Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000379B
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00:05 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:07 Before the break with guest, Christopher Steed, we were 00:10 musing about the role of the U.S. in history and its 00:14 self-perception, and we had arrived at the big moment; 00:17 September 11, 2001. 00:20 So many things changed. 00:22 At the very least, if you look at it as a point of history, 00:26 it was a marker. 00:28 There was before, like... 00:30 The influence of Christianity is undeniable on history. 00:32 There's before Christ and after Christ, Anno Domini. 00:37 But for the U.S., I think it's before 9/11 and after 9/11. 00:41 And so many of our laws, while they weren't openly changed, 00:46 they were modified in dangerous ways that really 00:49 don't give us the freedoms that we imagine we have. 00:54 Do you remember 9/11 at all? 00:58 I remember bits of it. 00:59 I mean, I've heard stories from when I was little. 01:01 Some embarrassing, some not. 01:03 Well the one that I want to tell... 01:05 I was giving you the chance to tell your thoughts 01:07 when you were two and a half. 01:10 Not much older. 01:12 We tried to keep it from you, as many parents. 01:15 It was shocking to see it on TV. 01:17 And I can't remember letting you see it, 01:20 but it was everywhere, so you must have seen something. 01:23 And I remember once you were in your 01:25 car seat in the back of the car. 01:28 You know, the child seat where you're buckled in, 01:30 and all the rest. 01:31 And the window was down. It must have been... 01:34 I don't know why the window was down. 01:36 Well maybe you rolled it down. 01:38 And as we stopped at the lights, you called across to the car 01:42 opposite us, you said, "There's buildings been falling 01:45 and people dying, and all the rest." 01:48 I don't remember that one. 01:50 And this little kid could barely talk. 01:52 And he's mumbling out that this has happened. 01:56 We thought, "This is amazing. He wants to tell people." 01:59 But there's no question it was a shock to the whole world, 02:02 but particularly to the U.S. 02:03 Which, imagine, still thinks that it's largely immune 02:08 to outside attack. 02:09 We go and fight wars elsewhere, 02:11 but for them to come here, it couldn't be. 02:15 But it was. 02:18 So something that I want to repeat here for our viewers, 02:20 because I just read it again the other day. 02:23 But at the time, I read in Harper's Magazine 02:26 an article that quoted from a then recent issue of 02:30 Le Monde Magazine, in Paris, France. 02:34 A psychologist or a social scientist was writing about it, 02:40 and he said, "The event was not just real, 02:44 the violent and the visceral disaster that we all saw." 02:47 He says, if it had just been real, you know, we see killing 02:53 on the news accounts, and of course movies, 02:56 gratuitous killing, and we see videos from World War II, 03:00 and the Holocaust, and so on. 03:03 We're sort of immune to that. 03:04 He says, "Violence in its excess can become sort of banal." 03:09 Commonplace, can't it? 03:10 ~ It can. - You get used to it. 03:11 Nowadays, like with the new video games that are coming out. 03:14 I go to GameStop at the mall sometimes. 03:16 I've gone with you. 03:18 I mean, I've looked at some of the games there, 03:20 even the demo games... 03:21 I mean, there was one... 03:23 I don't remember the full title, but it's Advanced Warfare. 03:27 And you go through, it's a war simulation game. 03:31 And you just blow people's heads off. 03:35 Now that's very bad on its own level. 03:37 There's other studies shown that it desensitizes 03:41 young people, particularly, to violence against other people. 03:44 But you're right. It's all around us, isn't it? 03:47 And this fellow in his article said, he says, 03:50 "Violence can be sort of banal." 03:51 He says, "No, it was worse than real. 03:54 It was symbolic." 03:57 And these great towers, symbols of our technology, 04:00 of our civilization, we see it as bigger and better than most, 04:07 if not all, and to see it just collapsing down. 04:10 That's a terribly debilitating moment. 04:13 Then later in the article he said something, I think I can 04:16 remember the sequence, it's phenomenal. 04:18 He says, "We have reached the point when the idea of freedom 04:23 itself, an idea relatively recent and new, 04:29 is in the process of fading away and being replaced by 04:34 its polar opposite; that of a terror of security." 04:40 And that's really what's happening. 04:42 And as that happens, I see religious, true religious 04:46 freedom becoming a victim of this new dynamic. 04:49 In a security state we can't afford unrestricted 04:54 religious liberty, the free market of spiritual ideas, 04:59 and me talking to someone else. 05:01 Like you were saying earlier, talking to someone in the 05:03 parking lot about your Adventist faith. 05:06 That could more recently be seen as potentially dangerous 05:11 in a post 9/11 world. 05:13 - You think? ~ I mean, yeah. 05:15 I mean, talking in a group. 05:18 I mean, one on one talking I wouldn't see it 05:20 as a potential danger, but to be talking, like, 05:23 getting a secret group together in a house. 05:26 I mean, I could see that as a potential danger. 05:28 But just talking in a parking lot, I mean, yes people would 05:32 see that as a danger, but at the same time 05:35 I wouldn't consider it as a threat to security. 05:39 Yeah, none of us know quite the future. 05:43 Many people fear, I know you've heard talk about 05:46 martial law in the U.S. 05:47 ~ I have. - Which has happened before. 05:51 One of the hurricanes down in Florida, I think, in the 1930's, 05:55 they declared that whole state under martial law. 05:58 And I don't know how many they killed, 06:01 but there was an order to shoot looters on sight, for example. 06:05 That's martial law. 06:06 And usually curfews. 06:08 You're not allowed out after a certain time. 06:09 Keep to your house, or else you're arrested or worse. 06:16 But as we discussed it, in our day it's more of a national 06:19 or a generalized martial law. 06:22 And I think there's plenty of evidence that such a thing 06:25 would happen if we had another 9/11. 06:29 And who knows, you know. 06:30 There's plenty of bad players that would like to do 06:32 something like that again. 06:34 But they're scared, probably. 06:36 Well I wouldn't say scared. 06:37 I'd say they're intimidated. 06:40 That's the idea of the military. 06:41 They try to intimidate them, of course. 06:43 But back to what you said, Christopher. 06:46 Meeting in the home. 06:48 How would you think that religion and religious worship 06:52 would be carried on at a time of martial law? 06:56 I think religion and religious worship should be carried on, 06:59 I guess, in homes, but as well in each person's life. 07:04 Like, I know the Bible says, 07:06 "Where two or more are gathered, I am there." 07:09 And, "Don't forsake the gathering of yourself together." 07:12 I mean, for example, I know, I've heard stories from friends 07:17 who have been missionaries meeting in a home where people 07:20 will come in, or writing a letter to a relative 07:22 and, like, putting a Bible verse in it. 07:25 I mean, you can still worship like that. 07:27 But worshiping together gives a sense of community 07:31 and a sense of, you know, I can rely on these people. 07:34 Like, if let's say I run out of food. 07:37 I have this community where I am where I can go to my 07:41 neighbor and say, "Look, I ran out of..., I need flour. 07:45 Would you be willing?" 07:47 And so worshiping in the home would give you that sense 07:51 of a community. 07:52 You're right, and you've picked on something 07:54 that we've never spoken about here before. 07:56 But I've thought about it before, that a religious 07:59 community is a support structure. 08:00 And the New Testament says they had all things in common 08:03 and they cared first for the widows and the orphans 08:06 within their group. 08:08 Now you think about martial law. 08:11 Most people don't understand how it works. 08:14 There are several things that they do. 08:16 There is a curfew, a time where you're not allowed 08:18 out of your house. 08:20 And then most important, one of the most important things is, 08:23 they restrict large gatherings of people. 08:26 Now a church service, by definition, is a 08:28 large gathering of people. 08:30 Now I don't think for a minute if the U.S. declared, 08:33 military declared martial law that they would restrict, 08:35 say, Baptists, Episcopal, Catholic gatherings. 08:43 But then you get down to some others, 08:45 would they restrict Jehovah Witnesses? 08:49 Would they restrict Muslims? 08:52 - Probably. ~ Most likely. 08:54 Would they restrict a little offshoot group, 08:58 like this one recently that the guy publicly burned a Koran 09:02 as an act of provocation? 09:04 Or others that attend military funerals and call them 09:08 murderers, and all the rest? 09:09 The government easily sees that as disruptive. 09:12 Would they allow Seventh-day Adventists 09:15 who have an apocalyptic end-time view? 09:17 Would they allow us to meet? Right? 09:20 So there's a good chance that some churches, 09:23 and perhaps even ours, wouldn't be allowed to meet 09:26 regularly in a time of martial law. 09:28 Well that's very bad. 09:30 Now you've suggested meet in the homes. 09:33 But in a martial law, you're in exactly the same thing. 09:36 Because they restrict the number of people 09:39 that can meet together. 09:40 It's usually very small, five or ten. 09:42 I mean, even then those five or ten people, 09:44 the next day those five or ten people 09:47 could have meetings in their homes. 09:49 ~ Well, you're right. - And have different people. 09:50 And then those five or ten, like during the week... 09:53 Each person like in a small village, I'm thinking... 09:56 Let's take Hagerstown, for example. 09:57 Let's take our community. 10:00 We could have a meeting at our house, let's say, this weekend. 10:03 You know, we'll take, we'll take... 10:05 Let's say they limit the people in the house to ten people. 10:07 So there's us four, now three because Kristen's gone 10:11 out to school, so three of us plus as many others... 10:15 Very good thinking, son. 10:16 And I have great hope. 10:18 It's through the inter-communication 10:20 and networking that a faith can be carried on. 10:23 And in spite of what I said, that they likely would restrict 10:26 certain churches, and maybe ours, 10:28 and that could be the real threat of something 10:30 like martial law, true faith can carry on. 10:32 Can't it? 10:34 I believe true faith, no matter what, 10:35 no matter what the situation, will always be able to carry on, 10:38 will be able to push through, I mean, will be able to 10:42 get through anything that you put up against it. 10:48 President George Bush Jr. once went on the public airwaves 10:52 and said that God had blessed America, 10:56 and He couldn't have blessed more deserving people. 10:59 I think his intention was good, but the dynamic 11:01 was a little mixed up. 11:03 But there's no question, when you look at the history 11:06 of the United States as it moved into the modern era 11:10 from its first beginnings, which were not all religious 11:12 but included many people escaping religious persecution, 11:17 and then the constitution protecting through the 11:20 separation of church and state the practice of religion, 11:23 there is no question that the United States has been 11:26 used in a fairly unique way to protect freedom of expression 11:33 and freedom of religion. 11:35 I know all of us would pray that this continue. 11:38 This is a time of revolution, and things being overturned, 11:43 and freedoms restricted. 11:45 But for the United States, let freedom ring. 11:50 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2018-03-01