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 end up with food.
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Yes. Yes.
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But what I'm trying to do
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is deconstruct
some American history,
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obviously from the
point of 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
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have been 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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that at least till
the modern secularism
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hit full force in the
US, most of that population,
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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 are dedicated all,
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you know, knowing and
confirm but their identity is.
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But they didn't come from
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West Africa 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, so.
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Absolutely.
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And now I see
what you're saving.
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Yes, I agree,
and I agree with you.
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And this is something
that we're seeing even now,
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more and more and
you know, it is...
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The younger generation
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is perhaps more
unwilling to tolerate.
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Yes. Well, I'll
tell you a story.
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Oh. 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,
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a few couple decades ago now,
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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 pulpit.
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So as I walked around it,
the blind corners all the way.
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And as I came,
suddenly upon a group of about
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15 young black
pastors and they were
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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 the air
cut, they stopped talking.
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So I said, "What
are you talking about?"
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First, they wouldn't face up.
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Then I found that
they had had a big debate,
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there 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 fully
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from their heart now,
but it troubles some of them,
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the baggage of how that religion
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was forced on them.
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I think you make a
good point, 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 when to come,
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and to know what goes
into our decision making
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and our policy
making and the reason
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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 logic.
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Well, no, that's
true, that's true.
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And it's 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 to others, 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 to both racism,
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I'm saying in general,
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and I'm talking about the people
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who get most of the
attention in the news
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which some people would
say are evangelical Christians.
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You brought it to
where I wanted to end up.
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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
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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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criminalized people
who have a different,
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and I won't say
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, well...
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And we just
heard this, you know,
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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 differently.
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Well, yes, but today
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is as it is 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 out to a
lot of black churches
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and their form of
worship, 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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It doesn't make
it right or wrong.
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Right. Right.
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But the
difference is with us still,
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even though the
religion that has been adopted.
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Well, I think, you know,
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I mean 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 some of
our conservative denominations,
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you still have
that music debate,
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and it is 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.
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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
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that it was universally adopted.
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No, it is not.
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It was a time of great conflict.
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It gave rise to Governor
Wallace 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 that most young people
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are looking at
today, and they're wondering
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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 and prophecy.
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Right. Right. But, yeah.
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Well, and each
one of these things
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I believe does relate
to our religious liberty.
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You may not have the same grasp
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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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If you have any
spiritual inclination,
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you can see the fullness
of time as the Bible says.
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And even if you don't
have a spiritual inclination,
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I believe, you can.
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Well, the Bible says,
"Men's hearts 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 can't really
identify 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 it
to that forward view.
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That's my view.
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No, I don't have a
conflict with that at all.
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I agree.
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We have to look
at the whole thing.
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I appreciate the opportunity
to discuss and discover
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some of this because
I do believe it matters,
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and I do believe
it's a continuum,
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and we're going to have to
do what we can do to stand up,
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our people, our
young people want to know
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how we can be more inclusive.
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They want to know
how we can stand up
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for people who are
subject to the losses
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like they had in Puerto Rico.
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How come we're not
coming to the benefit
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and the aid of people
who need the assistance?
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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?
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How come we are war mongering
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when we have a better
place to put that money?
00:10:42.94\00:10:45.41
I agree that this is the time
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that we need to
look at the whole thing.
00:10:46.84\00:10:48.28
As Editor of Liberty Magazine,
it's very gratifying for me
00:10:51.75\00:10:54.95
to have as my
guest on this program,
00:10:54.98\00:10:58.05
the Editor of Message Magazine,
00:10:58.09\00:10:59.72
another
Seventh-day Adventist magazine.
00:10:59.75\00:11:03.32
And it's worth remembering
00:11:03.36\00:11:04.69
and me reminding
you that our movement,
00:11:04.73\00:11:08.53
a movement of
expectation of the soon
00:11:08.56\00:11:11.10
and almost immediate
return of Jesus Christ
00:11:11.13\00:11:14.34
was carried
forward on the efforts
00:11:14.37\00:11:19.37
of publications and
the output of editors.
00:11:19.41\00:11:23.14
And today,
editors are important.
00:11:23.18\00:11:27.38
Twitter, and all the rest,
yes, that's the social wave.
00:11:27.42\00:11:31.19
But it's the people
00:11:31.22\00:11:32.55
that are generating the thoughts
00:11:32.59\00:11:34.02
and interpreting them
to the larger audience
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that continue to
make a difference.
00:11:36.26\00:11:38.59
Message, yes,
there's a message to give.
00:11:38.63\00:11:40.96
Liberty, there is still
liberation call for as Jesus
00:11:41.00\00:11:44.93
said in Nazareth,
"Freedom for all."
00:11:44.97\00:11:49.27
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:49.30\00:11:53.64