Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break I was
making an unforgettable point
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that I've forgotten now.
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But we need to pick up.
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We've talked about secularism
and some of the conundrums
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that are built
into the modern mind.
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We basically need to believe,
and yet the modern world
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has given us so many
counter-facts and disturbing
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counter arguments that it's
hard to have a simple faith.
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~ Yep.
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And I think that's the greatest
risk, is we come to what
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I think many
Christians, certainly Adventists
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would say, the end of time.
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We're in the last days.
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Jesus said that.
That was 2000 years ago.
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We're also told in
our Adventist writings,
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picking up from
Daniel and elsewhere,
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that the last
movements will be rapid ones.
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And we're in such a time of
rapid, not just developments,
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but social change.
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You know, I've pointed
out to people that if you
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think about it, the industrial
revolution shook the world up,
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caused wars and dislocations
and famines, and all the rest.
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And that took place over
about a hundred years at least.
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But in a couple of decades
our world has been turned
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on its head by computerization
and the whole electronic...
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~ The internet. - Yeah.
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I mean, that's a
massive revolution.
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But it happened in
a much shorter time.
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So we're absorbing
change almost weekly now
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that other generations might
not have seen in a lifetime.
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~ Correct.
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It's hard to keep faith,
it's hard to keep religion
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in its appropriate
sphere when this is going on.
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Yeah, I was going to say that,
you know, so much information
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in such a short time,
psychologically anyway,
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can have that
impact of disorienting
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one generation to
the next, you know.
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And that of course would
have some kind of an impact
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on one's faith and orientation.
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And in the larger picture,
the larger scheme of things,
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looking at church-state
relations and secularism,
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and you know, what
role it may or may not have,
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I think that it's important
to note that at least in the
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American context there
are certain religious groups
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that will argue that point as
a straw man to argue the need to
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establish religion by
government decree, in essence.
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~ Well I think
that's where we're heading.
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Things are so out of
control, not at the moment.
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Every day somebody has
lost their job because of some
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action or statement at
work that's just unacceptable.
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You know, it's not that
it was ever acceptable, but
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we're sort of in a
moralistic purge at the moment.
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And that's unsettling people.
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Then you've got
natural calamities, you've got
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looming war and so on.
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It's certain, and we've
heard it already from a few
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of the leaders,
like, after 9/11.
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You know, "This has come upon
us because of homosexuality."
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Right?
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You can bet your life that at
some point the U.S. is going to
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seek a grand religious
solution to all of this.
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~ Yep.
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Apart from martial law
and other possibilities.
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They all may happen.
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But there has to be a
religious rallying point.
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Yeah, and that's why I
think it's so important,
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you know, the contributions
like through your program
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helping us to be informed about
not only the American context,
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but what's
happening in church-state
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relations in other countries.
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Because those are
things we can learn from.
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You know, for
example, in France ever since
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the French Revolution...
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~ That's a very
different model. - Yes.
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They adopted more
of a laicité model.
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You know history very well.
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Most people have forgotten it.
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But the French Revolution,
there were many causes to it.
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Not least of
which a great disparity
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between the rich and the poor.
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Remember Marie Antoinette.
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When she heard the
crowds were rioting for bread,
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"Well, let them eat cake."
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For her there was
plenty of cake around.
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She didn't
realize they had nothing.
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But all of that was at
play, but what really went on
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in France, when you
talk about religion,
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there was a violent
rejection of religion
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and the role of the
Roman Catholic Church,
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which was part and
parcel of their oppression.
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~ Anti-clericalism.
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Yeah, so it really was,
"Get rid of the lot of them."
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And of course,
those days are long gone.
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But I think residually
there's a suspicion in France
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of an intrusion by any religion.
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Where the U.S.
has never had that.
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Yeah, and in America,
you know, we can be thankful
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for the contributions
of John Locke from England,
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which he adopted more
of the, what we would call,
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the English enlightenment
that saw a positive role
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for religion in society.
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Not necessarily
endorsed by government,
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but nonetheless a positive role.
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And in essence, one
can kind of summarize it
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by saying that in the American
context our key founding fathers
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recognized that
religion, not only did it hold
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government accountable
as the highest authority,
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but the citizen
was held accountable
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to some kind of a concept
of a just rewards or penalty
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at the end of one's life.
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So with those elements in
society, it gave an undergirding
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for morality.
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~ Yeah.
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I think though it...
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Now I'm getting
into my philosophy.
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There's two elements
among many others probably
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that partly explain
what happened in the U.S.
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You can't
separate the thinkers like,
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well, Franklin and his
peers, you can't separate them
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from Englishmen.
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They were Englishmen.
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They just happened to be
on this side of the big pond.
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And what was happening in
England, they hadn't rejected
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religion, but because of science
and enlightenment, and so on,
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they had a form of
religion called deism.
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It's basically, don't
deny God, but you're sort of
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you're an atheist on a
lot of the particulars.
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So it was, the Bible says,
having the form of religion
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but denying the power thereof.
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Right?
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So I think most of
them had that view.
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They weren't anti-religious,
but they had sort of a...
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~ Deistic viewpoint.
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...deistic cynicism.
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Then some of them, like
Patrick Henry, you know,
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he would stamp you
down and stick the spear in
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if you were of a
different religion.
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He was a
religious zealot, right?
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But they were
afraid of those types.
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And there were not enough
of them in any one faction
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to really force this country
into a religious identity.
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And something we barely
talk about on this program,
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established churches were
very common in the colonies.
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But they were
not the same churches
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from one place to the other.
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So it was Balkanized.
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And all of them had an
interest in making sure
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federal government was neutral.
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So many things conspired.
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Some
sociological, some educational,
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some just structural.
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~ Religious differences,
denomination differences.
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So it isn't true to say
that all of them wanted religion
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out of the public sphere,
but for a variety of reasons
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all of them saw
that as the safe course.
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And I think they
were vindicated in it.
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And to this day American
culture, while it's hedonistic
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as any in the West, you
know, a lot of bread, even cake,
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leads to obesity and lax
morals, and all the rest.
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You know, we're
hardly the godliest nation.
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But the religious
affinities of the United States
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are very strong,
much stronger than Europe.
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And religious dynamic
has to be taken into account.
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It's a good thing.
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It can be steered in
very positive directions.
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More easily than the Old World,
and clearly way more easily
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than countries on the
fringe of the Christian world,
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or even other religious
cultures that don't have
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the same enlightened history
that the West has gone through.
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~ Correct. And you
know, that's why I think
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that church-state scholars
correctly analyzing American
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history and documents, you know,
decisions by the Supreme Court,
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etcetera, when they
look at the American context
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and they term it
benevolent neutrality.
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In essence, meaning
that government is there as a
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neutral arbiter among religious
groups, not showing preference.
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~ It has a
favorable view of religion.
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Yes, Correct.
Not anti-religious.
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No, and I hope that
net day never comes.
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~ Yes. - And we certainly...
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There's no evidence
that the present government
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even though we have a
very secular president,
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there's hardly an
antagonism to religion.
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~ Correct.
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And in fact, President
Trump, I think a little bit
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outrageously, has been
called the modern Cyrus.
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So they're reading
into his secularism
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great religious import.
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Well you know, I believe that
at any point in American history
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there certainly are groups,
religious groups, that will seek
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affinity with whoever
it may be that's in power,
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seeking favors or whatever.
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But that's also
why, as you pointed out,
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I think that the founding
fathers wisely instituted
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through the Constitution
and through the First Amendment
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that idea of
separation of church and state.
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~ It's a wonderful
protective mechanism.
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And this program
and Liberty Magazine
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are always arguing for
separation of church and state.
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So those ideas of the
separation of church and state
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are found in the
American Constitution
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as well as in
other founding documents,
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the Declaration of Independence.
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It argues for the idea
of respect for religion,
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but at the same time no
undue preference for religion.
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And for that reason a very
distinct separation between
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church and state, in which
each fulfills their given role
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to provide a well
ordered society where peace
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can prevail among its citizens
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and where various religious
views can be expounded upon
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and accepted by
citizens as they weigh them out
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and make decisions of their own.
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Stalin's Gulags aside, it seems
to me that secularism is less
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an antagonist for religion
than an unwilling listener.
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Sort of a, "I don't want
to hear about it," cynic.
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Secularism is indeed a
byproduct of the modern era
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where the business of life
has crowded out the Divine.
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And I think rather
than seeing secularism
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as another
religion, as it's been said,
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or an overt enemy, religionists,
and Christians in particular,
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should see secularism
as the great challenge
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to engage the secular
mindset with something
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that has a higher
transcendent appealing value.
00:10:49.28\00:10:52.91
But to see
secularism as the enemy directly
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is like the boring preacher
to accuse the unlistening crowd
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of being irreligious.
00:11:03.56\00:11:05.36
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:07.13\00:11:10.73