Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is your
program bringing you
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up-to-date news, views,
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information, and analysis
on religious liberty events
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and history in the
US and around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty Magazine.
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And my guest on this
program is Elijah Mvundura.
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Yes.
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A repeat guest and...
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I think, long time you
worked for Liberty Magazine.
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How long since
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your first article was
in, it's a few years I think.
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It was since 2006.
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Whoa!
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Further back than I thought.
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Time is moving by.
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But I hope there is
many more articles to come.
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Here, I'm constantly
impressed by your understanding
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of whole range of historic
and philosophical issues
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that are back dropped to
religious liberty and say,
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let's start with some say
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that's wonderful
hobbyhorse of mine.
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An event or a
development in English history
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that I think
explains an incredible amount
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of present day religious
liberty in the United States,
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the English Civil War.
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Yes.
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Or at least,
the most recent one,
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they were actually a couple.
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Yes, the English
Civil War is important.
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People are not
even aware sometime
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that there was a
Civil War in England.
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But it was a... In mid 1600s.
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Yes, in the mid 1600s,
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then the 17th century, 1640.
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And it all revolved around
the issues of religion whether,
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it could really
have a Protestant...
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England could
become a Protestant nation
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or could it align themselves
with the Catholic powers.
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In fact, the English Revolution
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is the first of
revolution in the world.
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Today, we use the
word revolution a lot,
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but people are not
aware that the first...
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Well, certainly
in the modern era.
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Yes. Yes.
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In the modern era, the
first modern revolution
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of changing completely society,
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it was the French Revolution,
it was the English Revolution.
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Before the French
Revolution, 100 years ago.
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Before the French Revolution.
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They actually, also,
cut the head of their king.
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For the first time. Yes.
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And they established a republic
of some sort under Cromwell.
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And remember,
let's really jump back.
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Remember in the Bible,
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King Saul was told to
destroy heathen nation
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and to utterly exterminate them
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and he turns up with Agag.
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Yes.
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You know, "How could
I kill a fellow king?"
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Remember that?
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That from the earliest
days, that was the rule.
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You might bring him in chains.
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But to formally do
as they did in England,
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that was unthinkable.
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It was unthinkable.
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That's why Zedekiah who
was also taken to Babylon.
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Even Nebuchadnezzar
did not cut his head,
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he simply took out his
eyes and took him to Babylon,
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but he did not cut his head.
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So cutting of the
king's head was...
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Was initially was
an incredible thing.
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I mean in battle it
happened all the time.
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Yes, there is actually a theory
that the king does not die.
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That's why even
today people and they say,
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"Long live the
Queen. Long live the King."
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People are not aware
that it is actually referring
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that the king does not die
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because the death of a king
means the death of the nation.
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Right.
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And as well as that what
in the English Revolution,
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what they were
dealing with was an idea
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that had developed,
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I think, very strongly
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under the whole
Christian development
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of the papacy and so on
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is that the king
had a divine right
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that he was in
essence God's representative,
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of course, behind him sat
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the Vicar of
Christ who anointed him.
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But still, the king embodied
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the sovereign will
of God for the people.
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So to kill him was to
strike against heaven.
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Yes, it was a
strike against heaven.
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What is interesting, however,
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is that the
people who cut his head,
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they actually used the
Bible to justify their actions.
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And again you see a difference
between the English Revolution
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and the French Revolution
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because with English Revolution,
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when they cut
off the head's king,
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they're trying to
establish a godly kingdom.
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You may not agree
with what they're doing,
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and I don't think that
you're supposed to establish
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the kingdom of God on earth,
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but you'd say
that their blueprint
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was from the Bible.
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And I believe that
because their blueprint
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was from the Bible,
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in a way the English
Revolution was not as bloody
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and it had limited,
it was limited in its,
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can I say, in its
dreams and its aspirations,
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whereas with the
French Revolution,
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it literally wanted
to cover the whole world.
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It was unstoppable.
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Those who started it ended up
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being eaten up
by its bloodiness.
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De Tocqueville actually
compares the French Revolution,
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what the French
Revolutionary is with Islam,
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with what Muhammad did,
that they actually wanted
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to spread their
religion all over the world.
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But anyway, going back
to the English Civil War,
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it's actually
laid most of the sects
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that were participating
in the English Civil War.
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They anticipated most
of our modern freedoms.
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Right.
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People are not
aware of that today
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and many people, they think,
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in fact, conventional history
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locates multiple freedoms
in the French Revolution.
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People like
Voltaire and Rousseau,
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and they're not aware that...
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people like the Diggers,
the Levellers, the Monarchists.
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These were the
groups in England, yeah.
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Yes, these are all
the groups participated.
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And one of my favorites,
the Fifth Monarchy Men.
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Yes.
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And they read from
the Book of Daniel,
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that prophecy of Daniel.
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But what is important for us
to know is that these people,
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by reading the
Bible, they're actually
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trying to set
up a godly kingdom.
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And instead of it
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transforming into a monster,
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they're actually able
to build many freedoms
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that are valued in
the Anglo-Saxon tradition.
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So it is very
important to make a distinction
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between the so-called.
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And I think it is made between
the Anglo-Saxon tradition
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and the continental tradition.
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They are different.
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Now another thing that
I think is interesting,
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that's just not known today.
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You know, in America,
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we have a
republican form of government.
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Yeah.
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And Ellen White writing to
early Adventists pointed out,
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I think very correctly
that the two distinguishing
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characteristics
of the United States
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are Republicanism or
were, and Protestantism.
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Yes. And what's Republicanism?
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It's the power
vested in the people,
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or the people's power
authorize the government.
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And the rule of Oliver
Cromwell after the Civil War
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was a republican government,
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very
self-consciously republican.
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Yes, it was self-consciously...
It was a republic.
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And I'm trying to think...
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Can I interject
you a little bit?
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You talked about Ellen
White and that true founding.
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Yeah.
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The French philosopher, again,
who wrote Democracy in America,
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he makes the same observation...
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Yes, he makes
the same observation
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that Ellen White makes.
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That's interesting.
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And that was
about the same time.
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Actually, yes.
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That's his all thesis,
The Democracy in America
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is the classic on
American democracy.
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Yeah.
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And he makes exactly
the same observation.
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It's interesting.
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I read a lot of de
Tocqueville but I don't remember
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him saying the same thing.
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The whole basis of
democracy in America is on that.
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So it's very important to know
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that the insights
that Ellen White has,
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they are there also.
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Yeah.
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Well, you know, to
me, that's very important.
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They didn't exercise
it absolutely correctly
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but they
self-consciously set it up
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as a government
deriving from the people,
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not from a papal power
that has existed before then,
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nor from the power
of the sword directly,
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even though, as
in the United States,
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the victorious
general became the ruler,
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same thing with...
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And in both
cases, very interesting,
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Oliver Cromwell
and George Washington
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were both offered the
crown and turned it down.
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They turned it down.
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And one of the
theorists, a political theorist
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who puts it all
together is Thomas Hobbes.
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Thomas Hobbes is called
the father of modern liberalism
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or modern liberty of them,
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liberal status
founded on the contract.
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He actually
spoke that it's based
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on the contract of the people.
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People have to...
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That the basis of government
is derived from the people
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and it's Thomas
Hobbes who wrote about that.
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And what is very
interesting about Thomas Hobbes
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is actually two books.
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First, that he speaks
about physics and the light.
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But his last
books, last two books...
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One that I
remember is the Leviathan.
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Yes, that's the
one that I'm referring.
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It is several books.
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But the second half of Leviathan
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is actually based on
the Christian common wealth.
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It's apocalyptic
through and through.
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Oh, yes. I remember that.
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Yes, you know it.
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There is actually a statement
there where he actually
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described the Catholic Church
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as the ghost of the Roman Empire
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sitting on the grave thereof.
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And for him, what is
so crucial about Hobbes
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that we need to
apply to our time.
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Hobbes, in that second part,
he was not only writing against
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the pretensions of
the Catholic Church
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to establish a
theocracy, he was also writing
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against the Puritan sects
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who wanted to establish
the kingdom of God on earth.
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And to him, he
insists over and over again
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that the kingdom of
God is in the future.
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The reason why we have to
have a government by the people
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is because God's
kingdom is in the future,
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and Hobbes
insists in his last book
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on the literal return of Christ,
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in the literal
resurrection of the saints,
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and that God is the one
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who is going to
establish His kingdom.
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So before the second coming,
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we cannot create a kingdom
that solves all problems.
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Right.
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Only God is going
to solve their problem.
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That was the Achilles'
heel of the commonwealth
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or the rule of Oliver Cromwell
that followed the Civil War.
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They sort of
believed that they'd establish
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the kingdom of God on earth.
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And that in my view is
that that element was exported
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after the restoration
to the United States.
00:10:17.18\00:10:19.91
And I think that same
thinking informs a lot of what,
00:10:19.95\00:10:23.18
I usually say, the so
called Christian right
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or the politically
active Christian right.
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They have that, that illusion.
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But they are forgetting
also. You are very right.
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The whole idea of
the English Civil War,
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it was at the back of the minds
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of the American Founding Fathers
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when they were designing.
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...before.
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Yes, they read Locke,
they read all those guys.
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The way they tried
to solve the problem
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that came out from
the English Civil War.
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And I'm so surprised
with the curious blindness
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to that history that...
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We're fellow travelers of that.
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Since I've started at my
job, I've been hammering away
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at the story
trying to inform people.
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It's hardly even in
the American history books.
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Yes.
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I came from Australia.
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But I came in high
school, so I studied history
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and the high
school's history books
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don't deal with it.
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Yes. And for me,
it has amazed me.
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And people are not aware that
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that distinction is
very, very important
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because when you
don't mix church and state,
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you'll actually allow the people
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to have a direct
relationship with God.
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And that's why religion
has flourished in America.
00:11:27.85\00:11:30.52
It has flourished
because it's not under men.
00:11:30.55\00:11:32.55
Yeah.
00:11:32.59\00:11:34.06
It is supposed to be driven
by God, by spiritual consents.
00:11:34.09\00:11:37.59
And I think that
the greatest deformation
00:11:37.63\00:11:39.79
that you can ever have
00:11:39.83\00:11:41.16
is to try to
apply political remedies
00:11:41.20\00:11:43.47
to spiritual maladies.
00:11:43.50\00:11:44.83
Absolutely.
These are two distinct.
00:11:44.87\00:11:46.43
Spiritual problems
must be dealt spiritually.
00:11:46.47\00:11:49.30
Political problems
must be dealt politically.
00:11:49.34\00:11:52.07
Yeah. I agree
with you, absolutely.
00:11:52.11\00:11:54.28
And the most
recent example in the US,
00:11:54.31\00:11:57.21
not too many years ago now is
00:11:57.25\00:11:58.78
when the issue of gay marriage
was being noised around.
00:11:58.81\00:12:03.52
And in response, many
Christian groups tried to pass
00:12:03.55\00:12:07.22
a marriage amendment to
the actual US Constitution.
00:12:07.26\00:12:10.29
And the effort
was... I believe...
00:12:10.33\00:12:12.73
Yeah, it's a spiritual
problem brought in the country.
00:12:12.76\00:12:16.40
And they wanted
to get this super law
00:12:16.43\00:12:18.10
in that sort of lock the door
before people's inclinations
00:12:18.13\00:12:21.50
would lead them to
do something wrong.
00:12:21.54\00:12:22.87
Yes.
00:12:22.90\00:12:24.24
But then, I think, that's
why it is very, very important
00:12:24.27\00:12:25.61
to go back to
the English Civil War
00:12:25.64\00:12:27.21
because these things
are trying to use religion
00:12:27.24\00:12:30.88
as it were to control
people's morals and the like.
00:12:30.91\00:12:34.35
It has been tried
before and it always fails.
00:12:34.38\00:12:37.65
It always fails
because this is God's work.
00:12:37.69\00:12:40.16
And, I think, we
have important lessons.
00:12:40.19\00:12:42.02
That's why it's important for us
00:12:42.06\00:12:43.39
to go back to that history
00:12:43.43\00:12:44.76
and realize that
it has been tried.
00:12:44.79\00:12:46.13
Not only by some of the
people in the English Civil War,
00:12:46.16\00:12:49.50
that was the whole basis
of medieval civilization.
00:12:49.53\00:12:52.90
The Catholic Church tried
to control people's morals.
00:12:52.93\00:12:56.40
But we know that it'd
turned out very corrupt.
00:12:56.44\00:12:59.97
The papacy itself was
stinking with corruption.
00:13:00.01\00:13:03.04
Yeah. Why?
00:13:03.08\00:13:04.41
Because when people think
that they're in control of God,
00:13:04.45\00:13:08.38
they become gods.
00:13:08.42\00:13:10.52
Maybe this is a good
time to take a break.
00:13:10.55\00:13:11.89
It's a little bit
earlier than the normal
00:13:11.92\00:13:13.25
but we'll take a break.
00:13:13.29\00:13:14.62
When we're back,
and I want to discuss
00:13:14.66\00:13:16.39
more about the implications
of the English Civil War.
00:13:16.42\00:13:19.46
Stay with us.
00:13:19.49\00:13:20.83