Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is the program bringing you
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up-to-date news, and discussion
on religious liberty events,
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late breaking events in
the US, and around the world.
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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.
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Let's really hit the
ground running with this.
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In the United
States at the moment,
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there's a new administration
that, whatever it accomplishes,
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I think is going to
be a historic benchmark
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because I've never seen a
more activist administration
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and president in my lifetime.
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The first 10 days
feels like the first 100 days
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for everyone else
in administration.
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Things are
happening in a great flurry.
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And I think it's not by accident
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because in the last few years
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there have been some
groundswell movements
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in the US.
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People have become disgusted
with politics, it's normal.
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They've become
afraid of external threats.
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They become, or there's been
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a developing
sense of impoverishment,
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that we've lost to
rich people elsewhere
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or send our wealth
there, our treasures.
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I don't know who started that
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but this idea of
American treasure,
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it sounds sort of
the pirate-ish to me.
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Yeah, siphoned
off overseas. Yeah.
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So, you know, no accident
that we've got what we got,
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but we didn't see it
coming and now that it's here,
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it's in your face every day.
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What are we to make of
this, this new administration?
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Yeah, it's a great question.
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Of course, as a church historian
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from Andrews University,
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you have to try to put it
in some historical perspective.
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Now, we could even talk about
what's happening in our church,
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it roughly parallels...
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It's all connected, isn't it?
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You know, here we are,
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at the 500th anniversary
of the Protestant Reformation
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and so the question is perhaps,
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and in the previous program
we talked about the linkage
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between Martin Luther
and Martin Luther King Jr.,
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and the rise of democracy
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and human rights
and minority rights,
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but somebody, a
skeptic could say,
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"Well, what about,
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isn't there a
similar story to be told?
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Can you tell the same story
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from Martin
Luther to Donald Trump?"
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Right?
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Donald Trump, does he
claim to be a Christian?
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I believe that he does.
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If he says he is,
he is in his mind.
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He identifies as a
Christian, he's a member of...
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I mean it's up to
God to decide each of us,
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how good a Christian
or a fellow human being...
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Sure, sure.
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But he, in fact
during the campaign
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he made a big point of
that he was a Presbyterian,
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unlike those
Seventh-day Adventists,
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who are they, he was
trying to imply that...
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Well, he made a
comment about Adventists,
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I didn't hear that it
was in that context, was it?
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It was in the context
of when Dr. Ben Carson...
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Yeah, he says "I
don't know who is he?"
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Was getting ahead
of him in the polls
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in some of the
Northeastern states
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and he said, "I'm not sure
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about the Seventh-day Adventists
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but the Presbyterians
were right down the middle."
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So he claims a
strong Protestant heritage.
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So is the, is the
eventual rise of Protestantism
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more clearly seen
in Martin Luther King
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and the civil rights
movement and minority rights,
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or is it more fully
seen in Donald Trump
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whose relationship, I'd suggest,
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to civil rights
and racial rights
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is complex and
contested at best?
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And, you know, he's not known
for his strong track record...
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Well, I got to give him a
bit of a leg up at the moment.
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President Roosevelt.
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The World War II
President Roosevelt,
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we have two of them of
course, Theodore Roosevelt.
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You know, he was a
patrician of the first order.
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But yet, I think he
proved in his presidency
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that he had a
concern for the working man,
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even Social Security
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that's become
quite dear to my heart
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of recent years in
anticipation was his, you know,
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a product of his administration.
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So just because Donald Trump
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is a billionaire with a
silver spoon life and...
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No just.
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Not a proven identification
with the subcontractors
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that worked on his hotel.
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Intellectually or
theoretically, we hope,
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and it's possible that he's able
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to identify with these issues.
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Well, I would hope so,
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but I'm not just judging him
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based on his status
or place in society.
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You may remember that
in running his campaign,
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he went out of his way to talk
about certain immigrant groups
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and not in the
most flattering terms.
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He talked about the Mexicans,
who are criminals and rapists
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and some of them are good people
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he managed to throw in.
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But the point is,
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a lot of people
supported his campaign
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who were overtly racist in ways
that he wasn't, I acknowledge,
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but he didn't go out of his way
to separate himself from them
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at least initially.
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Who made the comment
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that you get the
government you deserve?
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Well, there is
something perhaps...
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There's a statement like that.
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And I don't know that
it's unique to the US,
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but for years
politicians have been playing up
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to the crowd.
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Whatever they thought
it took to be elected,
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George Bush Sr., who we
wish good health to him now,
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he's old and not in good health.
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But, you know, in his presidency
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or running for
election remember,
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they ran the Willie Horton ad.
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Right. So...
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It doesn't come
nastier than that.
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But we never saw that
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exemplified in
his personal behavior
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and in his governing.
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So this is not new
to American politics,
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but you have to
say and I'm not just
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we're dwelling
here on the race issue
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but what about
other minority issues.
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So it's clear...
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Now what is clear, what I think
is very clear and shocking,
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is all these tendencies
and things that you see now
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and then, they
were like on steroids
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in the Trump campaign
and you mentioned the...
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Well, reinstitute
water boarding and words...
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Yeah, you remember, Ben
Carson ran for president,
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was doing quite well early on,
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I think a little better
than Trump at one point.
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And Trump unloaded on him
and later on they joined forces
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and I can
remember on one TV show,
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they said to Carson,
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"How come you can support him,
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he called you a child molester?"
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And he said, "Oh,
it's just politics."
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I don't know but I
mean that's how bad it got.
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I'm glad brother Carson...
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And he was willing to
let bygones be bygones.
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Can be very forgiving.
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But I think we
have to acknowledge
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that whatever
Donald Trump ran on,
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he didn't run on
a robust platform
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of minority rights, right?
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In fact to the contrary,
he said, "I'm going to punish,
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I'm gonna kill the wives
and children of terrorists,
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I'm going to..."
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Go after their family...
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It was a dismantling of
constitutional protection.
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I wish that was
an original idea.
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Unfortunately,
the state of Israel
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has said
similar things recently.
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The question is, is
this a return to America's,
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President Trump has talked
about make America great again,
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and I think that's all a slogan
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that we could
actually get behind.
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Who doesn't want
to make America great,
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but the question becomes
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how are we
defining what greatness is?
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Absolutely.
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And as someone else I
think it was Hillary said,
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"Who says we're
not great anymore?"
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you know.
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Well, you know.
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And what occurred
to me, no one said it,
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is what defines great?
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What my fear is
that this all plays
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on American exceptionalism
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which I have deep troubles with
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because it's a
theological misunderstanding.
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Well, it seems to be that
he views American greatness
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as financial
power, military power,
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probably some sort
of social cohesiveness,
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where sort of all together
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thinking in
somewhat similar ways
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and he didn't go so far
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as to identify it
with a particular race.
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Though there were some
of his supporters that did,
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but he distanced
himself from that.
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But the question is,
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is that truly what
American's greatness lies on?
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Or does it, is it financially,
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and militarily
and socially strong
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because of some other things?
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And I think you
and I would think
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that there are some
other things behind it.
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Well, I think any
country can be great
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in the scale of heaven,
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if it has moral
sensibility and executes justice
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as it should be executed.
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Well, 19th century historians,
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and this was
echoed by Ellen White,
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one of our founders says that,
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America's
greatness lay on two pillars
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and they termed
these Republicanism.
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It's a government
that Lincoln put in.
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And Protestantism.
And Protestantism.
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And Republicanism
was a government of, by,
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and for the people, a
representative government
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that worked with
its checks and balances
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with its
transparency and its openness.
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And Protestantism was
the principle of conscience
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that people should be protected
in their freedom of conscience,
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and in their more
fundamental rights.
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Religious freedoms
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and separation
of church and state.
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Religious freedom,
separation of church and state.
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The question is,
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is the American greatness
that we're being called back
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to a strengthening
of those two principles?
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Doesn't seem to me, does it?
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In fact, it seems
to be in some ways
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undermining
those two principles.
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And it seems to me,
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even though I've always
been very uncomfortable,
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it's comparing the United States
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experiment with Rome.
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In some ways, we're following
the patent of the Republic
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and it's...
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Remember that
Rome had a senate...
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Yeah.
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Democratic system
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and how it
devolved to a strongman
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and then to Caesars...
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Through an
empire and to Caesars...
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And then it went pretty bad.
Dictators and accusant and...
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Did the Senate go away?
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And the clamor of
the people and so on...
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Did the Senate go away? No.
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So the Senate
continued to exist.
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Yes.
00:10:00.40\00:10:01.73
But the in form, but the spirit
00:10:01.76\00:10:03.87
and substance of the
Senate had long gone.
00:10:03.90\00:10:06.23
You know and this is
a political statement,
00:10:06.27\00:10:08.37
but I hope not partisan,
00:10:08.40\00:10:10.14
but it just hurts me
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when I hear the
constant discussion
00:10:12.24\00:10:15.24
on the radio or
television and so on.
00:10:15.28\00:10:17.28
That at the moment
is that fever pitch,
00:10:17.31\00:10:19.21
that whichever party
it is 'cause it varies,
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they have to
stack the Supreme Court
00:10:22.52\00:10:24.45
to get their view through.
00:10:24.49\00:10:26.12
With the great
strength of the system
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that in the United
States we've lived under,
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is it's a divided system,
00:10:30.83\00:10:33.43
that there's a
check and a balance
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and it's worked wonderfully.
00:10:35.30\00:10:37.33
It's kept the
constitution alive.
00:10:37.37\00:10:40.60
And yet some
people now think, well,
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we will have the Supreme Court
00:10:42.34\00:10:43.81
to either
reinvent the constitution
00:10:43.84\00:10:46.88
or others want it to be
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applied in its
narrower sense and,
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you know, I read
the constitution.
00:10:51.58\00:10:52.91
The constitution
had two-thirds votes
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and a person votes
and nothing for women
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and $5 penalty I
think for a civil suit
00:10:57.92\00:11:01.09
and all the sort of craziness.
00:11:01.12\00:11:02.82
It's from its
time, but, you know,
00:11:02.86\00:11:06.76
the beauty of the system
was that it diffused power,
00:11:06.80\00:11:10.23
but yet the
ultimate responsibility
00:11:10.27\00:11:12.20
came from the populace.
00:11:12.23\00:11:13.57
From the people. Yeah.
00:11:13.60\00:11:14.94
And we're
drifting away from that.
00:11:14.97\00:11:17.34
Dangerously so I
think, dangerously so.
00:11:17.37\00:11:19.54
Yeah, we see
dangerously but, and we need...
00:11:19.57\00:11:23.24
Who said it, "Eternal vigilance
is the price of liberty."
00:11:23.28\00:11:27.08
We need to...
00:11:27.12\00:11:28.45
Madison or
Jefferson or maybe both, yes.
00:11:28.48\00:11:30.52
I'm sure they all thought it.
00:11:30.55\00:11:32.52
Well, you know, the
problem with the Republic
00:11:32.55\00:11:35.26
is that it can only flourish
00:11:35.29\00:11:37.59
when they are an educated
00:11:37.63\00:11:39.49
and self-restraint
or virtuous people.
00:11:39.53\00:11:41.66
One of the same guys said that.
00:11:41.70\00:11:44.17
Well, and
Benjamin Franklin famously
00:11:44.20\00:11:47.07
when he was leaving the
Constitutional Convention,
00:11:47.10\00:11:49.30
a woman called out to him,
00:11:49.34\00:11:50.67
you know, "What is it
that you've brought us.
00:11:50.71\00:11:53.04
What have we got?"
00:11:53.07\00:11:55.24
And he said, "We've
brought you a republic,
00:11:55.28\00:11:58.31
if you can keep it."
00:11:58.35\00:11:59.75
If you can keep it.
00:11:59.78\00:12:01.12
And the reason virtue
is needed and education
00:12:01.15\00:12:06.15
is because its self-government,
00:12:06.19\00:12:08.72
and anyone
who's raised teenagers
00:12:08.76\00:12:11.06
or children know that,
00:12:11.09\00:12:13.06
children aren't self-governing.
00:12:13.09\00:12:14.43
You have to give them.
00:12:14.46\00:12:15.80
We've seen that,
you and I at the moment.
00:12:15.83\00:12:17.17
Guidelines and parameters,
00:12:17.20\00:12:19.37
but the idea is to create
self-governing ability in them
00:12:19.40\00:12:23.51
but that requires knowledge,
and it requires restraint.
00:12:23.54\00:12:27.08
And when people lose
that sense of restraint,
00:12:27.11\00:12:29.88
they have to be
governed by others.
00:12:29.91\00:12:32.75
And, yes, and unfortunately
00:12:32.78\00:12:34.85
that's occurred to
some civil rules on occasion
00:12:34.88\00:12:37.32
and that leads to dictatorship
and the demagoguery.
00:12:37.35\00:12:43.06
But, you know, we'll
keep a positive viewpoint,
00:12:43.09\00:12:46.36
as we must at the moment,
00:12:46.39\00:12:48.10
but I think this
00:12:48.13\00:12:49.46
regardless of what this
administration are doing,
00:12:49.50\00:12:53.20
there is underlying
shifts in society and attitudes,
00:12:53.23\00:12:59.27
that I think are
the most dangerous.
00:12:59.31\00:13:01.84
And I, regardless of whether
00:13:01.88\00:13:03.85
it was with either
candidate elected this time.
00:13:03.88\00:13:06.35
I'd still be
personally is worried about
00:13:06.38\00:13:07.92
what's bubbling up underneath.
00:13:07.95\00:13:09.28
Right.
00:13:09.32\00:13:10.65
We had several years of people
maligning their government.
00:13:10.69\00:13:13.39
We've had several years of
efforts to remove religion,
00:13:13.42\00:13:17.93
not just from
government which I wanted from,
00:13:17.96\00:13:20.43
but remove it
from the public sphere.
00:13:20.46\00:13:23.26
We've had outside threats,
00:13:23.30\00:13:25.00
which like Luther
and the Reformation
00:13:25.03\00:13:27.94
destabilized the
whole population.
00:13:27.97\00:13:29.87
So we're
actually in an extremely
00:13:29.90\00:13:31.44
dynamic point of history.
00:13:31.47\00:13:33.11
So how does a
Christian relate to all of this,
00:13:33.14\00:13:35.21
we'll talk about
that after our break.
00:13:35.24\00:13:37.31
No, no, you jumped on me.
00:13:37.35\00:13:38.68