Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000383B
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00:05 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:07 Before the break we were talking about Sumer. 00:09 Now that's not the latest TV or video game, is it? 00:12 - No it's not. - SimCity or SumerCity. 00:16 But it was interesting to me, I hadn't heard the terms 00:18 of the two elements that merged into church and state. 00:22 ~ That was in the Sumerian society 00:24 back in the early dynastic period, 00:27 that it was roughly around 2500 B.C. 00:30 when you had an individual that was referred to as the En, 00:33 that was the cultic leader, and then the Lugal, 00:36 that was just a civic leader. 00:37 And the civil leader typically would only be elected 00:40 and come into power whenever there was a crisis 00:43 threatening the community. 00:44 Other than that, he had no distinct role or function. 00:47 And all of the community basically revolved around 00:51 the role of the En, the religious leader. 00:54 But in following centuries, those two roles actually 00:58 reached a point where they merged, and it became a 01:00 perpetual or permanent role between the En and the Lugal 01:04 united together as one. 01:06 In essence, church and state developing together. 01:08 ~ I'm trying to think of the name of the deity. 01:09 En was very similar, wasn't it? 01:11 What was the name of the deity back in Sumer? 01:12 It was Baal, among the Babylonians it was Baal. 01:15 Yeah, but this was pre-Babylon. 01:17 Correct, yes this was preceding the Babylonian empire. 01:21 ~ I was thinking of the En figure. 01:25 ~ Enuma Elish? 01:27 The epic of Gilgamesh and stuff dealing with the flood? 01:31 Anyhow, I know there was a deity that sounded 01:33 very much like that, so I thought the priest 01:35 took the name of the deity. 01:37 But it is a little troubling... 01:39 Let me add a few other little points from 01:41 the historical narrative. 01:43 So those two roles merged for a period of time. 01:47 But what led to the conflict later on is that the citizens, 01:51 the people living there, had to pay temple taxes. 01:54 So when you had the civic role combined with the 01:56 religious role, the guardian of the temple cultic rite 02:01 figured into one person, he ended up overtaxing the people 02:04 and requiring things of them that he had not done before. 02:08 So in essence it was an abusive power. 02:09 And so the people began to protest against that. 02:12 And that's what led to ensuing conflict. 02:14 On the break I was sharing with you about Cardinal Wolsey 02:17 and his role in facilitating Henry VIII's 02:21 great matter, the divorce. 02:23 And in a lot of the modern retelling, that was what was 02:27 going on to cause the Reformation. 02:29 And of course, that's not right. 02:31 They were very real doctrinal things. 02:34 But you're alluding to something that was central 02:36 in the Reformation in England and elsewhere. 02:39 It was control of church property and legal prerogatives 02:44 that the church had claimed. 02:45 Like in England, it's amazing, at that time they had 02:50 civil courts and church courts. 02:52 But the church courts, you could appeal to a church court. 02:55 You could be brought before a church court for murder 02:57 or whatever, and they would penalize you. 02:59 And it just aggravated the king, Henry VIII, but other kings too. 03:03 Like there was a particular case in his time where 03:06 a priest murdered someone. 03:09 But the church would try him. 03:10 And even as today, the priests are treated very kindly 03:13 by their own organization. 03:15 So basically he got off free. 03:17 ~ Correct. 03:18 And then the matter of taxes or non-tax paying 03:22 by the church properties that were accumulating wealth. 03:25 First thing Henry VIII did when he declared himself 03:28 head of the church was appropriate 03:30 all the wealth of the church. 03:31 Which was avaricious as far as the king himself, 03:35 but it represented the payoff of a long frustration 03:39 of the people themselves. 03:40 They saw here a church power that was claiming financial 03:44 and legal prerogatives to itself. 03:45 ~ Correct. 03:47 And it was disruptive, even to a medieval society. 03:50 In fact, I would say that it was those same concerns 03:53 that was instrumental in the Mexican revolution 03:57 back in the 1850's, during the 1850's, 04:00 with Simón Bolívar that led to, in essence, 04:03 Mexico becoming, if we could use the term, a secular state. 04:07 Meaning they didn't officially recognize Roman Catholicism 04:10 or any other religion. 04:11 But some of the excesses of the church prior to the 04:14 Mexican revolution was that the church owned over 04:17 or up to at least half of all of the property 04:20 of the country of Mexico. 04:22 It was in the name of the church. 04:25 You read Liberty, as well as write for it. 04:26 We had that as a cover article once. 04:29 I'm trying to think of the name they gave to the war, but 04:32 at one point Mexico basically outlawed Roman Catholicism 04:36 and murdered a number of priests. 04:39 And it was not a good time. 04:40 I think it was a severe and violent overreaction 04:45 to this encroachment of the Catholic church 04:48 on the prerogatives of the state. 04:50 ~ Yep. 04:51 Yeah, so you know, there's a history, not just within 04:54 western civilization, or not just particular to Christianity, 04:58 but across the board, religion in general, 05:01 any time that it exceeds its bounds of trying to lead mankind 05:05 to the transcendental and tries to begin 05:08 usurping authority in the temporal realm, 05:11 that's when conflicts always develop. 05:14 ~ And it's natural, because all religions pretty much 05:16 claim you lock, stock, and barrel. 05:18 They're dealing with your destiny, of your very life, 05:21 and your ongoing existence in the afterworld, and so on. 05:25 So true religion, it finds it very hard to separate 05:29 that from the mundane things of life. 05:32 But what they forget is, when they gain control 05:34 of the government or the civil structure 05:37 for their particular viewpoint, by definition they're now 05:40 enforcing the law, even harming those that 05:43 think a little differently. 05:45 That's where the problem is. 05:47 Coming back to the modern concept of the state, 05:50 you know, the way it's established, whether one looks 05:53 at it as predominately instrumental through the 05:56 enlightenment or through the Protestant Reformation 05:59 viewpoints, or even just aspects of, one would say, 06:02 maybe atheistic viewpoints of establishing a secular state, 06:07 there were a variety of educational and philosophical 06:11 viewpoints that contributed to that development. 06:13 But nonetheless, it is something that, you know, 06:16 in America we have the American experiment 06:18 that has proven successful. 06:20 We've got societal peace, even though we've got 06:22 a diversity of religious groups here in America. 06:24 There's ongoing tensions, yes. 06:26 There's always issues that come up before courts 06:28 at the lower level and even up to the level of 06:30 the Supreme Court dealing with church-state issues. 06:33 But I think that's what the founding fathers envisioned, 06:36 was having two, in essence one can say, perspectives 06:40 or strains of thought that were balancing one to the other. 06:44 And that is how each generation of Americans 06:47 debate these issues and hammer out what is 06:50 the best for the prevailing circumstances. 06:54 ~ Yeah. I generally agree with you. 06:58 You say, generally. 06:59 I have a different, slightly different take on history. 07:02 You know, human beings living in the United States 07:05 are not exempt from the way human beings function 07:07 in relation to anything, including religion. 07:10 I think what has largely protected the U.S. from 07:14 the religious wars of the old world is we haven't really 07:17 had monolithic divisions within the society. 07:20 Even Protestantism is divided into a thou... 07:23 Not thousand. Probably an understatement. 07:25 ...thousands of little sects. 07:26 And there's always this bubbling discontent between each. 07:30 And at odd occasions there have even been some 07:33 egregious and even violent moves. 07:36 Like against the Mormons. 07:37 The extermination policy of the governor of Illinois. 07:41 That's pretty amazing. 07:43 And against the indigenous peoples 07:47 and their views of the great spirit. 07:49 That didn't get far. 07:51 But we haven't had anything... 07:54 You mentioned the framers of the U.S. government. 07:57 Great men. 07:59 What had to have been in their minds was the 08:00 English religious civil war of barely a lifetime before 08:05 where you had Catholics, at least the king and his cavaliers 08:09 who had Catholic interests in mind, as people saw it, 08:12 and the Puritans. 08:14 So yeah, they wanted to avoid that. 08:16 And I think they did a good job in creating 08:19 a more neutral playing ground. 08:21 But we do have simmering discontent. 08:24 In some ways they're more constant than the old world. 08:27 You don't hear about religious challenges in Europe now. 08:31 It's said to be secular. I think that's an illusion. 08:34 But it's not bubbling and boiling with religious 08:37 prerogatives and rivalries, and so on. 08:40 Unfortunately, Romanism on the rise has become so dominant 08:45 there's not much going on. 08:46 Even the old Protestant forces are gone. 08:50 But America is hardly a passive environment. 08:54 But it dissipates more easily because of its Balkanized 08:59 nature and of this protective element of the Constitution. 09:02 You're absolutely right. 09:03 And maybe one could look at that even as saying 09:05 the idea of federalism as a concept. 09:08 You know, an entity that can take its role as a neutral body 09:13 over these other religious organizations in society. 09:16 And the level playing field that everyone is always 09:19 talking about is never attained. 09:20 But that's a good ideal, and it works well 09:23 for religious freedom. 09:27 We don't have time now to talk about secularism. 09:31 But I think the United States is not secular, 09:34 never has been secular. 09:36 But the government has always been of a 09:39 secular neutral structure. 09:42 But to say that American society is secular 09:45 is missing the point totally, right? 09:46 ~ Yeah, I would agree with that. 09:48 I mean, because we have religion that is woven throughout society 09:52 from our founding to the present time. 09:53 ~ We're pushing for separation of church and state, 09:55 but to be vulnerable to the charge that you're secularist 09:58 and you're against religion, I mean, 10:00 we never want to say such a thing. 10:02 Religion is a necessary element in human existence. 10:05 Especially true religion, as the Bible says. 10:09 Religion, in the American context most definitively, 10:14 identifies our country as being, not a secular country, 10:17 but one in which the government respects 10:20 a benevolent neutrality. 10:22 That is to say that government doesn't promote 10:25 nor prohibit religion, and instead allows religion 10:28 to flounder or flourish on its own. 10:31 That's the original viewpoint of the founding fathers, 10:33 and that is also what was written in the First Amendment, 10:37 the religion clauses, that provide that balance 10:40 between government and religion in American society. 10:46 Some time after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem 10:50 Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives very close by, 10:53 by the way only a few hundred yards away, 10:56 looked down on the city and the great temple, 10:59 and said that one day not one stone 11:02 would be left upon another. 11:05 Actually for four hundred years or so it was not clear 11:08 to anyone where the temple had actually been. 11:11 And to this day it's not definitively known. 11:16 But for three faiths, at least, Jerusalem is a city 11:20 that is worth fighting over, and has been fought over. 11:24 And it's curious that in this day and age so far removed 11:28 from the crusades and the other antagonisms 11:31 America, the greatest power, and a nominally religious society 11:38 would be party to proclaiming Jerusalem 11:42 the capital of a revitalized Jewish state. 11:46 We will see where this takes us. 11:50 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2018-04-05