Welcome back to
The Liberty Insider.
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Before the break
with my voluble guest.
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Thank you, valuable.
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No, valuable... Okay, okay.
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I'm sorry, if I
could make sure I got it.
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I said an optimus.
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Ed Woods III, you
know, we really in fine
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form studying about witnessing.
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And we looked at pastors first
but all of us can be involved
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in public affairs
and religious liberty
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which, this is more
focused on our problem
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but it really goes
to the gospel commission
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and spreading the gospel...
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Oh, absolutely.
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And relating to
your fellow human beings.
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I'm very, my best
friends are pastors.
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Dr. Byrd as you know is
with a Breath of Life Ministry,
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and another good friend of mine
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who's the
godfather of my daughter,
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Pastor Furman Fordham,
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from Riverside
Chapel are pastors.
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And where makes it
a little bit easier
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for our relationship is
that they're very good pastors.
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And I respect it if you
can in terms of credibility.
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But pastors set the
tone, and the reason
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why I think there's
sometimes a disconnect
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where we don't value
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and respect pastors
the way that we should.
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And I know some of
that is their own doing,
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so let me not excuse that.
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But they do set
the tone of leadership,
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you know, in our church.
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I don't expect
them to do everything
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nor do I expect them
to have the expertise.
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But if they set the
tone and go to the meetings
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in providing some enthusiasm,
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you know, just different
things it makes a difference.
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I mean, it makes
a huge difference.
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Dr. Byrd is about
to speak in Charleston,
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you know, where the people died
in Charleston, South Carolina.
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You know, Fordham just hosted
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the police response in Riverside
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where they, his church
was the designation site.
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And so, Lincoln,
this church and the stuff.
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You know, our pastor Marlin Reid
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did a march at Strafford.
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You know, our Pastor
Silas Lebrite Coleman
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was a part of praying
in the police department.
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So it's those different things
where you have the leadership
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in terms of, you
know, setting the tone.
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He galvanized the congregation.
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And having said that I
do believe our congregation
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need to be more
active and not dependent.
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But we got to be
galvanized and committed
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because the
great gospel commission
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as you so noted
wasn't just for the pastor,
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all of us are supposed to go.
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But let's take a
little sidetrack on this,
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it's connected too.
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I drove to 3ABN this time.
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Never done it before a
long way from Maryland and I
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actually came by via
Tennessee, big looping around.
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And way out in the
back blocks was it Tennessee
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but anyhow a couple of
hundred miles from here
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I see Martin
Luther King Boulevard,
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you know, that
he is being stamped
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on the American
sensibility correctly.
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Right?
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Not just in areas where he
had an immediate influence.
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Yeah, but he took a while,
you know, Martin Luther King
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is more valued in death
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than because of
life in its proper view.
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I mean, it's
complicated story. Right.
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But you know there has been
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and there were
debates at the time,
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here Martin Luther
King a religious leader
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was involved in what many
saw as a political adventure.
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He saw it as part of
the Gospel Commission,
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and the
Christian message, right,
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change this country, big time.
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And yet at the same time,
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I think there's good
reasons to reign the church
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and pastors back from becoming
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political instruments
and functionaries and so on.
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Where do, you
know, how do you know
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where the differences
between representing Christ
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to old rules
principalities and neighborhoods
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and becoming unduly
involved or political?
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Well, I think it
really speaks to motive.
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I mean, I am doing my
Christian responsibility
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as a disciple of Christ.
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And my motive is to
get my five seconds of fame
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or do have my
name and highlights
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and stuff like that.
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That's the wrong reason.
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And
unfortunately we do have people
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that have these
pictures and moments of glory,
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but I mean this
mission doesn't just stop
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once the cameras have
stopped taking pictures.
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Even when you say
that I think of...
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I forget the first name
but it invokes the whole thing
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the Brawley, you remember.
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Who's that?
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Tawana Brawley or whatever,
remember that incident.
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You have to
refresh my memory, please.
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In one of the Rev. Al
Sharpton earlier iterations.
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He tried to enter into a
scene where there was some,
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I think it was a police action,
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anyhow there was this
girl Brawley, he told the story
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which was all
fabricated at the time.
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And I think he
had what was largely
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a political agenda at that time,
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he's matured a lot since
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and I don't know
have the same issue.
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Well, the thing
about human needs,
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suffering and rights,
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you know I guess
what I'm saying is to me
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is not a political
agenda it's a moral agenda.
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And why I say a moral agenda
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is we have
moral responsibilities
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as Christians not to
just talk about our faith
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but to live our faith.
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And when you see
some of these things
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that are
transpiring in our communities.
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And the church
doesn't have a response,
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I'm talking more
than just a statement.
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It seems like
there's a indifference.
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Samuel London
wrote a book entitled
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Seventh-day Adventists
and the Civil Rights Movement.
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And it talked
about one of the reasons
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why we're not involved.
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And one of the
things that he said
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was he talked about
evangelism and we felt our
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primary interest was evangelism,
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but not caring
about West African
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as the community.
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And I'm like how in the world
can you evangelize someone,
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when you can't even
show compassion for them.
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I mean, you're
gonna give them a Bible,
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and they can't have,
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they don't have any
food in the cupboards,
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you got to give them a Bible
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and they don't know,
their lights turn on.
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You're gonna give them the Bible
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and they're under
an eviction notice,
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I mean what are we saying
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when we're doing these things
where we don't really care,
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I mean obviously
it's well documented
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that our church
really didn't take a stand
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on the civil rights movement,
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but we had E.E
Cleveland and other...
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Well, we were
sociologically divided.
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We're still
sociologically divided.
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You're being kind, I guess...
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But I know what
it was like then...
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And I want to be respectful,
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but we're still
sociologically divided.
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We're not pushed, you know
we have the saying you know
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if I do this, half the
church is gonna be mad,
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and half the church is
going to agree with me.
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And I guess what I'm saying
is that's true in a democracy,
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but in a theocracy
we don't get to vote
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whether or not we're
gonna follow God's word.
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And we are under a theocracy,
and God's word reign supreme.
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So either we're
gonna follow it or not.
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I'm not looking
for the populous vote.
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I know there
are some people that
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everybody is
not going to like...
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Or the approach to public
affairs religious liberty.
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But if it's a biblical
mandate which I believe it is,
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and I believe that
the indwelling power
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of the Holy Spirit is
going to make that difference
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not me in and of myself.
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I think we can
transform the community
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and make a difference.
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And this is something
that I'm very passionate about
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from a witnessing standpoint
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is because we are
not having the impact
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that we need to
have and I also think
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just to have latter
rain implications as well.
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When you make
the general statement
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transforming the community.
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There's elements within
that on the simplest level
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which Christians do,
and our church is involved
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and you should give out,
you can have soup kitchens
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and give out material aid
and help in involvement right.
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But then there's the level that
we were really talking about
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with Martin Luther King
taking a social initiative
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for justice and so on.
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I don't think one
substitutes for the other.
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There's an article
coming up in Liberty,
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it's not printed yet.
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But it gives the example
from the Vietnam War of a...
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Happened to be a Roman Catholic
but a Roman Catholic cardinal,
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blessing and sprinkling
holy water on the be B52's
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as they headed off to bombing.
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To me that's a wrong
involvement of the church.
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Absolutely.
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And how about in
the antiwar movement,
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because it's not
just war and peace,
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but there's a
counterpoint to that,
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was it appropriate for
there were many ministers
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of different
religions at the time
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during the Vietnam War.
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I remember them
marching in those protests
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against injustice and
bloodshed and all the rest.
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I feel comfortable with that,
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I think we should
bring it to the fold,
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we shouldn't just
sit back and think,
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"Well, it's not my business,
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it's going to hell
in a handbasket anyway."
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I think the antiwar movement
is one we can be involved
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with against
violence in communities,
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the injustices that
are being perpetrated.
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I do think we need
to be involved in it,
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that's not our main game.
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You know, Muhammad Ali is
a true consciences of that.
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Oh, yeah. In
terms of that he was...
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I mean look at
how he was treated.
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You know for doing
that look what he lost.
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But he never wavered or
regret what he has done,
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and the thing is we
as a church need to stop
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being so populous minded,
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that we forget our
moral responsibility.
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And if we would do
that and not just come out
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when it's victims, you know
everybody wants to have victims
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but nobody wants to be
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for the
marginalized and the oppressed.
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I think we can
make a difference.
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And I think
people need to see that,
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because now if you look
at it people are now looking
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and shopping for churches.
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That's not all good
but there's certainly
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an opportunity
people have a great need,
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and they're not tied
to their old loyalties
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or indifference
even, the spiritual hunger.
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And even just care, I mean...
But we have to give them...
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Something beyond a
good time in the pews.
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Absolutely, they want to see
how you're making a difference
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in the community
and representing Christ.
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And I've studied a
lot of these mega churches
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as well as within our own church
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we had a
phenomenon it's not quite over
00:10:07.54\00:10:09.80
but it peaked while back
of the celebration churches.
00:10:09.84\00:10:12.91
And they all had very
active social programs,
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a lot of member involvement.
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Both things within the church
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but often moving out
into the greater community.
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I mean, they did,
the American city church
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I saw a clip
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where they did a baby
shower for the whole community.
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And they put
stuff in Claudia Allen,
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who's one of our phenomenal
speakers was leading it
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and she's from Lake Region,
she's out there in Baltimore.
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And they showed how
they were just doing this
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big community baby shower.
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Just helping people
in need, they didn't ask
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who the daddy was
or anything like that.
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It was an oblique way to
face a very real social problem.
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A situation. You
know how can we do that?
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And there would
probably be lead-ins
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that they could make
to link more actively
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with the community.
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Public affairs,
religious liberty
00:10:57.19\00:10:58.65
and witnessing.
00:10:58.69\00:11:00.29
Witnessing is something
that we do as individuals
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not on a collective basis,
00:11:02.82\00:11:04.29
and we as to make a
conscientious choice
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whether and how we
reflect the love of Christ
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in our community.
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That also responds to
the marginalized people
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whether they
might be prostitutes
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or whether they might be people
that we love in our family.
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Immigrant crisis is something
when it comes to witnessing
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in terms of how we
treat our immigrants
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and how the Lord has
required us to remember
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that we were
immigrants in Egypt.
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So how do we treat those
that might be undocumented
00:11:27.68\00:11:30.52
here in the
United States of America.
00:11:30.55\00:11:32.55
I encourage you then if you want
00:11:32.59\00:11:33.92
to make a difference
in your public affairs
00:11:33.96\00:11:35.69
and religious liberty ministry,
00:11:35.72\00:11:37.49
you won't just talk
about it, but you'll act
00:11:37.53\00:11:40.43
and that action will
speak louder than words.
00:11:40.46\00:11:42.86
Because
reflecting the love of Christ
00:11:42.90\00:11:44.60
not only inside the
walls of the church,
00:11:44.63\00:11:47.20
but outside the
walls of the church.
00:11:47.24\00:11:49.50
Thank you.
00:11:49.54\00:11:51.57
One of the most
moving moments of my life
00:11:51.61\00:11:53.94
was coming back from
a trip on the east coast
00:11:53.98\00:11:56.18
toward Salt Lake City, Utah.
00:11:56.21\00:11:58.48
Finding out that I
was on the same plane
00:11:58.51\00:12:00.28
as the Brigham
University singers
00:12:00.32\00:12:02.68
sitting next to
the choir director
00:12:02.72\00:12:04.35
and finding out
that they were returning
00:12:04.39\00:12:05.72
from three weeks
in the Middle East.
00:12:05.75\00:12:08.69
As we came down
close to their golden city,
00:12:08.72\00:12:12.33
their promised land,
00:12:12.36\00:12:13.70
spontaneously the young
people leapt to their feet,
00:12:13.73\00:12:16.00
and started singing
00:12:16.03\00:12:17.37
"I'm going to be a
witness for my Lord."
00:12:17.40\00:12:20.00
I don't share
their particular faith
00:12:20.04\00:12:22.40
but what I do
share is this conviction
00:12:22.44\00:12:24.77
that we are to be witnesses
00:12:24.81\00:12:27.14
when we deal with
religious liberty,
00:12:27.18\00:12:28.54
we're witnessing for
many individual faiths.
00:12:28.58\00:12:31.41
And me as a
Seventh-day Adventist Christian,
00:12:31.45\00:12:33.72
I am obligated to
witness to all and sundry.
00:12:33.75\00:12:38.79
As the Bible says of
what He has done for me,
00:12:38.82\00:12:41.36
and what He can do for you.
00:12:41.39\00:12:42.86
With that sort of dynamic,
00:12:42.89\00:12:45.06
religious liberty
will be alive and valid.
00:12:45.09\00:12:49.43
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:12:49.46\00:12:52.77