Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break,
with Carmela Monk Crawford,
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Editor of Message magazine,
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I was bouncing you
around from pillar to post,
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starting with music
and we ended with food.
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Yes. Yes.
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But what I'm trying
to do is deconstruct
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some American history,
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obviously from the
point of a racial identity
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and the experience of slavery,
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but also how religion
figured in all of this.
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And I just do not think
the hot questions have been
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consistently asked of
American history on this.
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It ended up very well.
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As a Christian, I can say that,
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as the Seventh-day
Adventist Christian.
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At least, till
the modern secularism
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hit full force in the US,
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most of the general population
is Christian, normally,
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doesn't mean a high
percentage of any group
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are dedicated all, you
know, knowing and confirm,
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but their identity is.
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But they didn't
come from West Africa
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where most of them
came from as Christians.
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That was rare, to unknown.
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So we can say it's
a great transition.
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But it didn't happen a good way.
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No. No.
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And it bears a lot
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on what religious
liberty stands for,
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lack of coercion
and to persuade someone,
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not force them
against their will.
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Absolutely.
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And now I see what
you were saying. Yes.
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I agree, and I agree with
you, and this is something
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that we're seeing
even now, more and more.
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And you know,
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it is the younger generation is,
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perhaps, more
unwilling to tolerate.
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Well, I'll tell
you a story. Yes.
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It's not a secret thing.
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But it comes into
current goings on in the US.
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I was at a camp meeting
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at an Adventist black
college a couple decades ago,
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you know, and I
had to say something.
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And there was a walkway around,
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a hallway around that
went right behind the Pope.
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So as I walked around the
blind corners all the way,
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and as I came
suddenly upon a group
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of about 15 young black pastors,
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and they were really
getting into a big debate.
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And the minute I appeared
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and I did suddenly on the curve,
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it's like, they are
cut, they stopped talking.
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So I said, "What
are you talking about?"
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First, they wouldn't fuss up.
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Then I found that
they'd had a big debate,
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they were two clear fractions
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as to whether Christianity
was an appropriate religion
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for the black man today
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and that, perhaps,
Islam was a better religion,
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since
Christianity was the religion
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of the oppressor.
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So I said, "The
obvious which to me..."
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I said, "Well,
you should be aware
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that the Arabs
were the slave traders
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as they still are today
in some countries in Africa."
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And one guy says,
"That's what I told them.
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That's what I told them."
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But what got me was
that this is an active debate
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even among some ministers today.
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I have none of them
followed through on it.
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The burden of
history on the religion that,
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I hope they all
believe and are practicing
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fully from their heart now,
but a trouble for some of them,
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the baggage of how
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that religion
was forced on them.
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And I think you
make a good point,
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the baggage.
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And coming from
a legal background
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and even sometimes
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an alternative
dispute resolution,
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the thing is it's
good to know the history,
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and to know from
where do we come,
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and to know what goes
into our decision-making
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and our policy-making
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and the reason why we
do the things that we do.
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I believe it's
good to recognize...
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Well, the Supreme Court
spends the whole time on
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that sort of logic.
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Well, no, that's
true, that's true.
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And it is good to know
even within our churches,
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where certain policies come in
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and their disparate
impact on other people,
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people who are not maybe white
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but people who
come from a myriad
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of other backgrounds.
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And so I say of it, I
say, yes, we have to recognize.
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I think we cannot do much
about what is in the past.
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But our current day church,
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and I'm saying
church in the generic sense,
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the Christian
church can rightfully,
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legitimately take the
hit for carrying the banner,
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and for looking
like it turns a blind eye
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to both racism.
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I'm saying in general,
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and I'm talking
about the people who get
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most of the
attention in the news,
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which some people would
say are evangelical Christians.
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It broadens aware
or wanted to end up.
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Yes. Yes.
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And so there are people
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who rightfully
can take that punch
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and they should take it
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because they have turned
a blind eye to the problems
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and they have criminalized
people who are poor,
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criminalized
people who are minorities,
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criminalize people
who have a different,
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and I won't
lifestyle but orientation.
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The word I would
even use synonymously
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or instead of
it is marginalized.
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Marginalized?
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But for me, it
is a very big thing
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just to see people say,
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"Well, you know,
we just heard this."
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You know, they had a
poll that said the other day,
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majority of Americans
think that black people
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just need to try harder,
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and the language
that has been used
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is not only
marginalizing but is demeaning
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and a complete
ignorance of the experience
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that people are going through,
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and the
structures that are in place
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that have denied
people certain opportunities.
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And so when we talk
about the Christian church
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and the moving forward,
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we can't do much
about what's in the past,
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but we can say,
today, it ends here with me,
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and this is what I
would like to see different.
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Well, yes, but today is as it is
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because of the past.
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This is true. On
the simplest level.
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This is true.
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I go to a lot of black churches
and their form of worship,
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generally speaking,
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and I saw some more
one way than another.
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But compared to
the Anglo churches,
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it's a different style,
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and I believe a
lot of its origins
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can be traced back
through the stream of history
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to a nonwestern source.
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This is true.
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Doesn't make it right
or wrong. Right. Right.
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But the difference
is it with the still
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even though the
religion that has been adopted.
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Well, I think we, I mean,
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this is an
interesting conversation
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because you're
talking cultural identifiers,
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and cultural experiences,
and music, and worship styles,
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and while that is meaningful,
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especially within
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some of our
conservative denominations,
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you still have
that music debate,
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and it's going
on even right now.
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What is more meaningful
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and what our
young people need to see
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is to see us take a hard stand
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on things that matter
on a day-to-day basis.
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And the civil rights movement,
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I think, was a massive
step in that direction.
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Yes. But here we
are 50 years out.
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I lived through the
civil rights movement
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and it's not
quite true to think that
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it was universally adopted.
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No. It is not.
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It was a time of
a great conflict.
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It gave rise to Governor Wallace
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and other things,
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as today making
America great again
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is sort of code for
many people are going back
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to an era that suited
them but not everybody.
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Correct. Correct.
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And this is the serious issue
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that most young
people are looking at today,
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and they're wondering why
the elders in their church
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or why the
pastors in their church
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are not saying anything
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about the impact
of climate change.
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Right. All right?
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And so we see
people in Puerto Rico...
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Hold that thought.
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We'll have
another program on that.
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Hold that thought.
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I can relate it
to religious liberty
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and prophecy.
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Right. But, yeah.
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Right.
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Well, and each
one of those things
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I believe does relate
to our religious liberty.
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You may not have the same grasps
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as I have the same grasp
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on prophetic
things in the Bible.
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You may look at it differently.
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I maintain that you
don't have to have that grasp
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but you could
see what's happening
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in this world now,
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and you can see how
things are shaping up,
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and even if without
the benefit of that,
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you know
something is terribly wrong.
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You should be able to see.
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If you have any
spiritual inclination,
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you can see the
fullness of time,
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as the Bible says.
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And even if you don't
have a spiritual inclination,
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I believe we can.
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Well, the Bible says,
men's hearts are failing them
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for fear of what's
coming on the world.
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Yes.
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This is a time of
great dissatisfaction
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and great apprehension.
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But without spiritual,
biblical understanding,
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you don't, you
can't really identify
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what that means,
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but yes, the fullness of time
is before everybody right now.
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And yes, with
prophecy, you look forward.
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But unless you have a sense
of the leading out of Egypt,
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you don't know,
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you can't connect
to that forward view.
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That's my view.
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Well, I don't have a
conflict with that at all.
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I agree. We have to
look at the whole thing.
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I appreciate the opportunity
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to discuss and
discover some of this
00:10:04.30\00:10:07.57
because I do believe it matters,
00:10:07.60\00:10:09.87
and I do believe
it's a continuum,
00:10:09.90\00:10:12.14
and we're going to have to
do what we can do to stand up,
00:10:12.17\00:10:14.98
our people, our
young people want to know
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how we can be more inclusive.
00:10:17.15\00:10:20.42
They want to know how
we can stand up for people
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who are subjected to the losses
like they had in Puerto Rico.
00:10:22.72\00:10:27.79
How come we're not
coming to the benefit
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and the aid of people
who need the assistance?
00:10:30.16\00:10:32.63
How come we are allowing
people to be hungry and homeless
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in a world where we
have so much and so plenty?
00:10:36.56\00:10:40.54
How come we are warmongering
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when we have a better
place to put that money?
00:10:42.97\00:10:45.44
I agree that this is the time
00:10:45.47\00:10:46.81
that we need to
look at the whole thing.
00:10:46.84\00:10:48.18
As the Editor of
Liberty magazine,
00:10:51.88\00:10:53.42
it's very gratifying for me
00:10:53.45\00:10:55.02
to have as my
guest on this program,
00:10:55.05\00:10:58.19
the Editor of Message magazine,
00:10:58.22\00:10:59.79
another
Seventh-day Adventist magazine.
00:10:59.82\00:11:03.36
And it's worth
remembering and me reminding you
00:11:03.39\00:11:06.73
that our movement, a
movement of expectation
00:11:06.76\00:11:10.20
of the soon and
almost immediate return
00:11:10.23\00:11:13.13
of Jesus Christ
was carried forward
00:11:13.17\00:11:15.84
on the efforts of publications
00:11:15.87\00:11:20.48
and the output of editors.
00:11:20.51\00:11:23.31
And today,
editors are important.
00:11:23.35\00:11:27.42
Twitter, and all the rest,
yes, that's the social wave.
00:11:27.45\00:11:31.22
But it's the people
00:11:31.25\00:11:32.59
that are generating the thoughts
00:11:32.62\00:11:33.96
and interpreting them
to the larger audience
00:11:33.99\00:11:36.22
that continue to
make a difference.
00:11:36.26\00:11:38.63
Message, yes,
there's a message to give.
00:11:38.66\00:11:40.96
Liberty, there is
still liberation call for
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as Jesus said in
Nazareth, "Freedom for all."
00:11:44.13\00:11:49.44
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:49.47\00:11:53.58