Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Nicolas Miller
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000357B
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00:05 Welcome back after the break with my aggressive guest,
00:11 who plays very kindly. 00:13 Before the break, 00:15 we were talking again peripherally 00:17 about the Reformation, 00:19 but how it relates to what we are living through 00:21 in the United States at the moment 00:23 which as we were saying during the break 00:25 in a many ways 00:27 is a literal political revolution. 00:28 Yes. 00:30 This wasn't just an unusual election. 00:33 Not all revolutions are through force or the military, 00:36 this was a peaceful revolution 00:38 and the reason that I use that term 00:40 is because it overturned both establishments. 00:42 Even though technically, the Republican candidate won, 00:44 all of the establishment Republican candidates lost. 00:47 Well, for a big part of the election, 00:49 the whole Republican infrastructure 00:50 was opposed to Trump. 00:52 Not, it's right. 00:53 And they had to swallow hard and accept him, 00:54 when he was unstoppable. 00:56 This was a new outside force, 00:58 the first true outsider for a long, long time to come 01:02 into Washington and take power. 01:04 And I don't even read about it but it's curious to me 01:08 that for a lot of his life and career, 01:11 the president was a Democrat. 01:13 That's right. 01:15 Not something they want ever democrat pro-choice, 01:20 variety of views that he... 01:21 Which in its own way is a vindication of the system 01:25 that they could be a relatively peaceful transfer of power. 01:30 And yet the entangling element I think is after he's elected, 01:35 it's almost impossible to fill the thousands of positions 01:38 required of a new administration 01:40 without drawing from functionaries 01:43 if not establishment individuals. 01:46 Well, there was... 01:47 Typically in changes of administration, 01:51 many of the people stay on from the old administration 01:54 until new hires can happen. 01:56 But this time around, 01:57 it seems at least above a certain level of seniority 02:00 that the Trump administration 02:02 asked for immediate resignation, 02:04 so that there's hundreds of positions 02:07 that are apparently unfilled 02:08 and will have to be filled rapidly. 02:10 So it's a time like no other in my lifetime. 02:12 I think I heard several thousand 02:15 when it goes all down, 02:16 but there's certainly 02:18 a couple of hundred major positions. 02:19 Hundreds of key positions. 02:20 So it's... 02:22 We're living in a political time like not 02:23 since I was born 50 years ago at this point. 02:27 And the question is as a Christian 02:29 how do you relate to times of political uncertainty 02:33 to new leadership. 02:34 How about going to poll. We would talk about that. 02:35 That you may disagree with 02:37 and we may have disagreed with the leadership, 02:40 if the other president, 02:42 the other candidate had been elected president, 02:45 but we have a very serious question, 02:47 what does Paul say? 02:48 And I think there's three things from Romans 13, 02:50 it's his famous passage that many people read in 02:53 as to submitting to the civil rulers, 02:56 but if you read the passage carefully, 02:57 yes, it's true. 02:58 There's three things we should at least do. 03:00 Pray for our rulers 03:02 even when we don't agree with them, 03:04 respect them, they are in the position of authority. 03:06 We were told to even pray for those 03:08 that despitefully use us so that's... 03:10 Prayer. 03:12 Threshold for that is very low. 03:13 Respect. 03:14 And even respect and even obedience 03:17 when it doesn't mean contrary to the law of God 03:20 which can be both his written law 03:21 or the moral law of nature, 03:23 but I think there is something 03:25 that can be implied also from Romans 13 03:27 where it says the government is a minister of God 03:31 to punish evil and to reward good. 03:34 And if you live in a republic 03:37 which is a government of the people, 03:39 by the people, and for the people, 03:40 you are actually part of the governmental system 03:43 as a citizen. 03:44 And under this framework then, 03:46 you now have a divine heavenly responsibility 03:51 to provide oversight and accountability 03:53 to make sure the government does punish only evil 03:56 and it does reward good. 03:58 And if it starts doing the opposite, 04:00 then I would suggest 04:02 in our republican system of government, 04:04 we have a role to call our representatives 04:07 to write letters to our leadership 04:09 to be actively engaged in pushing back. 04:12 And this is a big part of religious liberty, 04:13 we are encouraging people to make that contact 04:17 with legislators to be aware of laws 04:20 and proposals and be watchman. 04:22 To send e-mails, to send letters 04:26 and most recently I was... 04:29 sought some advice from an expert 04:32 in government lobbying. 04:34 And they say the most effective form of giving feedback 04:36 to your Washington representatives, 04:38 pick up the phone and make a phone call. 04:40 They can ignore e-mails and tweets, 04:43 and even written letters, not that they ignore them, 04:45 but they give them much less weight, 04:47 if their phone lines get flooded with concerns 04:51 on a particular issue... 04:52 It's true. They pay attention. 04:53 And I'm not sure written letters 04:55 are always delivered 04:56 with fear of things in the mail nowadays. 04:58 Right. 05:00 So the telephone seems to be the strongest... 05:03 Yeah. That's a good point. 05:04 Avenue of communication. 05:05 So... 05:08 Where are we with the future? 05:11 It's hard to project 05:13 and as I even said before this program, 05:14 you know, we've got to be as supportive as we can 05:17 because with this new administration, 05:18 we certainly don't yet quite know 05:20 the full lay of the land, do we? 05:22 No. 05:23 We'll be praying for the success, 05:26 as with every administration. 05:27 As the administration succeed so does the country, 05:29 so we're certainly in favor of success. 05:31 Yeah. 05:33 But, I think 05:35 quite apart from who's actually holding the position, 05:38 I think there's been good reason for a while to, 05:41 to sort of... 05:42 Well, I think you and me 05:45 and many other fellow Christians, 05:47 we see many signs, 05:48 abundant signs of what's happening in the US 05:51 and in the world that these are last day signs, 05:53 prophetically significant. 05:56 This is not business as usual. 05:58 We've been told that before the very final events 06:03 that the principles of the United States Constitution 06:07 will be overridden, will be undercut, 06:11 will be set aside. 06:12 And so that's not just repudiated is a critical word. 06:17 So it's not just to do 06:19 with the separation of church and state, 06:20 but the other principles of the separation of powers 06:23 of various other freedoms, freedom of the press. 06:26 And I have to say that this is something 06:27 that is concerning me, 06:29 there's been a lot of maligning of the press. 06:32 Now believe me, the press isn't perfect. 06:34 I've worked in the government 06:35 and I've worked in private practice 06:36 as a lawyer, 06:38 and they often slant things from prejudicial perspectives, 06:42 there is a left wing bias, 06:44 but for the most part, 06:45 the mainstream press at least hasn't reported 06:48 just overtly false facts. 06:50 And when that has happened, 06:52 they are very quick to do with retractions, 06:56 and I think that the level of demonization 06:58 that they are undergoing, 07:00 it overlooks the fact that our founders viewed the press 07:05 as the fourth estate, 07:07 as a kind of part of government, 07:09 not being controlled by government, 07:11 but they are the thing 07:13 that sheds light on what's happening 07:15 and gives transparency to events, 07:17 because if they don't report on what the government is doing 07:20 or what's happening in the public square 07:21 or in Congress, how are we to know? 07:24 I agree with your point 07:25 although I'm thinking of US history. 07:27 I think it was Franklin's son-in-law 07:32 was the publisher of the Aurora, 07:35 you know the story of that? 07:36 One of the biggest newspapers at that time 07:39 and they had huge problems with Adams 07:44 under the Alien and Sedition Acts, 07:45 that there was an attempt 07:47 to totally close down that major newspaper. 07:50 So the administration's suspicion 07:53 and even handing of the press is, 07:56 I think on a new level, but it's not a new thing. 07:59 It's an old thing. 08:00 It's also part of this balancing of powers 08:03 and the fight between, 08:04 what they call it the fourth estate. 08:06 But I think what is a newer thing 08:08 is a combination of the wide popular unhappiness 08:14 with the press. 08:15 And I can't say that I've ever seen 08:17 the equivalent of the kind of abuse 08:20 that the administration has leveled at the press, 08:23 you know, calling them purveyors of false news, 08:25 of being horrible people of painting them up 08:30 at his rallies, 08:31 and calling on people to, you know, 08:35 disparage them and it's troubling, 08:38 it's troubling. 08:40 Well, it's an attempt 08:41 to control the message to the people 08:44 which has been done many, many times before. 08:46 And in our modern era, 08:48 the whole art form was developed 08:52 that's pitched by the Nazis propaganda, 08:55 and it's... 08:56 I'm not leveling at this administration. 08:59 In most of the world since then, 09:01 that's been a common tool, propaganda, 09:04 particularly in wartime. 09:08 Facts designed to either blind people to facts 09:11 or give them false facts. 09:12 Or alternate facts. Yeah. 09:14 And then, I think that's come together 09:16 with the internet 09:18 which is sort of democratized information, 09:20 but you have no filter to tell if it's true or not. 09:24 And people are being swamped by unprovable facts. 09:27 They're being often misled by government information. 09:32 And the media, like you said, 09:33 they have both the buyers and in the United States, 09:35 anybody that's ever visited outside the US 09:38 knows that the media in the US are very myopic. 09:41 They don't tell you very much or know very much. 09:44 But usually they've said mostly true things. 09:48 It is selective slice of reality 09:51 with a certain slant to it, 09:53 but problematically these days, we're being given... 09:56 People can have their own set of facts. 09:59 And a history professor of mine used to say, 10:02 "You are entitled to your own opinion, 10:04 but you can't have your own facts. 10:06 Facts are publicly to read upon." 10:08 Well, hard information. Right. 10:11 But what passes for news anymore 10:12 is really opinion most times. 10:14 Often, too often. 10:16 It isn't that such and such a thing 10:17 happened on such and such a day that, 10:19 it's, you know, this person did this because... 10:23 Well, I hope that we've moved astray a bit 10:27 from talking about religious freedom. 10:29 Well, it's all to do with freedom things 10:31 and you can't, as you know, 10:32 you can't separate one civil liberty from another. 10:36 And I'll put it this way. 10:39 I believe with the evolving civil liberties in general, 10:43 religious liberty is in mortal threat 10:45 at the moment, and it appears otherwise 10:47 because of openness of separation. 10:49 And that's the thought 10:51 that I would end with is that freedoms and liberties 10:54 are not discrete elements 10:56 but they're all part of a single package. 10:58 And when one freedom or liberty begins to being undermined, 11:01 the rest is threatened. 11:02 Freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, 11:05 racial freedoms and liberties, 11:08 all these things contribute to a freedom of religion 11:12 and we need to embrace and defend the package. 11:16 The Reformation is certainly a guiding principle even today. 11:21 When we apply those principles 11:23 though to our governing leaders, 11:25 we might find that our expectation 11:28 or their reality is a little lacking. 11:32 I do believe we need to pray for our leadership 11:34 in the United States in particular, 11:36 since that's what we're discussing. 11:37 But wherever they are to be found, 11:40 it's worth remembering though the principle 11:43 that the Bible shows with the Old Testament, 11:45 people of God. 11:47 When they clamored for a king, God allowed them to have one, 11:50 but He had a hand in His choosing 11:53 in the choice of Saul 11:55 who was an upright man. 11:57 But He needed prayers 11:58 because even though he was God's choice, 12:01 what he did later in his kingship 12:03 was most deplorable 12:05 to use the term recently used. 12:08 We need to pray without ceasing for ourselves, of course, 12:12 and for our leaders 12:14 that they act wisely and righteously. 12:17 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2017-04-20