Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000404A
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00:26 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:28 This is the program bringing you news, views, 00:31 and information on religious liberty events in the US 00:34 and around the world. 00:36 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:39 And my guest on this program 00:41 is Carmela Monk Crawford. 00:46 I know you mostly as Carmela Monk... 00:48 That's right. 00:49 Because it's been a long, long time 00:50 since I first met you. 00:52 Yes, correct. 00:53 But you were doing much the same thing 00:54 you're doing now. 00:56 You were working on Message Magazine 00:57 and you were the associate way, way back when I first met you. 01:00 Yes. 01:02 And so let's talk a little bit about 01:04 the magazine that you edit, 01:05 and I think we'll bring out a certain connection 01:08 to religious liberty and what Liberty Magazine does, 01:11 the magazine that I edit. 01:12 Oh, yes. 01:14 Tell me about Message Magazine? 01:16 Well, thank you first of all, for inviting me. 01:18 This is an honor to sit here across from you, Lincoln, 01:21 and talk with you. 01:22 You're right, we have known each other for a long time 01:25 and I have always admired the work that you do 01:27 and respect what you do with Liberty Magazine. 01:29 And so it's an honor to be here 01:31 at Liberty Insider with Message Magazine. 01:34 Message Magazine is as you have said, 01:37 I did work with Message many years ago and I left. 01:40 And you're not that old, so let's... 01:41 Yeah, I was very, very young... 01:45 But let's put it into a bigger perspective 01:46 because I talk about Liberty 01:48 and sometime said that it's the oldest magazine. 01:50 Well, I'm not the oldest person. 01:51 Right, right. 01:52 Liberty has been around 110 years plus. 01:54 How many years since Message was begun? 01:57 Well, this sounds almost like carbon dating that we do here, 02:00 but Message Magazine has roots back to the Gospel Herald. 02:04 The Gospel Herald was one of the publications 02:06 that James Edson White 02:08 published from his Morning Star, and... 02:11 Which was a special a little boat that... 02:13 Correct. 02:15 It was a ministry to blacks down in the south. 02:19 That's correct. That's great. 02:21 It was a wonderful part, a wonderful story for us 02:24 'cause James Edson White was a white Christian, 02:28 and generation after emancipation, 02:32 he decided that he needed to do something personally 02:35 for people who were in the south, 02:37 people who were formerly enslaved 02:38 people who were in the south. 02:40 And he decided that he was going to go 02:42 with a ministry that was comprehensive, 02:44 a ministry that would reach people. 02:47 And so he had this boat made and he got on this boat, 02:51 went down the Mississippi, 02:53 and from different town to different town, 02:56 he did everything from preach and teach the gospel 02:59 to vocational training, and helping people just 03:02 elevate in what was a terrible situation in this country. 03:06 And so James Edson White, a Christian man, 03:08 went down there and he had two publications, 03:11 one was the Gospel Herald 03:13 and the other was the Gospel Primer. 03:15 The Gospel Primer would teach people 03:18 how to read using Bible scripture, 03:20 people still do that today. 03:22 And then the other one was the Gospel Herald 03:25 in which it would talk about the work that was being done, 03:27 the advancements that were being done 03:29 in the communities, the needs that were there. 03:32 And so Message has its roots 03:33 all the way back to 1890s, so that's... 03:36 It's interesting you bring out this aspect of, 03:40 basically, reconstruction, the reconstruction period 03:43 because it seems to me, from my study of US history, 03:46 that's when the real deficiency, 03:49 the whole period of slavery became evident 03:53 because before then, 03:55 there was no particular guarantee. 03:56 In fact, the default setting was that 03:57 they were not educated, they were not given education 04:01 or the benefits of general knowledge. 04:04 So there was a crying need to educate 04:06 a whole class of people, 04:08 and I thought about it recently. 04:09 You know, in Myanmar, currently, 04:12 what amounts to a civil war of sorts with the Rohingya, 04:16 the people that came from nearby Bangladesh, 04:19 but they're slightly different ethnically 04:21 and not even granted citizen, they're persecuted, 04:25 at the moment, being killed gratuitously. 04:27 But one of the worst things visited upon them is 04:30 they're not given the right to education 04:33 or all the other benefits of being a citizen. 04:36 So after a while, apart from how they're treated, 04:40 they really miss out on everything 04:42 that the country has to offer 04:43 because of that lack of education. 04:45 So this was a very practical ministry 04:47 that Edson was involved with. 04:49 It wasn't just preaching the gospel 04:51 which, of course, will save their souls, 04:53 but it was practical help. 04:54 Right. 04:55 So when did this early magazine that morph into title, Message? 04:59 Well, that was 1798 thereabouts, 05:02 and the Gospel Herald was printed for some years 05:06 and then it was renamed after a hiatus 05:09 in 1934, The Message Magazine. 05:12 I knew they had been because same with Liberty. 05:15 Liberty began as the Sentinel and the Sentinel of Liberty, 05:19 and there was a little break 05:20 from the late 1880s till 1906 when Liberty began... 05:25 Right. 05:26 And for some of the same reasons. 05:28 Yes. 05:29 Our church really went through an interesting period. 05:31 Well, the church in the country... 05:33 The church mirrored what was happening 05:34 in the country, some of the inner struggles 05:37 and priority setting. 05:39 And I believe that was the case with the early Message Magazine 05:43 under the title the Gospel Herald. 05:45 You had a lot of need there. 05:49 W. E. B. Du Bois talks about the Negro problem that was, 05:54 he said, what are we doing. 05:55 And so when you make the analogy 05:57 and you talk about the Rohingya, 06:00 you're looking at a group of people 06:02 without anything, nothing, and just nowhere to go. 06:07 And so there needed to be some work done, 06:10 and so people had to come to grips with where we are now 06:14 and what's going to happen. 06:17 Certainly, the responsibility for a whole group of people 06:21 needs to be attended to, needs to be... 06:24 People need to be educated and nurtured 06:26 and given the resources that they need to make living. 06:29 And it seems to me, you know, I have read Liberty... 06:31 Message. 06:34 Forgive me for jumbling magazines. 06:37 I remember a friend of mine years ago 06:40 actually saying at our wedding, 06:42 he was a black Cuban tenor and he studied in... 06:47 Of course, he grew up in Cuba where there was Spanish 06:50 but he studied in Germany, 06:52 New German and he meet in France, 06:54 and new English of course. 06:56 And I remember once 06:57 when he was introducing his songs, 06:58 he was slipping from one language to other, 07:01 and he says, "Forgive me, I have a soup of languages." 07:04 And I have a soup of magazines. 07:05 Magazines. 07:06 But with Message, I've read it for a long time 07:11 and it seems to me, consistently and all the time, 07:15 I've seen it, 07:16 it's still with a lot of social issues, 07:21 and I always saw the logic of that 07:24 because as I said, reconstruction, 07:26 it wasn't just uneducated or lack of education, 07:30 it was people that were being abused 07:32 in very practical ways. 07:33 They were being disenfranchised of their vote, 07:36 they were being disenfranchised from their land. 07:42 Nothing could be worse than the period of slavery, 07:44 but in some ways, it was even more maligned, 07:48 it seems to me. 07:50 Yes. 07:51 The war had been won ostensibly toward the end 07:54 to free a whole group of people, 07:56 but yet, in the south, every effort, 07:59 even of the legislatures in the society 08:01 was bent toward disappearing, 08:03 and in essence, putting them back to tenant farmers 08:07 and bonded servants and so on, which is the same thing. 08:10 Yes. 08:12 So in my view, it was a reversion to slavery. 08:13 Yes. 08:14 And you have this expansion of rights 08:16 and a contraction of rights. 08:18 Expansion of rights, the contraction of rights, 08:20 expansion of representation 08:22 and a contraction of representation, 08:25 expansion of opportunities 08:27 and contraction of opportunities, 08:28 and that pattern... 08:30 I'm smiling not out of because it's a good story 08:34 but it echoes so much of what's happening today. 08:36 Absolutely. 08:38 And we will talk about that. Yes. 08:39 If not here, then in another program. 08:41 Absolutely. We've got to. 08:42 That warrants a long discussion. 08:44 Yes. 08:45 So Message was very narrowly 08:51 focused on a needy group then, 08:53 but you wouldn't say now Message is only 08:56 for one minority group, would you? 08:59 We have never said that, and I have to... 09:01 And that's probably one of my... 09:04 One point of defense 09:06 that I always find myself having to say, 09:09 Message was never solely created by people 09:14 who were not African-American and... 09:16 Oh, were African-American, 09:18 never was it intended to solely be 09:21 for an African-American audience. 09:24 I think it is a sad commentary when the advocacy 09:29 and the people who are responsible 09:31 for articulating certain things is a very narrow group 09:35 when there is a wide range of issues 09:38 that need to be addressed by all of us. 09:39 Well, I had discussions with some of your predecessors. 09:41 Yes. So I know their tendencies. 09:43 You know. Yes. 09:44 But no, I wanted you to say that because I think, 09:47 Message can fill a very needed role 09:51 in looking at the list in mainstream concern, 09:55 but it's a whole range of ethnic groups, 09:59 a whole range of, you know, subdivisions of society, 10:03 not necessarily ethnical, even religious connotation. 10:06 Correct. Correct. 10:08 And the human dynamic is what I guess 10:10 we're trying to talk about and trying to focus on, 10:13 the human dynamic, what is happening in your home, 10:16 what is happening with your health, 10:18 what is happening with your family, 10:20 these are all things that we all care about 10:23 across the board, no matter who you are. 10:24 And maybe with the demise of 10:28 some of our women's emphasis magazines, 10:32 you could even focus on that more than some of the... 10:35 Yes. Sadly. 10:37 Sadly so. The other magazines. 10:38 Sadly so. 10:39 No, but really, it's all part of a push 10:41 toward the general civil liberties in this country. 10:43 I mean, the women's battle for even the vote in the US 10:48 is a major one that people have forgotten. 10:49 Right, right. 10:51 And, of course, when I was young, 10:53 the Equal Rights Amendment and so on. 10:58 I can remember the... 10:59 In fact, the other day, I saw a video of the women 11:01 burning their bras at the time, it was all crazy, 11:04 but it was a symbol of trying to break free 11:08 of a very real oppression, it wasn't just, 11:12 you know, a moral liberalism that came out, 11:15 there was repression that laid behind this. 11:17 Right. Right. 11:19 And even our own churches, 11:20 you know, had a huge court case... 11:22 Yes. 11:23 The Mary Kay, wasn't it? 11:25 Yes. 11:26 Mary Kay's case went to court because she was not... 11:30 Wasn't just so much she wasn't being paid as much, 11:32 there was a whole status question, 11:36 in this case, the church was languishing 11:38 a little behind where the law was. 11:40 Right. Right. 11:41 And I don't think we should be there. 11:42 No. 11:44 I think we should be out front 11:46 when it comes to both recognizing 11:48 and sniffing out any quality recognizing 11:53 what's being done for people who you may not readily notice 11:57 or may not be in your circle. 11:59 I believe we should be the leaders... 12:01 Well, what did Paul say, says that in Christ 12:03 there is now neither Jew nor gentile, 12:05 slave nor free, male and female, and so on. 12:07 Yeah. 12:09 I mean, this is a biblical injunction. 12:10 Absolutely. 12:12 Let's take a quick break. 12:13 We'll be back shortly. 12:14 So stay with us and we'll continue 12:16 this discussion with Carmela Monk Crawford, 12:19 editor of Message Magazine. |
Revised 2018-10-15