Welcome to the Liberty Insider. 00:00:26.35\00:00:28.62 This is the program bringing you news, views, 00:00:28.66\00:00:31.19 and information on religious liberty events in the US 00:00:31.23\00:00:34.63 and around the world. 00:00:34.66\00:00:36.00 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:00:36.03\00:00:39.63 And my guest on this program 00:00:39.67\00:00:41.67 is Carmela Monk Crawford. 00:00:41.70\00:00:46.01 I know you mostly as Carmela Monk... 00:00:46.04\00:00:48.04 That's right. 00:00:48.08\00:00:49.41 Because it's been a long, long time 00:00:49.44\00:00:50.78 since I first met you. 00:00:50.81\00:00:52.15 Yes, correct. 00:00:52.18\00:00:53.52 But you were doing much the same thing 00:00:53.55\00:00:54.88 you're doing now. 00:00:54.92\00:00:56.25 You were working on Message Magazine 00:00:56.28\00:00:57.82 and you were the associate way, way back when I first met you. 00:00:57.85\00:01:00.82 Yes. 00:01:00.86\00:01:02.19 And so let's talk a little bit about 00:01:02.22\00:01:04.29 the magazine that you edit, 00:01:04.33\00:01:05.66 and I think we'll bring out a certain connection 00:01:05.69\00:01:08.46 to religious liberty and what Liberty Magazine does, 00:01:08.50\00:01:11.30 the magazine that I edit. 00:01:11.33\00:01:12.67 Oh, yes. 00:01:12.70\00:01:14.04 Tell me about Message Magazine? 00:01:14.07\00:01:16.00 Well, thank you first of all, for inviting me. 00:01:16.04\00:01:18.04 This is an honor to sit here across from you, Lincoln, 00:01:18.07\00:01:21.04 and talk with you. 00:01:21.08\00:01:22.58 You're right, we have known each other for a long time 00:01:22.61\00:01:24.98 and I have always admired the work that you do 00:01:25.01\00:01:27.15 and respect what you do with Liberty Magazine. 00:01:27.18\00:01:29.48 And so it's an honor to be here 00:01:29.52\00:01:31.72 at Liberty Insider with Message Magazine. 00:01:31.75\00:01:34.76 Message Magazine is as you have said, 00:01:34.79\00:01:37.09 I did work with Message many years ago and I left. 00:01:37.13\00:01:40.53 And you're not that old, so let's... 00:01:40.56\00:01:41.90 Yeah, I was very, very young... 00:01:41.93\00:01:45.10 But let's put it into a bigger perspective 00:01:45.13\00:01:46.84 because I talk about Liberty 00:01:46.87\00:01:48.20 and sometime said that it's the oldest magazine. 00:01:48.24\00:01:50.21 Well, I'm not the oldest person. 00:01:50.24\00:01:51.57 Right, right. 00:01:51.61\00:01:52.94 Liberty has been around 110 years plus. 00:01:52.97\00:01:54.64 How many years since Message was begun? 00:01:54.68\00:01:57.18 Well, this sounds almost like carbon dating that we do here, 00:01:57.21\00:02:00.35 but Message Magazine has roots back to the Gospel Herald. 00:02:00.38\00:02:04.65 The Gospel Herald was one of the publications 00:02:04.69\00:02:06.79 that James Edson White 00:02:06.82\00:02:08.56 published from his Morning Star, and... 00:02:08.59\00:02:11.09 Which was a special a little boat that... 00:02:11.13\00:02:13.63 Correct. 00:02:13.66\00:02:15.00 It was a ministry to blacks down in the south. 00:02:15.03\00:02:19.37 That's correct. That's great. 00:02:19.40\00:02:21.10 It was a wonderful part, a wonderful story for us 00:02:21.14\00:02:24.64 'cause James Edson White was a white Christian, 00:02:24.67\00:02:28.41 and generation after emancipation, 00:02:28.44\00:02:32.25 he decided that he needed to do something personally 00:02:32.28\00:02:35.75 for people who were in the south, 00:02:35.78\00:02:37.32 people who were formerly enslaved 00:02:37.35\00:02:38.69 people who were in the south. 00:02:38.72\00:02:40.06 And he decided that he was going to go 00:02:40.09\00:02:42.36 with a ministry that was comprehensive, 00:02:42.39\00:02:44.79 a ministry that would reach people. 00:02:44.83\00:02:47.63 And so he had this boat made and he got on this boat, 00:02:47.66\00:02:51.83 went down the Mississippi, 00:02:51.87\00:02:53.67 and from different town to different town, 00:02:53.70\00:02:56.04 he did everything from preach and teach the gospel 00:02:56.07\00:02:59.57 to vocational training, and helping people just 00:02:59.61\00:03:02.64 elevate in what was a terrible situation in this country. 00:03:02.68\00:03:06.88 And so James Edson White, a Christian man, 00:03:06.92\00:03:08.75 went down there and he had two publications, 00:03:08.78\00:03:11.12 one was the Gospel Herald 00:03:11.15\00:03:13.49 and the other was the Gospel Primer. 00:03:13.52\00:03:15.79 The Gospel Primer would teach people 00:03:15.82\00:03:18.56 how to read using Bible scripture, 00:03:18.59\00:03:20.70 people still do that today. 00:03:20.73\00:03:22.33 And then the other one was the Gospel Herald 00:03:22.36\00:03:25.13 in which it would talk about the work that was being done, 00:03:25.17\00:03:27.84 the advancements that were being done 00:03:27.87\00:03:29.47 in the communities, the needs that were there. 00:03:29.50\00:03:31.97 And so Message has its roots 00:03:32.01\00:03:33.61 all the way back to 1890s, so that's... 00:03:33.64\00:03:36.11 It's interesting you bring out this aspect of, 00:03:36.14\00:03:40.88 basically, reconstruction, the reconstruction period 00:03:40.92\00:03:43.59 because it seems to me, from my study of US history, 00:03:43.62\00:03:46.19 that's when the real deficiency, 00:03:46.22\00:03:49.72 the whole period of slavery became evident 00:03:49.76\00:03:53.03 because before then, 00:03:53.06\00:03:55.03 there was no particular guarantee. 00:03:55.06\00:03:56.53 In fact, the default setting was that 00:03:56.56\00:03:57.90 they were not educated, they were not given education 00:03:57.93\00:04:01.14 or the benefits of general knowledge. 00:04:01.17\00:04:04.47 So there was a crying need to educate 00:04:04.51\00:04:06.64 a whole class of people, 00:04:06.68\00:04:08.28 and I thought about it recently. 00:04:08.31\00:04:09.71 You know, in Myanmar, currently, 00:04:09.74\00:04:12.51 what amounts to a civil war of sorts with the Rohingya, 00:04:12.55\00:04:16.35 the people that came from nearby Bangladesh, 00:04:16.38\00:04:19.42 but they're slightly different ethnically 00:04:19.45\00:04:21.12 and not even granted citizen, they're persecuted, 00:04:21.16\00:04:25.53 at the moment, being killed gratuitously. 00:04:25.56\00:04:27.63 But one of the worst things visited upon them is 00:04:27.66\00:04:30.37 they're not given the right to education 00:04:30.40\00:04:33.87 or all the other benefits of being a citizen. 00:04:33.90\00:04:36.57 So after a while, apart from how they're treated, 00:04:36.60\00:04:40.21 they really miss out on everything 00:04:40.24\00:04:42.04 that the country has to offer 00:04:42.08\00:04:43.41 because of that lack of education. 00:04:43.45\00:04:45.21 So this was a very practical ministry 00:04:45.25\00:04:47.78 that Edson was involved with. 00:04:47.82\00:04:49.18 It wasn't just preaching the gospel 00:04:49.22\00:04:51.29 which, of course, will save their souls, 00:04:51.32\00:04:53.15 but it was practical help. 00:04:53.19\00:04:54.52 Right. 00:04:54.56\00:04:55.89 So when did this early magazine that morph into title, Message? 00:04:55.92\00:04:59.59 Well, that was 1798 thereabouts, 00:04:59.63\00:05:02.36 and the Gospel Herald was printed for some years 00:05:02.40\00:05:06.10 and then it was renamed after a hiatus 00:05:06.13\00:05:09.90 in 1934, The Message Magazine. 00:05:09.94\00:05:12.74 I knew they had been because same with Liberty. 00:05:12.77\00:05:15.11 Liberty began as the Sentinel and the Sentinel of Liberty, 00:05:15.14\00:05:19.31 and there was a little break 00:05:19.35\00:05:20.75 from the late 1880s till 1906 when Liberty began... 00:05:20.78\00:05:25.35 Right. 00:05:25.39\00:05:26.72 And for some of the same reasons. 00:05:26.76\00:05:28.09 Yes. 00:05:28.12\00:05:29.46 Our church really went through an interesting period. 00:05:29.49\00:05:31.76 Well, the church in the country... 00:05:31.79\00:05:33.13 The church mirrored what was happening 00:05:33.16\00:05:34.63 in the country, some of the inner struggles 00:05:34.66\00:05:37.50 and priority setting. 00:05:37.53\00:05:39.20 And I believe that was the case with the early Message Magazine 00:05:39.23\00:05:43.04 under the title the Gospel Herald. 00:05:43.07\00:05:45.94 You had a lot of need there. 00:05:45.97\00:05:49.24 W. E. B. Du Bois talks about the Negro problem that was, 00:05:49.28\00:05:54.08 he said, what are we doing. 00:05:54.12\00:05:55.75 And so when you make the analogy 00:05:55.78\00:05:57.12 and you talk about the Rohingya, 00:05:57.15\00:05:59.99 you're looking at a group of people 00:06:00.02\00:06:02.39 without anything, nothing, and just nowhere to go. 00:06:02.42\00:06:07.83 And so there needed to be some work done, 00:06:07.86\00:06:10.83 and so people had to come to grips with where we are now 00:06:10.87\00:06:14.64 and what's going to happen. 00:06:14.67\00:06:17.31 Certainly, the responsibility for a whole group of people 00:06:17.34\00:06:21.08 needs to be attended to, needs to be... 00:06:21.11\00:06:24.85 People need to be educated and nurtured 00:06:24.88\00:06:26.75 and given the resources that they need to make living. 00:06:26.78\00:06:29.38 And it seems to me, you know, I have read Liberty... 00:06:29.42\00:06:31.75 Message. 00:06:31.79\00:06:34.16 Forgive me for jumbling magazines. 00:06:34.19\00:06:37.79 I remember a friend of mine years ago 00:06:37.83\00:06:40.80 actually saying at our wedding, 00:06:40.83\00:06:42.16 he was a black Cuban tenor and he studied in... 00:06:42.20\00:06:47.47 Of course, he grew up in Cuba where there was Spanish 00:06:47.50\00:06:50.71 but he studied in Germany, 00:06:50.74\00:06:52.34 New German and he meet in France, 00:06:52.37\00:06:54.81 and new English of course. 00:06:54.84\00:06:56.18 And I remember once 00:06:56.21\00:06:57.55 when he was introducing his songs, 00:06:57.58\00:06:58.91 he was slipping from one language to other, 00:06:58.95\00:07:01.22 and he says, "Forgive me, I have a soup of languages." 00:07:01.25\00:07:04.09 And I have a soup of magazines. 00:07:04.12\00:07:05.45 Magazines. 00:07:05.49\00:07:06.82 But with Message, I've read it for a long time 00:07:06.86\00:07:11.86 and it seems to me, consistently and all the time, 00:07:11.89\00:07:15.43 I've seen it, 00:07:15.46\00:07:16.80 it's still with a lot of social issues, 00:07:16.83\00:07:21.20 and I always saw the logic of that 00:07:21.24\00:07:23.97 because as I said, reconstruction, 00:07:24.01\00:07:26.51 it wasn't just uneducated or lack of education, 00:07:26.54\00:07:30.51 it was people that were being abused 00:07:30.55\00:07:32.25 in very practical ways. 00:07:32.28\00:07:33.62 They were being disenfranchised of their vote, 00:07:33.65\00:07:36.08 they were being disenfranchised from their land. 00:07:36.12\00:07:42.22 Nothing could be worse than the period of slavery, 00:07:42.26\00:07:44.33 but in some ways, it was even more maligned, 00:07:44.36\00:07:48.90 it seems to me. 00:07:48.93\00:07:50.27 Yes. 00:07:50.30\00:07:51.63 The war had been won ostensibly toward the end 00:07:51.67\00:07:54.90 to free a whole group of people, 00:07:54.94\00:07:56.27 but yet, in the south, every effort, 00:07:56.30\00:07:59.21 even of the legislatures in the society 00:07:59.24\00:08:01.08 was bent toward disappearing, 00:08:01.11\00:08:03.78 and in essence, putting them back to tenant farmers 00:08:03.81\00:08:07.75 and bonded servants and so on, which is the same thing. 00:08:07.78\00:08:10.62 Yes. 00:08:10.65\00:08:11.99 So in my view, it was a reversion to slavery. 00:08:12.02\00:08:13.36 Yes. 00:08:13.39\00:08:14.72 And you have this expansion of rights 00:08:14.76\00:08:16.83 and a contraction of rights. 00:08:16.86\00:08:18.19 Expansion of rights, the contraction of rights, 00:08:18.23\00:08:20.73 expansion of representation 00:08:20.76\00:08:22.93 and a contraction of representation, 00:08:22.96\00:08:25.37 expansion of opportunities 00:08:25.40\00:08:27.04 and contraction of opportunities, 00:08:27.07\00:08:28.87 and that pattern... 00:08:28.90\00:08:30.91 I'm smiling not out of because it's a good story 00:08:30.94\00:08:34.78 but it echoes so much of what's happening today. 00:08:34.81\00:08:36.85 Absolutely. 00:08:36.88\00:08:38.21 And we will talk about that. Yes. 00:08:38.25\00:08:39.58 If not here, then in another program. 00:08:39.61\00:08:41.28 Absolutely. We've got to. 00:08:41.32\00:08:42.65 That warrants a long discussion. 00:08:42.68\00:08:44.25 Yes. 00:08:44.29\00:08:45.62 So Message was very narrowly 00:08:45.65\00:08:51.19 focused on a needy group then, 00:08:51.23\00:08:53.90 but you wouldn't say now Message is only 00:08:53.93\00:08:56.63 for one minority group, would you? 00:08:56.67\00:08:59.17 We have never said that, and I have to... 00:08:59.20\00:09:01.40 And that's probably one of my... 00:09:01.44\00:09:04.57 One point of defense 00:09:04.61\00:09:06.54 that I always find myself having to say, 00:09:06.57\00:09:09.38 Message was never solely created by people 00:09:09.41\00:09:14.58 who were not African-American and... 00:09:14.62\00:09:16.58 Oh, were African-American, 00:09:16.62\00:09:18.72 never was it intended to solely be 00:09:18.75\00:09:21.39 for an African-American audience. 00:09:21.42\00:09:24.59 I think it is a sad commentary when the advocacy 00:09:24.63\00:09:29.46 and the people who are responsible 00:09:29.50\00:09:31.63 for articulating certain things is a very narrow group 00:09:31.67\00:09:35.50 when there is a wide range of issues 00:09:35.54\00:09:38.07 that need to be addressed by all of us. 00:09:38.11\00:09:39.87 Well, I had discussions with some of your predecessors. 00:09:39.91\00:09:41.91 Yes. So I know their tendencies. 00:09:41.94\00:09:43.28 You know. Yes. 00:09:43.31\00:09:44.65 But no, I wanted you to say that because I think, 00:09:44.68\00:09:47.68 Message can fill a very needed role 00:09:47.72\00:09:51.45 in looking at the list in mainstream concern, 00:09:51.49\00:09:55.32 but it's a whole range of ethnic groups, 00:09:55.36\00:09:58.99 a whole range of, you know, subdivisions of society, 00:09:59.03\00:10:03.87 not necessarily ethnical, even religious connotation. 00:10:03.90\00:10:06.80 Correct. Correct. 00:10:06.84\00:10:08.17 And the human dynamic is what I guess 00:10:08.20\00:10:10.91 we're trying to talk about and trying to focus on, 00:10:10.94\00:10:13.88 the human dynamic, what is happening in your home, 00:10:13.91\00:10:16.58 what is happening with your health, 00:10:16.61\00:10:18.81 what is happening with your family, 00:10:18.85\00:10:20.55 these are all things that we all care about 00:10:20.58\00:10:23.05 across the board, no matter who you are. 00:10:23.08\00:10:24.42 And maybe with the demise of 00:10:24.45\00:10:28.42 some of our women's emphasis magazines, 00:10:28.46\00:10:32.86 you could even focus on that more than some of the... 00:10:32.89\00:10:35.66 Yes. Sadly. 00:10:35.70\00:10:37.03 Sadly so. The other magazines. 00:10:37.07\00:10:38.40 Sadly so. 00:10:38.43\00:10:39.77 No, but really, it's all part of a push 00:10:39.80\00:10:41.14 toward the general civil liberties in this country. 00:10:41.17\00:10:43.91 I mean, the women's battle for even the vote in the US 00:10:43.94\00:10:48.08 is a major one that people have forgotten. 00:10:48.11\00:10:49.81 Right, right. 00:10:49.84\00:10:51.18 And, of course, when I was young, 00:10:51.21\00:10:53.35 the Equal Rights Amendment and so on. 00:10:53.38\00:10:55.18 I can remember the... 00:10:58.52\00:10:59.85 In fact, the other day, I saw a video of the women 00:10:59.89\00:11:01.62 burning their bras at the time, it was all crazy, 00:11:01.66\00:11:04.39 but it was a symbol of trying to break free 00:11:04.43\00:11:08.60 of a very real oppression, it wasn't just, 00:11:08.63\00:11:12.13 you know, a moral liberalism that came out, 00:11:12.17\00:11:15.40 there was repression that laid behind this. 00:11:15.44\00:11:17.61 Right. Right. 00:11:17.64\00:11:18.97 And even our own churches, 00:11:19.01\00:11:20.34 you know, had a huge court case... 00:11:20.38\00:11:22.08 Yes. 00:11:22.11\00:11:23.45 The Mary Kay, wasn't it? 00:11:23.48\00:11:25.28 Yes. 00:11:25.31\00:11:26.65 Mary Kay's case went to court because she was not... 00:11:26.68\00:11:30.09 Wasn't just so much she wasn't being paid as much, 00:11:30.12\00:11:32.49 there was a whole status question, 00:11:32.52\00:11:36.62 in this case, the church was languishing 00:11:36.66\00:11:38.46 a little behind where the law was. 00:11:38.49\00:11:40.10 Right. Right. 00:11:40.13\00:11:41.46 And I don't think we should be there. 00:11:41.50\00:11:42.83 No. 00:11:42.86\00:11:44.20 I think we should be out front 00:11:44.23\00:11:46.13 when it comes to both recognizing 00:11:46.17\00:11:48.94 and sniffing out any quality recognizing 00:11:48.97\00:11:53.48 what's being done for people who you may not readily notice 00:11:53.51\00:11:57.68 or may not be in your circle. 00:11:57.71\00:11:59.55 I believe we should be the leaders... 00:11:59.58\00:12:01.02 Well, what did Paul say, says that in Christ 00:12:01.05\00:12:02.98 there is now neither Jew nor gentile, 00:12:03.02\00:12:05.72 slave nor free, male and female, and so on. 00:12:05.75\00:12:07.86 Yeah. 00:12:07.89\00:12:09.22 I mean, this is a biblical injunction. 00:12:09.26\00:12:10.79 Absolutely. 00:12:10.83\00:12:12.16 Let's take a quick break. 00:12:12.19\00:12:13.53 We'll be back shortly. 00:12:13.56\00:12:14.90 So stay with us and we'll continue 00:12:14.93\00:12:16.26 this discussion with Carmela Monk Crawford, 00:12:16.30\00:12:19.53 editor of Message Magazine. 00:12:19.57\00:12:21.30