Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break,
with guest Greg Hamilton,
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we were going hammer and tongs
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on what started
with the discussion
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of Dignitatis
humanae and, of course,
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the nature of federalism,
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the nature of the
Roman Catholic church
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and perhaps, why there,
well, that's a good document.
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They fatally flowed
in carrying it forward
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because as I've
often written at Liberty,
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the Roman Catholic
church is a church,
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sometimes
masquerading as a state,
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other times, it's
a state masquerading
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or presenting
itself as a church.
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So they can't
be an honest broker
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on separation of that.
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The problem with
Dignitatis humanae is
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it's a rejection of
the Protestant foundations
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of America and its constitution.
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Say that again.
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It's a rejection, in the sense,
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that it doesn't accept
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the constitutional
separation of church and state.
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Dignitatis
humanae. Yes, it is...
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By omission. By omission.
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Yeah, but it
doesn't speak to that?
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No, it does not.
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But it's purposeful,
it's obvious, why wouldn't?
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I mean, Vatican II
would never accept,
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I mean, the holy sea,
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the Vatican will never
accept such a separation
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because they
themselves are again...
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No, they cannot.
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They are a sovereign,
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considered a
sovereign nation state.
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The only church
that's recognized as such.
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So it's church stay united.
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And ironically, Islam,
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which is not
structurally monolithic,
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the same way
Roman Catholic church,
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but Islam can never accept
separation of church and state.
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It's
antithetical to the very heart
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of their
theology and their faith.
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But I mentioned it
before on this program
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but perhaps, not to you.
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Some time ago, I
heard Cardinal Dolan
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speaking on religious
liberty and he spoke very well,
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I didn't agree with his point
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because he was critiquing Obama.
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Arch bishop of New York?
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Yes, and the newest
cardinal of that time
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and headed the
US Catholic Bishops
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and he was
carrying on very nicely
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and then he stopped.
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It was to a catholic
audience and after a break,
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he looked around
and sort of like,
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he'd come out of a fog
and he says, "You know,"
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he says, "there was a time
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Roman Catholics would
not have spoken this way
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about religious liberty."
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He said, "We once held
that era has no rights."
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And that is the historic view
of the Roman Catholic church.
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And then, along
came Dignitatis humanae,
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my view and I've
said it on this program,
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there are many other subtexts,
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you can comment
in different ways
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but watch that statement,
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"When the Roman
Catholic church goes self on it,
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then all hell will break loose."
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Because this view on
separation or non-separation
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will kick in the old
view of an obligation
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to even persecute, the
dissident will kick in.
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Dignitatis humanae has
influenced nations world wide.
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It's influenced
the United Nations.
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It's influenced even Indonesia
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with their new
constitution notice, Pancasila.
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Pancasila is a
five-pillared document
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which basically emphasizes
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the doctrine of
"peaceful coexistence."
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In fact, even the organization
of Islamic cooperation,
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57 Muslim nations
believe in the same thing,
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this doctrine of
peaceful coexistence.
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What is that?
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And it emanates
from Dignitatis humanae.
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What is that?
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That you have a right
to peacefully coexist,
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that free exercise of
religion is cherished.
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It should be sanctified,
blessed, it is something
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that should not be
obstructed or abused,
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it is sacrosanct
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and so Dignitatis humanae
put forward this whole idea
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of peaceful coexistence
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and this elicits the way
the world has interpreted it
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and the way it has adopted it.
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This idea that you have a
right to peacefully coexist.
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So let's say, your
congregation is puritan,
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during the time of
the puritan colonies.
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You're Quakers,
you're Catholics,
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you are Baptists, Jews,
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you have a right to
peacefully coexist with us
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but don't you
dare proselytize us,
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don't you dare evangelize us.
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The Dignitatis
humanae says particularly,
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you have the right
to change your religion
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and I know that's not accepted
by the Islamic coalitions.
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That's true, and
there is a difference here.
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There's a difference, but...
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Especially at the UN level.
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There is a clear
difference there.
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But the problem is,
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is when you look at
the interfaith model
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and how they're influenced.
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There still is
this idea, this idea of,
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Yes, you have a right
to change your religion
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but there still is a spirit
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that we really don't
want you to evangelize
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and you see this, not only
in the Roman Catholic world
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but you see this
at the Russian Duma,
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for example,
Russia's parliament.
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Russia just passed a law
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that says that proselytization
or evangelization
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is not
tolerated, it's not allowed.
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Now they are the first
big major super power nation
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to go down that road but
there has been an emphasis
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that's been growing
towards that line of thinking.
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Even Pope Francis,
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when he was
returning from the Philippines
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and he heard about the massacre
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at the Charlie Hebdo
magazine in Paris, France,
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by two ISIS
inspired gunmen, he said,
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"Proselytism as we
know, it must end, okay,
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for the sake of world peace."
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Now I thought
that was interesting.
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Now when you go to Romania,
you go to eastern Europe,
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or you go to any
part of the eastern world,
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the word,
proselytize, means to coerce,
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in other words, they view
proselytize in a different way,
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to proselytize in the
English western world,
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means simply to speak
freely, to share freely, okay?
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And which is
protected by articles 18 and 19
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of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights,
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which is the religious
freedom and free speech clauses.
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Now, you and I both know
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the organization
with Islamic cooperation,
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57 nations has
tried to amend those
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to include
blasphemy law language,
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that is to allow any nation
to punish anybody proselytizing
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or evangelizing
in their country.
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Or where an
offense is given nor taken.
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They don't want anything
said to critique their religion.
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Dignitatis humanae does
not directly, obviously,
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promote the idea
centering other religions,
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but nevertheless, the very fact
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that it omits the doctrinal
separation of church and state,
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lends itself
towards allying itself
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with the doctrine of
peaceful coexistence,
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it's a natural ally.
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Yeah, now I agree with you.
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It's not in the document.
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You need to make
that plain. Right.
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And what I believe
that you're describing
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is something that
I've seen for a long time.
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The only old
isms are collapsing,
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even communism in China,
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it's really an acronymism,
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then they're not
communism in any classic sense.
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Capitalism, you know,
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Trump might be
peering to reinstate it,
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but in reality,
capitalism is discredited.
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Imperialism is gone,
nor there is nationalism,
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it doesn't
exist in its old form.
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What's developing
are religious identities
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and that is moving into
function like nationalism,
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and Russia has done
that in opposing terrorism.
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It's now, to be Russian,
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is defined as
to be an unorthodox
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and I think we are on the
verge of something similar
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in the United States.
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A generic government organized
and sanctioned Christianity
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will become America, American.
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Well, in tying in together
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with the doctrine of
peaceful coexistence.
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And see if I'm a
prophet, I do not believe
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Islam will make the cut
on this, this coalition.
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No, I don't think so
either. I agree with you.
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But the doctrine of
peaceful coexistence
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is an international movement,
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more than it is a national
movement here in United States.
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It's less domestic-inspired.
Now, it's growing strong.
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Oh, spread in every country,
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all the major
countries are playing it up.
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And you mentioned
Indonesia, same thing.
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They're attempting, I mean,
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they have a
common Islamic identity
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but they're creating it
from another perspective
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using the same forces.
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It's growing strong
here in United States
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but it's still
not really taken root
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and if you look at
the Christian right,
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the Christian right and the fact
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that United States is
the dominant superpower
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and the last
superpower in prophecy.
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The emergence of
the Christian right,
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the evangelical right
along with the Catholic right,
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is more powerful in terms
of its influence of effecting
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and eventually, manipulating
and controlling government.
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And you and I use the
right is the best descriptive,
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but it's not hard
co-conservative anymore.
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What?
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This religio-political
force that's gathering its team.
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Yes, well, because they're
trying to be mainstreamed.
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They realized they're
losing young people right
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and left that are very much
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for the constitutional
separation of church and state.
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So they're trying to
remake themselves right.
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Well, they are
religiously more liberal.
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They have much the
same political agenda,
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but they're not
drawn from the, you know,
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the old stalled
puritans anymore.
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A perfect example of that
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is the emergence
of Russell Moore,
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the head of the Southern
Baptist Ethics Commission
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and he has come out very
moderate in his statements.
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Very pro, not like
free exercise of religion
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but even, somewhat guarding
00:09:31.83\00:09:34.14
even the constitutional
separation of church and state
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which was what they
used to do years ago.
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He's actually trying
to bring Baptists back
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to more of a fundamental
foundational understanding
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of religious freedom.
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It's a big time for you
to throw in a disclaimer
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or a qualifier.
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I don't think that
everything the religious right
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is up to is bad.
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No, not at all.
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The way I usually
say it in Liberty,
00:09:53.72\00:09:55.36
"I agree with just about
everything that concerns them,
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but it's problematic
00:09:58.93\00:10:00.70
how they're solving the problem,
00:10:00.73\00:10:03.63
direct use of political power,
00:10:03.67\00:10:05.57
not to concern with
the rights of a majority,
00:10:05.60\00:10:07.87
if they can get it
through to support their view,
00:10:07.90\00:10:09.70
that's fine."
00:10:09.74\00:10:11.17
Yeah, and to me,
the whole funding issue
00:10:11.21\00:10:13.31
which we haven't talked about
is another matter all together.
00:10:13.34\00:10:16.64
But, so this is interesting.
00:10:16.68\00:10:18.78
You've connected
this to dignitatis humanae
00:10:18.81\00:10:21.05
which I think is a
reasonable jumping off point,
00:10:21.08\00:10:23.52
but it's not a
Catholic movement per se.
00:10:23.55\00:10:25.52
The Roman Catholics
have greatly influenced
00:10:25.55\00:10:27.72
the political
Protestant picture in the US,
00:10:27.76\00:10:31.23
but I do believe that
Protestantism on its own
00:10:31.26\00:10:36.06
is moving in a very
liberal, monolithic direction
00:10:36.10\00:10:40.50
and to blur the distinguishment
to inseparation of church
00:10:40.54\00:10:42.90
and state, right?
00:10:42.94\00:10:44.27
Yes, absolutely.
00:10:44.31\00:10:45.64
I think the constitutional
separation of church and state
00:10:45.67\00:10:49.14
as a Protestant founding
principle in our country
00:10:49.18\00:10:53.31
is something that's
being lost sight of,
00:10:53.35\00:10:55.05
and I think it's a
trend, it's a Catholic trend
00:10:55.08\00:10:59.22
that seeks to redefine
religious freedom in America
00:10:59.25\00:11:02.29
and to me, that's prophetic.
00:11:02.32\00:11:04.73
For many of us
involved in religious liberty,
00:11:04.76\00:11:07.96
there's much to
find in Vatican II,
00:11:08.00\00:11:11.00
a great church council of
the Roman Catholic Church.
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In particular, a
document with a Latin title
00:11:14.07\00:11:17.71
and ironically, this
was the church council
00:11:17.74\00:11:20.14
that allowed the
mess and other liturgies
00:11:20.18\00:11:22.88
to be conducted
in the vernacular.
00:11:22.91\00:11:24.98
This is Latin but it
means the dignity of man.
00:11:25.01\00:11:29.22
And we have to command
the Roman Catholic church
00:11:29.25\00:11:31.29
for coming part of the
way, across to understanding
00:11:31.32\00:11:34.56
what the Protestant
will long fought for,
00:11:34.59\00:11:37.23
the dignity of the human being
00:11:37.26\00:11:39.49
to determine their
own spiritual identity
00:11:39.53\00:11:42.96
and, of course, to directly
relate to God in heaven,
00:11:43.00\00:11:46.13
not through
human intermediaries.
00:11:46.17\00:11:48.50
But there may be
a little more to it
00:11:48.54\00:11:50.41
and while dignitatis
humanae stands for now,
00:11:50.44\00:11:54.01
it's very important that
in the United States at least,
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with that particular
constitutional construct,
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that we cling to the
separation of church and state
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as a protective element.
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For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
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