favor of a pure democracy.
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Okay.
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They saw the
weakness of democracy
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was that a demagogue,
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someone who appealed
to the baser instincts
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and desires of the people...
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We don't have any
of those today, do we?
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..could turn the
people in the direction
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that was actually
against the Civitas.
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And so they constructed,
many people don't know this
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but originally we did
not vote for our president
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or even the electors.
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It was the state legislatures
that would choose electors
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and it would choose presidents.
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Well, more radically
from what people imagine
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that they originally,
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the US didn't even have parties.
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Well, and in fact,
the founding fathers
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were opposed to parties
because of the party spirit.
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But there's a very
interesting story to be told
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about the rise of
Martin Luther's thought,
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the freedom of the
priesthood of believers
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and modern democracies.
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It was once thought that,
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you know, the
colonial imperial powers
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of the western
democracies exported
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that religion was used as a tool
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of coercion and control.
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But some
scholarship has come out,
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specifically an
article by Robert Woodberry
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in American
Political Science journal
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which has
successfully demonstrated
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that the growth of democracy
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in something like 70
countries around the world
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is directly and
strongly correlated
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with the presence and activity
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of Protestant missionaries
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from dissenting
free church tradition.
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So not all
Protestants, if you believe
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in the combination
of church and state,
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then the church
really can't speak
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with a prophetic voice.
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But in these free
church traditions,
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the missionaries would come,
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they believed in the
priesthood of believers,
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everybody needed
to read and write,
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so they can read the
Bible and share the gospel.
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They would
educate the mass populous
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as effectively as they could.
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They would stand
up against the abuses
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of the imperial
colonial governments.
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And then they created a
people with educational systems
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that could form the institutions
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of democratic society.
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So it's a very...
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published in a secular journal
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but it's causing many historians
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to rethink the
relationship of Christianity,
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Christian missionaries and...
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Yeah, no,
there's some truth in it.
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And there's also,
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we have to
acknowledge historically this,
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you know, there's a reaction
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in many third
world countries now
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to the colonial era
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and the
proselytizing missionaries.
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And I think from
their perspectives,
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they're correct
because the missionaries did go
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in calculatedly to replace
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whatever belief system was there
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with the truth
about, of the gospel.
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So, I don't think...
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Did proselytize,
there's no doubt about that.
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Yeah, I don't think
you can get away with that,
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but, yeah, it's a good point.
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I also think...
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The missionaries
gave them the tools
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with which they
could stand up and...
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By my analysis of imperialism
which I have never lived under
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but we both come
from the British system...
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Yes.
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But, you know,
looking at the British system
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which is relatively successful
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in inculcating
democratic principles
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around the world, but
not always a kind system.
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I think the secret was
that they delegated authority
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to a whole
level of functionaries
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in the colonies.
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And I think that
came and you know them,
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couldn't see
what your reaction is.
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I think it came, yes,
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from the type of religion
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that characterized
the missionary of it
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whether it was the
confessing churches
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or whatever.
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I think it came
from how they related
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other human to
other human being.
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The Catholic
endeavors in the new world
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and that suffered
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because they always saw
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the indigenous
peoples as almost subhuman.
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And there was a coercion...
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That's not a climate
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to pass any
authority on when they lived.
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And it should be noted though
that they would seem to be,
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they are always Catholic priests
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who were
speaking and standing up
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for the native
appeals in these places.
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Well, there's good
people in the world
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regardless of the system.
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But I think the
system wasn't set up
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to empower them when
the authorities lived.
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This is true and that
is why liberal democracies
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generally arose in countries
connected with Protestants.
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So, I think even
though the Protestant missions
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in lot of the, certainly
the British imperial world
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were working to
replace their culture,
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and imperialism
itself was not a structure
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we are comfortable with today.
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That because of
the missionaries,
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because of the mindset
even of the imperial powers,
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they saw these
people, yes, to be subjugated
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but they didn't
see them as inferior
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or necessarily
another level of human being.
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So, I think that
was an easy pass off
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which has to come from religion.
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In the image of God, right?
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And the
priesthood of all believers
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and that while
your brother may be
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less educated than you,
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you can educate them
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and bring them into
this social equality.
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Which brings us
to Martin Luther.
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I think that's the
genius of Martin Luther.
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He used religion to reemphasize
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the black men as just
as much a human being...
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Martin Luther King Jr., yes.
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The image of God and
I think that's where...
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And it seems self evident now
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but I know it wasn't
in the '50s and '60s.
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That's right. That's right.
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But I think that
it should cause us
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as evangelical Christians today
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to see in the current need
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for a greater racial equality
a calling of the gospel.
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We can't link up with
all the activist groups
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who have a wide range of issues
that we may not agree with,
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but I think as Christians
we should be able to stand
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in the
tradition of Martin Luther
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and Martin Luther King Jr.,
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for basic fairness and treatment
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in our social
criminal justice system,
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our social welfare system,
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because there is,
even after we've...
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I thought we had
moved past explicit bias,
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but with this recent political
controversies we've had,
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we have seen some
of this explicit bias
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come back.
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But even apart from that
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the implicit bias of our system,
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studies have shown
that we treat people
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with different colored
skin in different ways.
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And I think, as
Christians we have a,
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we have a duty to
look at our own hearts
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and to see what unconscious bias
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might lie there
to bring it to light
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and to prayerfully
work our way away from it
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to a greater unity
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and inclusiveness
in the body of Christ.
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Good.
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So the
reformation is still with us.
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Well, I think that
the principles of it
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once we understand it.
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I'm trying to
light it how do we...
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Where do we go with this?
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Because, you know, on
the simplest historic level,
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you know, I can see
echoes of reformation
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but it's really being negated
or turned back in many ways.
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Theologically it's been denied,
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even,
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maybe you read
different stuff than I read,
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but a lot of the stuff
online at least is maligning
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the memory of Martin Luther
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and all that the
reformation still...
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Well, and it's also...
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We are trying him as
bigoted, as violent and so on.
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Well, in its
social political matters,
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I mean, he did have trouble
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with the things that
he wrote about the Jews
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and some other minority groups.
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But his larger, the
vision of his principles...
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And one thing I'll
say, it's his defense...
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Bigger than who he was.
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Remember, and
I'll give the benefit
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that the Catholic
Church are now trying to reap.
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When he stood up or nailed
on the door in Wittenberg,
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he was a Catholic priest.
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Yes, he was.
That was his context.
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So, as he erupted
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and had a great truth
about how we look at the Bible
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and a sense of, you know,
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wanting to shake off
his shackles his shackles
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and emphasize
freedom which I believe
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came from another as well
another threat of humanism.
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But as he did that,
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he was still captive
to a lot of the biases
00:10:03.37\00:10:06.67
of the religio-political
world and anti-Semitism
00:10:06.70\00:10:10.51
was big time.
00:10:10.54\00:10:12.34
You know, he's
been blamed purely
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for what happened in Germany
00:10:14.91\00:10:16.75
but I would connect it to
with the religious viewpoint
00:10:16.78\00:10:19.35
that antedated him
by hundreds of years.
00:10:19.38\00:10:21.08
Yes. Yes.
00:10:21.12\00:10:22.45
There was an ongoing bigotry
that he was his own person.
00:10:22.48\00:10:26.35
More than even a
bigotry, it was a demonization,
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theological
demonization of whole people.
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Yes, we have to
acknowledge that.
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It didn't come
to a good end but...
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But the
principles of Protestantism
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eventually undid
that would be my argument.
00:10:37.73\00:10:39.93
Absolutely.
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And as we know,
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Protestantism moved
on from Martin Luther.
00:10:42.70\00:10:44.84
Well, and,
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you are saying challenges
to Protestantism today,
00:10:46.24\00:10:48.24
it's not just the challenges
to the memory of Martin Luther,
00:10:48.28\00:10:51.41
it's also a challenge to
the fundamental principles.
00:10:51.45\00:10:54.18
When we say that someone
of a different ethnicity,
00:10:54.22\00:10:57.99
a different religious
group, if they are Muslim,
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they are not deserving
of the basic human rights
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and dignities that
we have as Americans,
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that is a rejection,
00:11:06.96\00:11:08.30
a repudiation of this notion
of the image of God in all.
00:11:08.33\00:11:11.83
Absolutely, yeah.
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Even though at different
times in Protestant history,
00:11:13.23\00:11:15.60
similar things were said
00:11:15.64\00:11:16.97
but it was a moving
awareness, wasn't it?
00:11:17.01\00:11:20.14
That's right.
00:11:20.18\00:11:21.51
And, you know,
I'm quite convinced
00:11:21.54\00:11:23.24
from my study of
American history,
00:11:23.28\00:11:25.58
that it's the Protestant nature
00:11:25.61\00:11:27.72
that really was the crucible
that all of this came out of.
00:11:27.75\00:11:31.59
So I think it's
fair to draw a link
00:11:31.62\00:11:33.49
between Martin Luther
00:11:33.52\00:11:34.96
and Martin Luther King Jr.
00:11:34.99\00:11:37.03
The movement that
motivated both men
00:11:37.06\00:11:38.99
were at their heart, religious,
00:11:39.03\00:11:41.73
a vision of humanity
made in the image of God,
00:11:41.76\00:11:45.90
and then that image
of God being played out
00:11:45.93\00:11:48.64
in the social
00:11:48.67\00:11:50.01
and political
systems of the day.
00:11:50.04\00:11:51.71
As Christians we
have much to appreciate
00:11:51.74\00:11:54.74
and be inspired by
this wonderful legacy.
00:11:54.78\00:11:58.18
In celebrating 500 years
00:11:58.21\00:12:00.12
since the
Protestant Reformation,
00:12:00.15\00:12:02.45
it's worth bringing it forward
to what it means to us today.
00:12:02.48\00:12:06.99
You could be
forgiven for thinking
00:12:07.02\00:12:09.66
that the comments
made a few months ago
00:12:09.69\00:12:12.46
by a certain Tony Palmer
00:12:12.49\00:12:15.06
that the Reformation is
over might be true today.
00:12:15.10\00:12:19.27
Some people think it's over,
00:12:19.30\00:12:21.07
and it's true that the
Lutheran World Federation
00:12:21.10\00:12:24.74
have come to sort
of an understanding
00:12:24.77\00:12:27.11
with the Church of Rome.
00:12:27.14\00:12:28.71
And friendship is fine
but revisionism is never good.
00:12:28.74\00:12:33.31
But in reality, the
principles of the Reformation
00:12:33.35\00:12:36.35
suffuse our public life,
00:12:36.38\00:12:38.79
the way that
United States government
00:12:38.82\00:12:40.56
in particular was
set up was not religious
00:12:40.59\00:12:42.92
but it was mightily
colored by the sentiments
00:12:42.96\00:12:45.79
and the principles that
guided individual contact,
00:12:45.83\00:12:49.13
that conduct that
came from the Reformation.
00:12:49.16\00:12:53.07
And toady, as we try to
be true to those principles,
00:12:53.10\00:12:57.31
I think an
adherence to the Word of God.
00:12:57.34\00:13:00.48
How we find it and interpret
it by our deep Bible study,
00:13:00.51\00:13:04.58
and the principle of standing up
00:13:04.61\00:13:06.85
for truth against injustice
00:13:06.88\00:13:09.92
'cause there's a
social justice element.
00:13:09.95\00:13:12.05
And for doctrinal
truth this is vital
00:13:12.09\00:13:15.32
and is necessary in our
day as it ever was in Luther,
00:13:15.36\00:13:19.63
Hus's, or Zwinglis, or
any of the other reformers.
00:13:19.66\00:13:23.30
Today is the acceptable
day, now is the acceptable hour.
00:13:23.33\00:13:29.57
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:13:29.60\00:13:32.47