Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is your program
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featuring religious liberty,
news, views, and evaluation
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on things that are happening
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 Carmela Monk Crawford,
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the editress, I
feminized it on another program.
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Editress.
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Editress of Message
magazine which is...
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Well, it's hard to describe.
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We had a whole
program on it recently.
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But it does have a
minority emphasis, doesn't it?
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There's no
question. That's right.
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It began that way.
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I'm an Australian and I came
to this country as a teenager,
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and studied history,
and literature, and so on.
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And I've always been
interested in the US.
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And one aspect of it that
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for many people
in other countries
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sort of speaks a lot to
the beginnings of the US,
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what used to be
called the Negro Spirituals.
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Beautiful music.
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And yet you only have to listen
to one or two of them to know
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that there's a lot
of pain hidden in there.
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What's your take on
the black experience
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as played out through music?
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And I'll give you a
cue where I'm coming from.
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It's very heartwarming,
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in an era which doesn't
play the spirituals much,
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but when they were played,
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heartwarming and
nice Christian expression.
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But to me,
there's a hidden story
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of repression of religion
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and an imposition of a
religion of the oppressor.
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How did that dynamic
work? Well, Lincoln...
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How can we redeem it in our age?
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If I had said it like that,
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I don't know if I could
get away saying it like that.
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But you...
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you are very right in that
the wealth of the spiritual,
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I think many years
or at least early on,
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people were not making
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that astute
observation that you are,
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people always thought that
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the music of the
Negroes was so happy
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and it took us to
such a wonderful place,
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and it was so lovely to
hear them sing joyously.
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But hidden into the
meaning of the Negro Spiritual
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were everything from
directions about how to escape,
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and how to subvert,
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what was being done to
them and done under them.
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But more than that,
the theology was correct.
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The theology was correct.
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And it is amazing to be
able to look back and to see
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how the Holy Spirit
was able to teach people
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who were
subjected to the most cruel
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inhumane treatment,
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and under the guise
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of Christian practice and faith,
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and see the true Jesus,
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and what he had
in mind for them.
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One thing, you know, I
talk about this sometimes,
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I believe it's beautiful.
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So many of our beautiful
songs that we've all come with,
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you know, in our hymnals.
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They come in that minor key.
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"I want Jesus to walk with me."
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"Sometimes, I feel
like a motherless child."
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There's one that's
not a Negro Spiritual
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but American Spiritual.
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"Sometimes, I feel
like a Wayfaring Stranger."
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And that beautiful
minor key to someone else
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or to the casual
observer seems like
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such a bluesy or
a jazzy feel to it.
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That is a deeply
restorative sound.
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You'll notice at the
end of most of those songs
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that we have reversed
back to that major key.
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But there's something
in that beautiful music
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that is handed down.
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I don't know why
you asked me this.
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But this is a
very big thing for me.
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Something that
has been handed down
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from generation to generation,
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and I believe it is spiritual
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because I
believe as we got to know
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and as we get to know
Jesus, the Man of Sorrows,
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acquainted with our grieves,
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it is in those
times of deep need
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and serious drive of crisis
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where you come to walk
with Jesus, and know him,
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and that is why it is sweet
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and it can
resolve on a sweet tone.
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You didn't ask me
for all that but...
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It's a very good
spiritual lesson from it,
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which of course,
is where we end up.
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And anybody
that comes to Christ,
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no matter how,
they find great stuff.
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Yeah.
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And also, and I need
to put a qualifier in.
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A lot of hymns in general,
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since it reaped the poetry,
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and a lot of poetry
comes from heart anguish
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and disappointment, so on.
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Yes.
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There's not a lot of hymns
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if you really think of
it as a super triumphant
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and sunny optimism
regardless of whatever.
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There's an element of
solemnity and the blessed hope
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of something beyond this
vial of tears in all hymns.
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Correct. Correct.
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But it really is
hardly ever spoken about
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how people brought
from another country
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with other
religious, you know, animism,
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it has been still religion,
other views of the universe.
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And here, it transmogrified
into a Christian expression
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and sort of obvious
to me that even today
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there are elements of
other theological viewpoints
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adrift in the
American experience
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that came from Africa.
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But you know, how did in
such a repressive atmosphere,
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they adopt many of them,
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the majority
perhaps, ultimately,
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a religion that
was in its worst form
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connected with
the very situation,
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and we don't, in America,
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sort of look
south and draw parallels
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to what the Catholic
Spanish adventurers down there.
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You know, they forced
religion on the people there,
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repressed the native expression,
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and turned out a
little differently.
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But the dynamic
is not different.
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So how would you relate that
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on the level of
religious self-determination
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of not forcing
religion on other people?
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It's a question that
hardly ever is asked.
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Yeah.
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And I'm having a hard time
trying to focus in and zone in
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on just one
particular aspect of this.
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I do believe that the experience
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of the
African-American in this country
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had a uniquely emasculating,
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dehumanizing nature to it.
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And the beauty, as I said,
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I believe that in that space,
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the Holy Spirit worked in
a way to speak to and nurture
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and hold up many
people, African-American people.
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Last year, I had the opportunity
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of being at the
Hampton Ministers' Conference.
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And they had a great seminar.
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And during the seminar,
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they had representatives
from the new Smithsonian
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for African-American
History and Culture,
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and several other scholars.
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And one of the
things that was brought up
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during that
seminar was the report.
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You know, for many decades,
they've reported and recorded
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information from
formerly enslaved people,
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recorded whatever they could
to piece together genealogies
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and histories,
and things like this.
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One interesting strain
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that people
would report was that
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they were taught to read,
and they believe by angels.
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What am I trying to say?
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I'm trying to say...
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A divine element
in all of this...
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The divine
element has to transcend
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what is going on here,
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and now, and I
believe that is our focus.
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When we look at human rights,
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civil rights,
religious liberty rights,
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is that it has to transcend
the dialogue and the debate
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that is happening on the ground.
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We have to act
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for what we
know we are called to
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rather than what's to save now.
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You're right.
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I think anyone with
a spiritual affinity
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can discern God's
Spirit moving through history.
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But of course, unfortunately,
in a fallen world,
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it's not the dominant force.
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No.
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There are other kinds of forces.
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But let me throw the
question at you another way.
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Come again. Come again.
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Since we...
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We'll stick to the Bible.
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The Exodus.
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Four hundred years in slavery.
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And I'm trying to think
of the American experience
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that wasn't quite
that long, was it?
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But 400 years,
that's long enough.
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It's almost prehistory
for those 400 years later.
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And if you read
carefully in the Old Testament,
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you can see that the overlay
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of the religion of
Egypt was hard to remove.
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It took many hundreds of years.
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And in fact, in some
ways, still lingering,
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even in the New Testament.
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So what do you see in
the American experience
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that is a
forced marriage between
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other religious
traditions and Christianity?
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Did it just God's
Spirit moved whole people away
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from something else
to discovering Jesus?
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And then of course,
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it moved beautifully into
the civil rights movement,
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Martin Luther King,
and Baptist leadership
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in particular, they applied
those biblical principles.
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But has it gone?
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How can one religious tradition
totally replace another?
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That's a loaded question
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and a leading
question I'm hearing you say.
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And you want to
give an answer to this.
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But it's worth
thinking of it. Yes.
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And I believe, in
subtle ways, it shaped America.
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You tell me what is it
that you've seen it shaped.
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No, I don't want to
say. You don't want to say.
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You don't want to say.
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I believe... But
it's a thought experiment.
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It's a thought experiment.
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I do believe
that there would be,
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I guess, I look at
it from a different way.
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You know, if you
make the parallel to Egypt
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and we make the parallel
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to the African-American
experience in which, you know,
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I'm very interested and keen on,
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continuing to explore,
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I see the biggest detriment
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or the biggest carryover
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is a mindset and is a dearth
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of understanding
of where you are.
00:11:29.52\00:11:32.75
Now some people say
that could be very spiritual.
00:11:32.79\00:11:35.49
But I also believe that,
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you know, that
has other implications
00:11:37.33\00:11:39.16
that go to both your profession,
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your family life,
everything like this.
00:11:43.33\00:11:45.13
I believe that the destruction
00:11:45.17\00:11:48.14
that has happened
to people's inside,
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in their mind is a carryover.
00:11:50.81\00:11:52.94
Even now, we talk on
just a simple basis of trying
00:11:52.97\00:11:57.08
to elevate our
diet and our health.
00:11:57.11\00:12:01.28
There is no
reason to eat the way
00:12:01.32\00:12:04.09
it has been passed down to you.
00:12:04.12\00:12:06.39
Now God has given you
a ticket out and freedom.
00:12:06.42\00:12:09.76
And so we've been
talking, I just...
00:12:09.79\00:12:11.13
I left Brooklyn a
couple of weeks ago.
00:12:11.16\00:12:13.53
When I was there, and talking
to an African-American couple,
00:12:13.56\00:12:17.00
vegan couple, said, "You know,
00:12:17.03\00:12:18.90
we've got to get away
from this sort of thing."
00:12:18.93\00:12:22.07
This is a new phase of
the resistance where that,
00:12:22.10\00:12:25.51
"I'm not part of a killing."
00:12:25.54\00:12:27.84
On an Adventist
level, you're correct.
00:12:27.88\00:12:29.31
Yes. Yes.
00:12:29.34\00:12:30.68
And Adventism
adopted the health reform
00:12:30.71\00:12:34.15
as a direct
connection to spirituality,
00:12:34.18\00:12:36.35
and to clear thinking,
00:12:36.38\00:12:39.15
and to move back
to God's basic ideal.
00:12:39.19\00:12:41.82
But when you're
talking US history,
00:12:41.86\00:12:44.09
as you well know,
00:12:44.13\00:12:46.06
you can see the...
00:12:46.09\00:12:49.60
If you look at diet,
00:12:49.63\00:12:53.70
it's an overlay of the history
00:12:53.74\00:12:56.14
that goes back
to antebellum days.
00:12:56.17\00:13:00.21
That what people eat today
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is a product of
what was going on then.
00:13:01.98\00:13:05.51
So... Not much longer though.
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That's very...
That is changing a lot.
00:13:07.18\00:13:10.12
And even back...
00:13:10.15\00:13:11.49
Well, I'll go
back to the Genesis,
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not Genesis, Exodus.
00:13:13.29\00:13:14.92
Remember, in the
desert, they were saying,
00:13:14.96\00:13:16.69
"We wish we had the leeks,
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and the onions, and olives."
00:13:19.59\00:13:20.93
The garlic, and all. Yeah.
00:13:20.96\00:13:22.30
The great food of Egypt. Right.
00:13:22.33\00:13:24.03
The food of
slavery. The slave diet.
00:13:24.07\00:13:25.67
Right.
00:13:25.70\00:13:27.40
So yeah, all of
life is interconnected.
00:13:27.44\00:13:31.01
So it isn't just
what church we go to
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or what holy book we
read, it's a package.
00:13:33.74\00:13:37.18
And the ancients knew it.
00:13:37.21\00:13:38.55
And we're in a dangerous path
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I think in our country
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that we may be
moving back to a uniform
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sort of a religious,
national religious viewpoint.
00:13:46.19\00:13:48.86
Yes.
00:13:48.89\00:13:50.23
There's a logic to it,
00:13:50.26\00:13:51.59
but there's a
horrible danger from history.
00:13:51.63\00:13:53.76
I can see we're
near our break point.
00:13:53.80\00:13:55.46
So we'll take a short
break and be back to continue
00:13:55.50\00:13:58.53
what I think is an
interesting discussion.
00:13:58.57\00:14:01.74
Reaching back into
history of plucking things,
00:14:01.77\00:14:04.07
maybe even at random.
00:14:04.11\00:14:05.44
Yeah. Stay with us.
00:14:05.47\00:14:06.81