Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break we
were talking about Sumer.
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Now that's not the
latest TV or video game, is it?
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- No it's not. -
SimCity or SumerCity.
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But it was interesting to
me, I hadn't heard the terms
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of the two elements that
merged into church and state.
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~ That was in
the Sumerian society
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back in the
early dynastic period,
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that it was
roughly around 2500 B.C.
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when you had an individual
that was referred to as the En,
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that was the cultic
leader, and then the Lugal,
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that was just a civic leader.
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And the civil leader
typically would only be elected
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and come into power
whenever there was a crisis
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threatening the community.
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Other than that, he had
no distinct role or function.
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And all of the community
basically revolved around
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the role of the En,
the religious leader.
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But in following centuries,
those two roles actually
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reached a point where
they merged, and it became a
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perpetual or permanent role
between the En and the Lugal
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united together as one.
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In essence, church and
state developing together.
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~ I'm trying to think
of the name of the deity.
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En was very similar, wasn't it?
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What was the name of
the deity back in Sumer?
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It was Baal, among the
Babylonians it was Baal.
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Yeah, but this was pre-Babylon.
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Correct, yes this was
preceding the Babylonian empire.
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~ I was thinking
of the En figure.
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~ Enuma Elish?
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The epic of Gilgamesh and
stuff dealing with the flood?
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Anyhow, I know there
was a deity that sounded
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very much like that,
so I thought the priest
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took the name of the deity.
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But it is a little troubling...
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Let me add a few
other little points from
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the historical narrative.
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So those two roles
merged for a period of time.
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But what led to the conflict
later on is that the citizens,
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the people living
there, had to pay temple taxes.
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So when you had the
civic role combined with the
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religious role, the guardian
of the temple cultic rite
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figured into one person, he
ended up overtaxing the people
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and requiring things of them
that he had not done before.
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So in essence it
was an abusive power.
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And so the people began
to protest against that.
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And that's what led
to ensuing conflict.
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On the break I was sharing
with you about Cardinal Wolsey
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and his role in
facilitating Henry VIII's
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great matter, the divorce.
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And in a lot of the modern
retelling, that was what was
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going on to
cause the Reformation.
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And of course, that's not right.
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They were very
real doctrinal things.
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But you're alluding to
something that was central
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in the Reformation in
England and elsewhere.
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It was control of church
property and legal prerogatives
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that the church had claimed.
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Like in England, it's
amazing, at that time they had
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civil courts and church courts.
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But the church courts, you
could appeal to a church court.
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You could be brought
before a church court for murder
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or whatever, and
they would penalize you.
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And it just aggravated the king,
Henry VIII, but other kings too.
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Like there was a particular
case in his time where
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a priest murdered someone.
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But the church would try him.
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And even as today, the
priests are treated very kindly
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by their own organization.
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So basically he got off free.
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~ Correct.
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And then the matter of
taxes or non-tax paying
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by the church properties
that were accumulating wealth.
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First thing Henry VIII
did when he declared himself
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head of the
church was appropriate
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all the wealth of the church.
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Which was avaricious as
far as the king himself,
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but it represented the
payoff of a long frustration
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of the people themselves.
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They saw here a church power
that was claiming financial
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and legal
prerogatives to itself.
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~ Correct.
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And it was disruptive,
even to a medieval society.
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In fact, I would say that
it was those same concerns
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that was instrumental
in the Mexican revolution
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back in the
1850's, during the 1850's,
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with Simón Bolívar
that led to, in essence,
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Mexico becoming, if we could
use the term, a secular state.
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Meaning they didn't officially
recognize Roman Catholicism
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or any other religion.
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But some of the excesses
of the church prior to the
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Mexican revolution was
that the church owned over
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or up to at least
half of all of the property
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of the country of Mexico.
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It was in the
name of the church.
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You read Liberty, as
well as write for it.
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We had that as a
cover article once.
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I'm trying to think of the
name they gave to the war, but
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at one point Mexico basically
outlawed Roman Catholicism
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and murdered a
number of priests.
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And it was not a good time.
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I think it was a severe
and violent overreaction
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to this encroachment
of the Catholic church
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on the
prerogatives of the state.
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~ Yep.
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Yeah, so you know, there's
a history, not just within
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western civilization, or not
just particular to Christianity,
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but across the
board, religion in general,
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any time that it exceeds its
bounds of trying to lead mankind
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to the transcendental
and tries to begin
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usurping authority
in the temporal realm,
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that's when
conflicts always develop.
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~ And it's natural, because
all religions pretty much
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claim you lock,
stock, and barrel.
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They're dealing with your
destiny, of your very life,
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and your ongoing existence
in the afterworld, and so on.
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So true religion, it
finds it very hard to separate
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that from the
mundane things of life.
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But what they forget
is, when they gain control
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of the government
or the civil structure
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for their particular viewpoint,
by definition they're now
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enforcing the law,
even harming those that
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think a little differently.
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That's where the problem is.
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Coming back to the
modern concept of the state,
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you know, the way it's
established, whether one looks
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at it as predominately
instrumental through the
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enlightenment or through
the Protestant Reformation
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viewpoints, or even just
aspects of, one would say,
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maybe atheistic viewpoints
of establishing a secular state,
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there were a variety of
educational and philosophical
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viewpoints that
contributed to that development.
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But nonetheless, it is
something that, you know,
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in America we have
the American experiment
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that has proven successful.
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We've got societal
peace, even though we've got
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a diversity of religious
groups here in America.
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There's ongoing tensions, yes.
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There's always issues
that come up before courts
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at the lower level and
even up to the level of
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the Supreme Court dealing
with church-state issues.
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But I think that's what the
founding fathers envisioned,
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was having two, in essence
one can say, perspectives
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or strains of thought that
were balancing one to the other.
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And that is how each
generation of Americans
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debate these issues
and hammer out what is
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the best for the
prevailing circumstances.
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~ Yeah. I
generally agree with you.
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You say, generally.
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I have a different, slightly
different take on history.
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You know, human beings
living in the United States
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are not exempt from the
way human beings function
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in relation to
anything, including religion.
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I think what has
largely protected the U.S. from
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the religious wars of the
old world is we haven't really
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had monolithic
divisions within the society.
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Even Protestantism is
divided into a thou...
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Not thousand.
Probably an understatement.
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...thousands of little sects.
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And there's always this bubbling
discontent between each.
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And at odd occasions
there have even been some
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egregious and
even violent moves.
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Like against the Mormons.
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The extermination policy
of the governor of Illinois.
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That's pretty amazing.
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And against the
indigenous peoples
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and their views
of the great spirit.
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That didn't get far.
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But we haven't had anything...
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You mentioned the
framers of the U.S. government.
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Great men.
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What had to have been
in their minds was the
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English religious civil
war of barely a lifetime before
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where you had Catholics, at
least the king and his cavaliers
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who had Catholic interests
in mind, as people saw it,
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and the Puritans.
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So yeah, they
wanted to avoid that.
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And I think they did
a good job in creating
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a more neutral playing ground.
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But we do have
simmering discontent.
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In some ways they're more
constant than the old world.
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You don't hear about religious
challenges in Europe now.
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It's said to be secular.
I think that's an illusion.
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But it's not bubbling
and boiling with religious
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prerogatives and
rivalries, and so on.
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Unfortunately, Romanism on
the rise has become so dominant
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there's not much going on.
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Even the old
Protestant forces are gone.
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But America is hardly
a passive environment.
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But it dissipates more
easily because of its Balkanized
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nature and of this protective
element of the Constitution.
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You're absolutely right.
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And maybe one could
look at that even as saying
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the idea of
federalism as a concept.
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You know, an entity that can
take its role as a neutral body
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over these other religious
organizations in society.
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And the level playing
field that everyone is always
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talking about is never attained.
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But that's a good
ideal, and it works well
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for religious freedom.
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We don't have time now
to talk about secularism.
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But I think the
United States is not secular,
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never has been secular.
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But the government
has always been of a
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secular neutral structure.
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But to say that
American society is secular
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is missing the
point totally, right?
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~ Yeah, I would agree with that.
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I mean, because we have religion
that is woven throughout society
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from our founding
to the present time.
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~ We're pushing for
separation of church and state,
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but to be vulnerable to the
charge that you're secularist
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and you're
against religion, I mean,
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we never want to
say such a thing.
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Religion is a necessary
element in human existence.
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Especially true
religion, as the Bible says.
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Religion, in the American
context most definitively,
00:10:09.67\00:10:13.64
identifies our country as
being, not a secular country,
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but one in which
the government respects
00:10:17.95\00:10:20.52
a benevolent neutrality.
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That is to say that
government doesn't promote
00:10:22.68\00:10:24.85
nor prohibit religion,
and instead allows religion
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to flounder or
flourish on its own.
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That's the original viewpoint
of the founding fathers,
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and that is also what was
written in the First Amendment,
00:10:33.96\00:10:37.13
the religion clauses,
that provide that balance
00:10:37.33\00:10:40.04
between government and
religion in American society.
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Some time after His
triumphal entry into Jerusalem
00:10:46.44\00:10:49.94
Jesus sat on the Mount
of Olives very close by,
00:10:50.38\00:10:53.52
by the way only a
few hundred yards away,
00:10:53.55\00:10:55.98
looked down on the
city and the great temple,
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and said that
one day not one stone
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would be left upon another.
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Actually for four hundred
years or so it was not clear
00:11:05.33\00:11:08.73
to anyone where the
temple had actually been.
00:11:08.76\00:11:11.47
And to this day it's
not definitively known.
00:11:11.50\00:11:15.10
But for three faiths, at
least, Jerusalem is a city
00:11:16.47\00:11:20.58
that is worth fighting
over, and has been fought over.
00:11:20.61\00:11:23.51
And it's curious that in
this day and age so far removed
00:11:24.15\00:11:28.38
from the crusades
and the other antagonisms
00:11:28.42\00:11:31.19
America, the greatest power, and
a nominally religious society
00:11:31.99\00:11:38.09
would be party to
proclaiming Jerusalem
00:11:38.49\00:11:42.03
the capital of a
revitalized Jewish state.
00:11:42.06\00:11:45.80
We will see where this takes us.
00:11:46.27\00:11:49.24
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:50.51\00:11:54.58