Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000392A
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00:25 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:27 This is a program bringing you news, 00:29 views, discussion and up-to-date information 00:31 on religious liberty developments in the US 00:34 and around the world. 00:36 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty magazine, 00:39 and our guest on the program is Greg Hamilton, 00:41 president of the Northwest Religious Liberty Association. 00:44 Nice long title for an effective program 00:47 that you're running there. 00:49 Welcome on to the program. Thanks. 00:50 This is not your first time. 00:52 No, no, no. 00:53 And you and I have worked before quite a bit. 00:56 Let's go to something at hand. 00:59 There is a book that I just saw for the first time 01:01 a few minutes ago 01:03 that you've been working 01:04 on this for quite a while, right? 01:05 Yes, I published a book 01:07 called Soul Liberty: 01:08 Celebrating America's First Freedom. 01:11 And the book covers, it's a coffee-table book 01:14 that even children can enjoy as well as adults, 01:17 and the book is specifically focused 01:19 on America's constitutional founding, 01:21 specifically on the origins of religious freedom 01:25 in our country dating from Roger Williams, 01:27 actually before that to the Mayflower, 01:29 to Roger Williams, to the constitutional founders 01:31 and cleared to the civil rights movement. 01:33 And the book is intended for thought leaders, 01:37 mainly for legislators, state legislators, 01:40 judges, attorneys, and people of faith 01:43 who are interested in America's founding. 01:44 Well, it's not intended for Adventist. 01:46 It's a coffee table book, we don't drink coffee. 01:49 Well... 01:52 I applause you on that one. 01:53 But it should be, 01:55 Adventist should read this, right? 01:56 Yes, absolutely. 01:57 We want our church members, all people of faith to know 02:00 in the United States the constitutional basis 02:03 of their freedoms. 02:04 And it's a beautiful 64 page full color coffee table book 02:08 that really highlights what we do 02:13 in terms of understanding religious freedom 02:16 and let me get to a, you know, beautiful, 02:21 beautiful photos, that's worth, 02:23 you know, every bit a person's time. 02:25 This is going to be available on Amazon.com real soon. 02:29 By the time this airs, this program airs, 02:31 it will be available on Amazon.com. 02:33 It will be available at the Adventist book center 02:35 or Adventist bookstores and at a very reasonable price, 02:40 so check it out, you want to get it. 02:43 But the contents of the book is interesting 02:45 because I tried to make it so simple 02:48 that a child would want to thumb 02:50 through the pictures and say, oh, Mom and Dad, 02:52 I remember that coffee table book 02:55 when I was a kid. 02:56 I want to look at that, 02:57 that's got the original documents 02:59 of the Declaration of Independence, 03:00 the Constitution, all the amendments including 03:02 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 03:04 That's not an amendment, that's an international, 03:08 corollary for the US Constitution 03:10 which is, it strengthens our hand in projecting 03:13 religious liberty legally throughout the world, right? 03:14 Sure, but it's contained in here 03:16 especially articles18 and 19 highlighted, 03:19 and the whole purpose is 03:21 to raise the curiosity of a child 03:23 so when they become an adult, 03:25 it can actually guide them to think, 03:26 hey, you know, this is something 03:28 I'm supremely interested in. 03:29 It may even direct the channel, the direction 03:33 they go in terms of their life work. 03:35 And that's what I was hoping to do 03:37 as well as help legislators, 03:40 especially, pastors and clergy to see the light 03:43 regarding America's Constitutional founding. 03:46 What's your take? 03:47 Do you think intimate knowledge of the Constitution 03:50 is a common thing nowadays? 03:52 No, no, we get our pompoms out 03:55 and we get our church leader uniforms on, 03:57 and we think we know what we're talking about. 03:58 Oh, yeah, we're for a nation, we're for the Constitution 04:02 but then we're an empty head 04:03 when it comes to actually knowing anything about it. 04:05 And I read something in Liberty the other day on this 04:08 and I said, other than the Second Amendment, 04:10 I don't think anyone really knows, 04:12 you know, in the general public sense 04:14 what's in it anymore. 04:15 Most people when they speak of the Constitution, 04:17 what they really have in mind 04:19 is the Declaration of Independence. 04:20 Right. 04:22 They have some inkling of what it says. 04:23 Well, and that's true. 04:24 In fact, Representative Steve Scalise, 04:27 Republican from Louisiana just a couple weeks ago 04:31 during the Prayer Breakfast, National Prayer Breakfast said, 04:34 "Thomas Jefferson 04:36 when he wrote the Constitution..." 04:37 Well, Thomas Jefferson 04:39 wasn't even at The Constitutional Convention. 04:40 He was in Paris. 04:41 He wrote the Declaration of Independence, 04:43 or at least he penned it and worked with someone. 04:45 And then he went on to say, 04:46 "And our founders intended 04:47 our nation to be a Christian nation by law," 04:50 when in fact it's just actually the opposite. 04:53 Not that we should be against Christianity 04:55 but that Christianity 04:57 was not to be formed in a legal sense, 05:00 but to be understood in a cultural predominant sense 05:03 and in a demographic sense that most people 05:06 were Christians they assume that. 05:08 Yeah, and I don't, I think they would be quite 05:11 startle to see the diversity that we have today. 05:14 There's no way that Englishman or Colonialists 05:18 at that era could have imagined 05:20 where we've come demographically today. 05:22 What's amazing is what brought all 13 colonies together 05:25 was really the First Great Awakening. 05:29 First Great Awakening was fantastic. 05:30 I mean, you think of Jonathan Edwards, 05:32 you think of the Dutch field preachers, 05:34 and then comes along this grand field preacher 05:38 from England named George Whitefield. 05:41 In fact, his voice so bloomed wherever he spoke. 05:44 In fact, Benjamin Franklin used to follow him around. 05:47 And Benjamin Franklin once said that I went ten blocks away 05:51 and I could still hear his voice booming 05:53 and echoing down the streets in Philadelphia. 05:56 Now, that's some kind of voice. 05:58 And they didn't even have microphones in those days. 06:00 Right, and Benjamin Franklin 06:01 wasn't even particularly religious. 06:02 He just went along out of curiosity. 06:04 Exactly. 06:05 And I remember reading, that he listened to him a bit 06:08 and then he decided, well, I'll give him some money 06:09 and then he listens it bit more, 06:11 I'll give him some more money, 06:12 so he got to Franklin. 06:14 But the message that really freed the colonies 06:16 was this idea that Christians and people of faith could... 06:22 They could have Christ as their personal savior 06:25 instead of the king being their savior, 06:28 instead of the government... 06:29 Government formally is the head of the church. 06:31 Right, and so it was very freeing 06:33 is this idea. 06:34 Actually righteous by faith through Christ alone 06:36 is really the message that galvanized all 13 colonies 06:40 to come together to think, hey, you know what? 06:43 There's something wrong here, 06:45 you know, and it actually sowed the seeds 06:47 of independence and few recognize that 06:49 or understand that. 06:51 I think it's an arguable line. 06:56 Yes, I do think the religious revival 06:58 played a good part, not just giving theology 07:03 but it gave a sense of separateness. 07:05 Remember, not long before 07:08 the Declaration of Independence, 07:09 they were still fighting in England 07:12 the idea between the high church 07:13 and resurgence of Catholicism 07:16 or at least the form of high church Catholicism. 07:19 So this revival here I think created 07:21 a Protestant sensibility versus sort of the old line 07:26 suspicious Church of England. 07:28 Well, they saw too much of a church 07:30 and state united and... 07:32 Which it was in England, it still is. 07:34 Yes, yes. 07:35 A monarchical controlled church 07:38 but a church really in the sense 07:39 that controlled the state as well, 07:41 sort of mutual control, mutual competition, 07:44 and yet they work together 07:46 to oppress those they disagree with. 07:48 And to this day, I'm sure you'll agree 07:50 the Episcopal Church 07:52 which goes by that name precisely 07:54 because it was uncomfortable, 07:55 we called the Church of England is really... 07:58 In other words, not Anglican. 07:59 Yeah, it's really suffered in America in the new world 08:03 because of its identification with the English power. 08:08 Thomas Jefferson came up with this whole, 08:11 I mean the entire Declaration of Independence 08:13 really was written in a way 08:15 to challenge the divine right of kings, 08:17 specifically King George III in England. 08:21 And that was a big deal 08:22 because when you challenged the divine right of a king, 08:25 even though Jefferson wasn't a... 08:30 A fundamentalist Christian per se, 08:33 he nevertheless believed that 08:35 that kings did not have the authority 08:38 to tell anyone how to worship, 08:41 when to worship, and where to worship 08:43 and that was his big thing. 08:45 Jefferson sowed the seeds of separation 08:48 of church and state in this country 08:50 that is still that people forget 08:52 is the hallmark really of our country's history 08:56 is this whole idea that church and state 08:59 should remain separate. 09:01 Well, I think, yes, I agree with you. 09:03 He was central to it, of course, 09:05 in the election of what was it... 09:09 When was he elected president? 09:10 Eighteen hundred. 09:12 Eighteen hundred, I couldn't remember 09:13 it was 1798 or 1800. 09:15 You know, he was vilified as a secularist, 09:18 and I think in large part because of this sort of views 09:21 but I have a deeper take on when the break came. 09:26 Remember it was Oliver Cromwell in the English civil war, 09:30 that was be a lifetime before him 09:33 and he was a thinker 09:34 and knew what was happening there, 09:36 a revolutionary, 09:37 he was a revolutionary par excellence, 09:38 loved the blood of the French Revolution, 09:41 but in the English civil war... 09:42 And he was a protector of the Waldenses 09:44 in Italy and France and the kingdom of Savoy. 09:48 You're talking about Cromwell now. 09:49 Yes. 09:51 Yeah, but it's worth remembering 09:53 in lot of your comments that when the Puritan, 09:59 Cromwellian forces captured the king 10:01 and put him on trial, his appeal was exactly 10:03 what you're saying. 10:05 King Charles I. 10:06 Yes, that he had a divine right. 10:07 He was there by God, God's power, 10:10 and they had no right to even question him 10:12 and they cut his head off. 10:13 Right. 10:15 So the point had already 10:16 been made for an English Protestants, 10:18 Puritans, which largely informed 10:21 the thinking in the colonies. 10:23 There was an inordinate puritanical 10:25 in the best sense influence here. 10:28 And the Anglican Church had faded already 10:31 in some influence of Cromwell. 10:33 And what really informed a Puritan which is, 10:37 and here's the irony is the Scottish, 10:39 French and English enlightenment 10:43 this idea that somehow 10:45 there has to be a change in the way 10:48 governments have been structured in the past. 10:50 We have got to make a revolutionary change 10:52 for the future. 10:54 And, you know, I'll even go further back, 10:55 I think this was... 10:56 This came out of the Renaissance 10:59 and in the secularization of Europe 11:02 and it worked its way out through religion in England 11:05 and the civil war there and it hit the fan in France. 11:10 Was it 1798, that's where the eight is, 11:12 I guess in my mind, 1798 with the French Revolution. 11:16 They didn't particularly have anything 11:18 more than religious grievances 11:19 but it was not a religious movement, 11:21 but they cut the king's head off there 11:23 and got rid of this the divine right 11:26 through secular rebellion. 11:29 And in England 11:30 they had a nominal sense of representation 11:33 for the people, 11:35 the people's representatives in Parliament 11:36 so to speak but it wasn't in reality. 11:40 In other words, yes, you had a 11:42 so-called benevolent sovereign king, 11:44 but in fact the people really felt frustrated in England 11:48 and so in the American colonies 11:50 they wanted to be completely free of that. 11:52 They figured, hey, we're an ocean away, 11:55 why can't we direct our own affairs. 11:57 It wasn't just about the Great Tea Party 12:01 or authority overthrowing of the tea, 12:03 the Boston Tea Party as it's known. 12:06 It wasn't just about that, it wasn't just about taxation 12:08 without representation, that was part of it, 12:11 that was an essential part of it, 12:14 but really close to the heart was this idea, 12:18 can the church really direct the affairs of the state? 12:21 Can the state direct the affairs of our church? 12:24 Can the state direct our consciences? 12:27 And Jefferson was saying, "No, they cannot." 12:29 And for this reason we declared independence. 12:33 Yeah. 12:34 I agree with. 12:36 I love history, it's multidimensional 12:38 and that was a clear one. 12:41 I have a great burden that people really see 12:43 more clearly on the grievances that led to it, 12:46 it wasn't the tea party thing, it was PR. 12:49 What was really the big thing that got the ball rolling 12:52 was the English refusal to allow letters of credit 12:56 and the local currency, they wanted the English pound 12:59 and therefore financial control. 13:02 And when that was denied, then things started percolating 13:05 and I believe that's when the religious viewpoint 13:08 that you can trace to the awakening, 13:11 that's when it kicked in 13:12 because it was easy for them to say, 13:14 "Well, he is this belligerent autocratic 13:18 state church over here won't let us do our thing. 13:22 We better take a break. 13:24 It's great to get into the swing of things. 13:26 We're deep in the history now, so stay with us, 13:29 we'll be right back. |
Revised 2018-07-23