Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000395B
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00:05 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:07 Before the break, 00:08 we were really heavy into debating, 00:10 discussing this Christian nation concept 00:12 that really drives so much 00:14 of the religious liberty discussion in the US of late. 00:18 Well, I think of Sandra Day O'Connor, 00:20 a former Supreme Court Justice, she wrote, 00:22 "The religious zealot and the theocrat frighten us 00:24 in part because we understand 00:26 only too well their basic impulse. 00:28 No less frightening is the totalitarian atheist 00:31 who aspires to a society 00:33 in which the exercise of religion has no place." 00:35 So there are the Christian nationists 00:37 on one hand and yet there is the secular humanists 00:42 that really are at war against freedom of religion. 00:48 I think of Ronald Reagan Jr., 00:51 his commercial on TV that you see, 00:53 "The freedom from religion foundation." 00:55 Yes. 00:56 And a lot of people argue, 00:58 "Yeah, we must be free from religion." 00:59 But how far do you take that? 01:00 You know, you are not going to get very far. 01:03 I mean, you may get some followers to support that, 01:06 but to deny that we don't have Christian roots 01:09 and we don't have a Christian foundation 01:12 and a Christian society culturally 01:15 is really leading our nation down a bad road. 01:17 I used to listen a lot 01:19 to the late Christopher Hitchens debates 01:21 because he was a radical atheist, 01:24 and he had a lot of history on his side. 01:26 And of course, those that attacked him 01:28 would often bring up Stalin or, 01:30 you know, some other secular or Hitler even although. 01:33 I think what's wrong with Hitler is, 01:34 Hitler had allied himself very close to the state church 01:38 and even to Roman Catholicism. 01:41 But my take on history is that 01:43 atheism is a mortal enemy of faith. 01:47 But its weapons, mockery, ignoring, 01:52 and just marginalizing religion. 01:55 Right wing religionists, as Sandra Day O'Connor 01:58 was referring to, 01:59 they will cut off your head and string you up 02:02 and crucify you 02:04 in all in the name of justice and righteousness. 02:09 I think it's an easy point, especially in the US 02:13 where some of our worst excess is the Ku Klux Klan. 02:17 It was anti-Catholicism, what Christian America, 02:20 and we don't want to go back to those days. 02:22 Well, I had a professor of Portland State University 02:25 years ago in Oregon. 02:27 That was a former Mormon bishop who had turned atheist, okay, 02:31 and he was my philosophy professor. 02:33 I took three courses from him. 02:35 Brilliant guy, brilliant individual. 02:37 But he made an argument 02:39 that I fought against and I still don't believe 02:42 is accurate or true. 02:44 You see, they're motivated by something 02:46 that we don't realize. 02:47 They believe that a society free of religion 02:51 will be even moral, more moral than a society with religion. 02:56 So they believe in moralism, they believe in morality. 02:59 Of course. 03:01 They say they do, okay? 03:03 And that our society would be even more moral, 03:06 but you don't dare use the word righteous with them 03:08 because they don't like that. 03:09 Well, it's the morality of the preservation 03:12 of the species. 03:13 Yes, exactly. 03:15 So that's their argument, 03:16 and a lot of people don't understand 03:18 that side of the argument. 03:21 I went to the Elko Athletic Club 03:23 when I was a pastor in Elko, Nevada 03:25 way out in the middle of northeastern Nevada desert. 03:28 And there was a guy who was worth millions 03:32 and then he squandered it by gambling in United States. 03:34 He came from Ireland and ended up losing everything 03:39 and ended up being taken by this woman 03:40 who owned this business in Elko called the Elko Athletic Club. 03:44 And so you could order from the bar there 03:47 after working out. 03:49 You can order smoothies or whatever 03:52 and then some people, you know, got alcohol and everything. 03:54 I was going to have a smoothie. 03:55 But he and I used to have... 03:57 He was a big old tall guy 03:58 with handlebar mustache and everything, 04:00 bald and everything, and funny looking guy, 04:03 dark eyebrows, and a really funny smile. 04:07 Nicest guy though. 04:08 Anyway, we would argue... 04:10 Oh, I thought you were describing a... 04:11 For three and a half years, we would argue 04:14 almost daily at the gym about, you know, 04:17 what would a society look like free of religion, 04:20 absent of religion. 04:21 And I said, "You can't." I said, "It would die. 04:24 This would be the ugliest place on the earth." 04:26 I said, "Christianity is like the salt of the earth, 04:29 like the Bible says, like Christ said. 04:30 Without it, you would have no goodness in society." 04:33 And so see, the atheists argue 04:35 that you would have even more goodness 04:37 without religion. 04:39 That's their argument. 04:40 Well, I think... 04:42 I think the answer lies in the middle a bit. 04:43 There's a natural morality... 04:47 Naturally, those tribes and societies prohibit killing 04:52 and they regulate interactions on a certain level 04:56 that often are uncannily similar to Christianity, 04:59 or to Judaistic Christian 05:04 type religions or even Islam. 05:06 But that's not the real question. 05:08 We're talking about what dynamic is driving, 05:12 first, to be the Christian nation, 05:13 and what is the real threat? 05:15 And like I'll throw in a wildcard 05:16 that I've never heard anyone write about, 05:18 but I think it's true. 05:19 The most negative things 05:21 you can say about secularism, right? 05:23 You explained how they believe religion is their mortal enemy 05:28 because better off without it. 05:30 But we're faced with a hybrid now. 05:32 We have religious entities, like the Church of England 05:35 has said several Archbishops of Canterbury 05:38 that don't believe in the virgin birth, 05:39 don't believe in miracles, 05:41 don't believe in divine agencies. 05:42 Right. Right. 05:43 They are functioning as radical secularism 05:47 in their advancement of their religious organization. 05:50 So it isn't as simple 05:51 as radical secularists coming at you 05:54 or wild-eyed puritanical phonetics. 05:57 Well, and that's an interesting dynamic in Europe alone 05:59 because what you have is, 06:01 you have the Eastern European countries 06:02 that are pressing against the Western European countries. 06:05 Western European is pianism, 06:07 seems to be taking the increased secular road, 06:10 and Eastern European countries are more and more, 06:13 taking a more fundamentalist road including Poland 06:16 just passed recently in their parliament a, 06:20 you know, nationwide Sunday Law. 06:23 Family rest day. Yeah, family rest day. 06:25 And so I find that interesting 06:26 but it seems that they're converging. 06:29 Who wins? 06:30 I still think even in this country, 06:32 the United States of America, 06:34 that fundamentalism run amok wins. 06:36 Why? Yes. 06:37 Because I believe that secularism 06:40 is inherently apathetic. 06:42 Well, that's what I was saying earlier. 06:44 They're not likely to come at you 06:46 with all the fangs showing. 06:47 Right, right. 06:49 And so because of their apathy, 06:50 they just want peace, live and let live. 06:53 I mean, obviously, the counterexample to that, 06:56 the contradiction is the French Revolution 06:58 where you had secularists 06:59 that basically overthrew the religious and political... 07:02 Yeah, they had a particular reason for the hatred 07:04 of religion at that time. 07:06 But I think, the French Revolution 07:07 is an aberration. 07:09 I don't think it's a really... 07:11 Some people say, "Well, you know, 07:12 how do you defy what's said in The Great Controversy 07:14 by Ellen G. White?" 07:16 I don't think the French Revolution 07:17 is the model to look at 07:19 when we're looking to the future 07:20 because I really believe... 07:22 And who knows the future? I don't. 07:24 But what I am saying is, I think really, 07:26 I believe that we're looking at an increased move 07:30 towards fundamentalism. 07:31 And what I mean by that is simply this, 07:33 you see a president who basically garners, 07:38 basically 37% of the population's approval 07:42 and won the Electoral College vote but lost by, what, 07:46 nearly three million votes, okay? 07:48 Now you say, "Well, how could that be?" 07:51 But here, look at that dynamic. 07:52 It was all constitutional. It's all constitutional. 07:54 By the way we describe, 07:56 it's an aberrant sort of a situation. 07:57 But in the democratic system, you can have a vast majority 08:03 that's apathetic and allow 08:05 a very strong virulent aggressive minority to rule. 08:09 Absolutely. 08:10 That's always been a phenomenon. 08:12 And I think you're seeing that in Congress. 08:15 I think we're beginning to see 08:17 the effects of that in the Supreme Court. 08:20 Before long, we're going to have 08:24 right wing fundamentalists conservatives 08:26 in a religious bent that fill the seats in the court, 08:29 that take the place of far left wing secularist... 08:34 Which we have a problem within the judiciary right now. 08:36 ...liberal judges. 08:37 And so you have this ongoing fight 08:41 in our governmental system and it should be clear 08:44 to anybody watching it that that's what's happening. 08:47 Yeah. 08:48 No, there's a battle for the soul 08:50 of the United States. 08:51 Yes, yes. 08:52 I think, and you and I have agreed. 08:54 I think, in my lifetime, at least, 08:56 plus, what I've read in the US history, 08:57 I think this is one of the most troubling and dangerous 09:01 episodes in the story of the American republic. 09:06 And Ellen White that you referred to earlier, 09:08 her writing, I think prophetically 09:10 to Seventh-day Adventist 09:11 and to a larger audience, sometimes. 09:13 She said that the US one day will repudiate every principle 09:18 of the constitution. 09:19 Now she also said, leading to Revelation 13, 09:23 the two principles of Republicanism, 09:26 in other words, power of the people 09:28 and Protestantism, both and the threat. 09:32 I agree, and I think religious fundamentalism 09:34 will eventually take over this country 09:37 in very detrimental ways to our constitutional system 09:40 and specifically religious freedom. 09:42 And it's only a matter of time. 09:44 And again, I don't know the future and neither do you. 09:47 But we've been given some earmarks 09:49 both in Revelation and in the book, 09:51 "Great Controversy" and other sources 09:53 from current history and current events 09:56 to basically tell us that, 09:58 "Hey, we seem to be heading down this road." 10:00 Will it stay on that route? Who knows? 10:03 Some people have always thought that secularism and atheism 10:06 will take over this country to bring about last day events. 10:08 But I think it's the other way altogether. 10:13 It's one of the great mysteries of history, at least to me, 10:16 how in the establishing of the United States 10:19 in the adopting and development of a new constitution, 10:24 so many of the principles could be barely religious, 10:28 ideas is probably the best you can give to them. 10:31 How many irreligious or unreligious 10:34 or thoroughly secular people could come up 10:37 with a document that at its heart 10:40 defends freedom of religion, 10:42 not just as a line item but as a concept? 10:47 I think that's the divine element 10:49 in the history of the United States, 10:51 how God could guide people 10:53 hardly knowing what they were doing. 10:55 But out of it, came a protection 10:58 that exists to this day of the ultimate right 11:03 that we should all have to recognize God, 11:06 to worship Him, to follow Him, 11:09 to proclaim Him in the way that our conscience dictates. 11:13 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2018-08-02