Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is the program bringing
you news, views, discussion
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and insights into
religious liberty events
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in the U.S. and
around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty Magazine.
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And my guest is
Ed Cook, Dr. Ed Cook.
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As I've introduced you before,
author, pastor, public speaker,
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religious liberty activist.
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And your doctorate is
in church-state studies.
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So very qualified.
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I understand that not too
long ago you went to India.
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~ Yes. - And you
made some discoveries.
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Tell me about India
and religious liberty.
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Well the country, I mean, as
far as the time I spent there,
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I landed in Mumbai.
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~ By the way, many people
in India watch this program.
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At our recent
General Conference session,
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was it two years ago
now, I was a couple of times
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waiting in line and
people from India called out.
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And one of the
leaders said, "Oh, people
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watch it a lot in India."
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So we've got to be
careful what we say.
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~ Sure.
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Everything I've
got to say, I think,
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is going to be
on a positive note.
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~ Now there's some
negative on religious liberty.
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They're wonderful people though.
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Yes. And I enjoyed, from
kind of the beginning point,
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enjoyed my travel
throughout the country
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and had a chance to visit
about five of their main cities,
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and even had time to go
out and see the Taj Mahal and
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historical sites that way.
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~ I don't know if it's a crime,
maybe it is, but at one stage
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I had a little piece
about half an inch square
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of the Taj Mahal.
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I went there as a teenager
and I pried it out of the wall.
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Probably lucky I
got out of the country.
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~ Yeah, because that is one
of their historical monuments.
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- Beautiful
monument. ~ Yes it is.
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It's one of the
wonders of the world really.
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~ Yes, Correct. Yep.
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So my time in the
country visiting everything
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was fabulous, I
enjoyed it very much.
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And the people
were very cordial.
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Always willing to help
out, and service oriented.
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The couple of things
though that I noticed as I was
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traveling in the country,
and this is not just from a
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particular
denominational perspective...
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It's just
interacting with people in the
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particular cities I visited.
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Some that happened to be Hindu,
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some that were
Seventh-day Adventist,
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some that were Christian
but non Seventh-day Adventist...
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~ Christians of course are
very small minority in India.
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Only about two percent
of total Indian population.
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The Indian population is
a little over one billion,
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is their current statistics.
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And of course, a very,
I would say pluralistic
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in the sense of
diverse, because they've got a
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variety of
dialects that they speak,
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as well as
cultural perspectives;
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south compared to north.
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~ Hinduism, of
course, has so many gods
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that they're not
really too particular.
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Except if it's non-Hindu.
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Well it never use to be.
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But Hinduism and Indian
nationalism have sort of
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joined at the
hip in recent years.
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~ That's correct.
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And that's where that
Hindu nationalist movement
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is something that has
become a more prevalent
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part of politics,
national politics, in India.
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And as I kind of learned from
dialoging with citizens there,
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is that particular states like
in the central and northern part
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of India in the past tended to
be the central democratic party.
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But more of the
Hindu nationalist movement,
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they've done a lot of
ground work and laid a
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good foundation where they've
gotten some of those states
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to covert over to
Hindu nationalist parties.
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And of course, at the
state level, when you get enough
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states combined
together, that makes an impact
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on the national level.
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And something I'm sure
you noticed, and I saw it
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from visiting there, but you
don't get it internationally,
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you know, India, one country,
and you think, one people.
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But it's no more one people than
Latin America, South America.
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A big continent, there's
many different ethnic groups.
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And India is the same.
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And it's an amazing miracle,
I think, of the modern world
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that a coherent,
cohesive, and enduring
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state could be established.
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And especially the
partition was violent,
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because Pakistan left
and formed an Islamic state.
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Or a Muslim state.
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But still, India is an
amazingly successful country,
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even though on a certain
level it's dysfunctional.
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~ Yes, true.
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Because it's so
big and unwieldy.
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And some little remainders
of the English, British Raj.
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Some of the same
steam trains are there.
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But India is moving ahead
rapidly and far more advanced
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in some areas
than people imagine.
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They've got their own Silicon
Valley and their own film
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industry that's, I think, bigger
than Hollywood in reality.
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~ In fact, commenting on that.
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I was just going to note
that the individuals that have
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taken time just looking at
trends, they project that India
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is actually going to,
because of its technology base,
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is actually going to supersede
in certain areas of technology
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even that of the United States.
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That's just where, you
know, they're at their prime
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for development and becoming
a more developed country.
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The problem with India
that I see, they don't have
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a surplus of natural
resources other than people.
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And they're very
energetic people.
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But yes, India, and China
too, these are hugely emerging
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economies that I
think in the West
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we're not always aware of them.
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~ Yes, that is true.
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And so you probably got
a little window into that.
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But as far as
missionary activity,
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and of course the
larger religious liberty thing,
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I'm sure you
picked up the tensions.
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~ Oh yes.
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And a lot of it is related to
cast, isn't it, the cast system.
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Yeah, because in traditional
Hindu religious beliefs
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you've got your cast system.
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And of course, Christianity
does not support or teach
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the idea of cast
and different levels of
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importance or
value to individuals.
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~ Which is tied up to
reincarnation and the levels.
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You come back, and you know,
you might be the lower cast now,
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but maybe you get a later
chance you can elevate yourself.
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But with education in
India, and people have seen
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what it's like in other
countries, the lower cast
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have become aware that they
are just sort of fixed in place
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in their country,
there's not much mobility.
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~ Another thing,
though, that has influenced
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the changing
viewpoint within Indian culture,
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especially in the south, is due
to the influence of democracy.
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You know, like you mentioned,
people can easily access
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the internet, they
see how democracy works
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in other countries like
America and western countries.
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And they start
recognizing that there is an
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element of human rights.
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And so individuals, even though
they're at the lower cast level,
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they may say, "Well, you know,
society may have placed me here,
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but on my own
initiative I'll seek some way to
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come out of that cast
level and recognize that I'm an
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individual just as
others that might be
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in a higher cast level."
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And that does produce
some tensions with the
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traditional Hindu viewpoint
of the ordering of society
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and individuals that want
more free flowing democracy.
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Now the Indian government,
from all that I can see,
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is quite a secular
egalitarian system.
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It's not insisting
on the cast system.
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But the cast system in
society is pretty inflexible.
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But by the same token, I
know that some untouchables
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become millionaires.
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They're not all
desperately poor.
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But they're still held in
place by societies expectations.
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And did you see signs of
people becoming Christian
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partly to
escape the cast system?
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You know, as far as finding out
what the motives might have been
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behind individuals
making that choice,
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I never really had a
chance to dialogue with them.
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I used the word, "partly,"
and I should have emphasized...
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I mean, you hope that it
is always, with any religious
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conversion or change,
that it's a deeply felt
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life changing experience.
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But it's not a negative at
all, when Christians witness
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to the lower cast, that
they see in accepting Christ
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they're also escaping,
you know, the inhibitions
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their society
have placed on them.
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I think that, you know,
maybe one of the most attractive
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things of Christianity in
India is just the idea that
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if an individual accepts
Christ and becomes part of that
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community,
they're accepted equally
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among the body of believers.
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So you know, somebody that
maybe in regular Indian society
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has felt ostracized or
prohibited of certain things,
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they come into a
community and they're accepted.
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And so naturally
that's an attractive element.
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And I think that's one
of the reasons why your
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traditional Hindu religion and
those that are adherents of it,
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devout adherents, devout Hindus,
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they take
resentment towards that.
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Because they can't offer
that within their religion.
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~ And did you see anything...
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I think I've privately told you
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that India had a
great effect on me.
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I was only a teenager
when I first went there.
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~ Didn't you tell me your dad
also served there for some time?
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- Visited there many
times. - He visited there, yes.
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He knew Mrs. Gandhi very well.
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He visited with
her many, many times.
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And Desai.
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Even had him come visit
our our headquarters office
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in Washington, D.C.
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I'm trying to think of the state
that he spent a lot of time in.
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But oh no, India was very
close to my father's heart.
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But when I went to India the
first time, dad took us there,
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it was shocking, culturally.
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I mean, so many
people, and just...
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It makes you re-examine, at
least made me look closely at,
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"What's a human being, even?"
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The anonymity.
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It reminds me of, it was
like a movie I saw years ago,
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a kids movie, Ants.
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And the Woody Allen
ant character is on a couch
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being psychoanalyzed, and
in the background you see the
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ants by the tens of thousands
doing this, that, and the other.
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And he says, "And I feel
so insignificant, doctor."
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He says, "You know,
I'm a middle child of
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ten thousand," or whatever.
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And at the end
the psychiatrist says,
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"We've made
great progress today."
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He says, "You
are insignificant."
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But of course, under
Christ, the Creator God,
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we all have value.
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But there's so many people
that it can question that.
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Because in the West we have
a sense of individual autonomy.
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That's harder to maintain
in a country like India.
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And of course, Asia in
general is a challenge to that.
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But it affected me too
because I saw our church,
00:11:07.43\00:11:11.73
which was very small relative
to the overall population,
00:11:11.93\00:11:14.67
but fairly active, but
it was suffering because
00:11:14.87\00:11:18.81
there were not enough
church workers, pastors,
00:11:18.84\00:11:20.84
and administrators.
00:11:20.88\00:11:22.21
And what was happening is
that many of them that converted
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to Adventism, Christianity,
they saw possibilities
00:11:25.51\00:11:29.15
in Loma Linda, California,
universities in the U.S.,
00:11:29.18\00:11:32.49
and came here
and never went back.
00:11:32.52\00:11:34.42
And I determined that I would
go back and help Australia,
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that I owed it to my country.
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And I did. Went
back for nine years.
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Which I think is consistent with
Paul on his missionary journeys,
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and Silas and
Timothy, and all of that.
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We have to have a sense of,
it's fine to go to the pagan,
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go to the far
lands, but you've got to
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take care of your
own culture first.
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~ Sure. Yep.
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Did you see any
signs of religious tensions
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when you were there?
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You know, as far as one
of the particular cities
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that I did visit, they had
roughly 40% of the population
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that were Muslim, and then
the other roughly 45 to 50%
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that were Hindu, and
then just a small minority
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portion that were Christian.
00:12:22.10\00:12:23.91
But talking to some of
the people that lived there,
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they did tell me that it's
not so much that they had any
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resent towards the
Muslims for being Muslims,
00:12:30.28\00:12:33.75
it's just that the Muslims
with their prayer practice
00:12:33.85\00:12:36.28
five times a day, there
were times that in the downtown
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part of that city, there all
the streets would be blocked off
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because the people overflowed
the Mosque out into the street,
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and traffic
came to a standstill.
00:12:45.03\00:12:47.30
And so it just made it
a little more difficult
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with day to day
living arrangements,
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especially with
commute times and stuff.
00:12:51.63\00:12:53.74
I mean, all around the
world, even in some of the worst
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offending Muslim countries,
the ruling class and the
00:12:59.51\00:13:04.48
more educated people usually
are able to live and let live
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and have a
certain accommodation.
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But you get down to a
basic village level where people
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are not well
educated, hardscrabble living,
00:13:12.42\00:13:15.09
and only a few dollars a
year, or month sometimes,
00:13:15.12\00:13:18.56
and tensions can get out
of hand much more easily.
00:13:18.86\00:13:21.63
- And India of course...
~ And commenting on that...
00:13:21.66\00:13:23.40
Actually there was,
commenting on that very point,
00:13:23.43\00:13:26.63
in more of the kind of, you
might say, rural village areas
00:13:26.67\00:13:29.87
where, as you pointed out,
sometimes people don't have
00:13:29.90\00:13:32.47
the opportunity to be
as educated about other
00:13:32.51\00:13:35.34
differing viewpoints and
other, you know, practices,
00:13:35.38\00:13:38.08
religious practices and so
forth, and accepting of others.
00:13:38.11\00:13:40.92
In some of those places
there have been instances
00:13:41.62\00:13:44.59
were ministers,
especially Pentecostal pastors,
00:13:44.62\00:13:48.06
have gone in, and
holding revival services
00:13:48.09\00:13:50.83
and claiming to do
miracles and so forth,
00:13:50.86\00:13:52.76
where the villagers
have become incited,
00:13:52.79\00:13:55.56
devout Hindus
incited against them
00:13:55.76\00:13:58.40
and violence has
broken out where some of them
00:13:58.43\00:14:01.10
have lost their lives,
Christians lost their lives.
00:14:01.14\00:14:03.24
It's regrettable, and it's just
like in "Acts of the Apostles."
00:14:03.27\00:14:07.04
There's a case where, you
know, the charge was made,
00:14:07.08\00:14:10.15
remember about the
possessed girl, you know,
00:14:10.18\00:14:11.98
"These men are
teaching," whatever.
00:14:12.01\00:14:13.42
There's a riot.
00:14:13.45\00:14:16.02
~ And the people were
afraid that their temple
00:14:16.05\00:14:18.12
to the goddess Diana
was going to be shut down.
00:14:18.15\00:14:19.65
~ Threatening
their livelihood. - Yeah.
00:14:19.69\00:14:21.02
We'll be back
after a short break.
00:14:21.06\00:14:22.39
Please stay with us.
00:14:22.42\00:14:23.76
Talking at the
moment about India,
00:14:23.79\00:14:25.23
but we may take
it further afield.
00:14:25.26\00:14:27.20
We'll be back.
00:14:27.23\00:14:28.56