Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI180411A
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00:28 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:30 This is your program bringing you news, 00:33 views, information, 00:35 and a lot of analysis on religious liberty events 00:38 in the US and around the world. 00:40 My name is Lincoln Steed, 00:42 and I'm Editor of Liberty magazine, 00:43 and my guest on this program is lawyer and my friend, 00:47 I know sometimes 00:48 those might be in conflict, Alan Reinach. 00:51 I'm not your lawyer, but I am you know friend. 00:53 No, you're a good, good guy, and you're executive director 00:56 of the California-based Church State Council. 01:01 Let's talk about something really exciting 01:04 and something that will get everybody hot 01:06 and bothered at least in the United States. 01:08 There's a lot of talk lately 01:09 about making America great again. 01:11 Indeed. 01:12 I love history, and you know, I could go back in history, 01:15 and America's been "great" sometimes, 01:17 sometimes you can put the quotation marks underneath, 01:20 some as lowercase G, sometimes capital. 01:23 It's been a mixed bag, 01:24 but, you know, what is this greatness 01:27 that the people are hungering for 01:29 because there's no question, 01:31 this is tapped into something deep 01:33 in the United States culture I think. 01:36 Well, it certainly has, Lincoln. 01:38 But think 01:40 that it is very indistinct, very, undefined, 01:44 and the reason I wanted to have this conversation with you 01:47 is because I think we really need 01:49 to take a hard look 01:50 at what American values really are. 01:55 I think first and foremost of the Bill of Rights 01:58 of representative government rights 02:02 that are God-given rights 02:03 and alienable rights that belong to individuals 02:07 and the government is in place to protect those rights, 02:12 that's, you know, part of the... 02:15 Do you think most people in the United States 02:17 even know what those rights are? 02:19 Well, you know, the ACLU, favorite punching bag 02:23 of the Christian right, they took the Bill of Rights... 02:27 And of the right generally. 02:28 They took the Bill of Rights door-to-door 02:31 some years back to see, you know, do a survey 02:34 and see what people thought. 02:35 And I tell you, the results were, 02:38 they wouldn't get voted today. 02:40 I know. No. 02:41 And people were not familiar with them. 02:44 And most of the surveys I've seen that 02:46 in between presidential elections, 02:49 only a very small percentage of people 02:51 can even name the sitting president. 02:52 I think for a number of reasons that's not true. 02:54 I've gone to high school classes, 02:56 and I'll ask them, 02:58 "How many members of the Simpsons family 03:00 can you name?" 03:01 And then I'll ask them, 03:03 "How many of the First Amendment rights 03:05 can you name?" 03:06 Well, let me quote a Bible text. 03:08 They know all about Simpsons and they do... 03:09 Free speech to the US and it's self understanding 03:12 of its founding principles. 03:14 This is my people, perish for lack of knowledge. 03:17 And if the US is to go down, 03:20 and you've got to face historical facts, one day, 03:24 this great country is an imperial power, 03:27 will go down, 03:28 that's just the nature of the stream of history. 03:31 But we don't want that day to be tomorrow, 03:33 or certainly not today. 03:34 But I think little self-knowledge 03:37 is an order, and it's very troubling to me 03:39 having lived most of my life in the US, 03:42 how little Americans know about their own system. 03:45 So it's not just having these rights, 03:47 but it's how we as a nation project 03:50 the value of these rights of these freedoms 03:53 around the world. 03:55 Little more than a decade ago, 03:57 Senator John McCain spoke for a dinner, 04:00 a religious liberty dinner on Capitol Hill, 04:02 that Liberty magazine was one of the sponsors of. 04:06 And, you know, as we're sitting here, 04:08 of course, our nation is mourning 04:10 his recent passing. 04:12 Senator McCain was very direct 04:15 and very eloquent in insisting that, 04:19 you know, America's greatness is tied 04:21 to our projecting, 04:23 these values of freedom and democracy 04:25 around the world, 04:27 and not just pursuing naked self-interest 04:30 and national security. 04:32 Absolutely. I agreed with that speech. 04:34 It was arguably the best speech 04:37 we ever had at the Liberty dinner, 04:39 and very substantial. 04:41 I mean, it wasn't just kind words 04:43 and we appreciate them on that occasion. 04:46 But it was well thought out, it was logical, 04:48 and it was full of projecting a morality 04:53 abroad rather than power. 04:55 It wasn't a power speech, was it? 04:57 And I'll just put in a plug for our listeners 05:00 to go look it up on my website at ChurchState.org, 05:04 if you search for McCain, 05:06 you'll find the entire text of the speech 05:08 at our Churchstate website. 05:10 We were talking about this program, 05:11 you wanted to read it aloud. 05:13 I didn't oppose you on it. It was very inspiring. 05:15 But, you know, look, I want to put this 05:18 in a biblical context. 05:19 You know, you and I are Seventh-day Adventists, 05:21 and we believe that the Revelation 13, 05:25 mark of the beast passage, that the nation portrayed there 05:29 that will eventually deliver the mark of the beast 05:32 is the United States, 05:33 and we don't have time to explain 05:35 why we believe that, but it's described 05:38 with two very unique characteristics. 05:40 First, having lamb-like horns, but also speaking as a dragon. 05:46 Now the lamb of course is a symbol of Christ himself. 05:48 When I grew up... 05:50 The dragon is symbol of the devil. 05:51 Whenever I saw that illustrated, 05:53 it was always a bison 05:55 which is not like a lamb-like, but he's sort 05:57 of a very nice-looking creature. 05:59 But as a few unfortunate tourists 06:02 at Yellowstone had found out that there was, 06:03 I think, they were Japanese tourists, 06:05 they posed in front of a bison for a selfie, and he got them. 06:09 They're not as benign as they appear. 06:11 Well, you know, I've often said in explaining that passage, 06:16 ladies, it's not true that all men are beasts, 06:18 but it is true 06:20 that all nations are beasts, you know? 06:21 Well, yes, that's the way they acted 06:24 or often portrayed in the Bible. 06:26 So I... 06:27 Look, I think. 06:29 These leopards, and bears, and... 06:30 Right. 06:31 The biblical imagery I think is fair. 06:33 United States is not all great, and we're not all terrible. 06:37 We have aspirations that are Christ-like, 06:40 that are lamb-like, that have to do 06:42 with how we relate to power. 06:43 Horns are a symbol of power. 06:45 Two horns are a symbol of a separating 06:49 or division of power. 06:50 And we have, for example... 06:54 There's a lot of criticism about the fact, 06:57 "Oh, well the separate church and state." 06:59 It's not written in our Constitution. 07:01 Well, neither is the phrase, "Separation of powers." 07:04 But this is what our Constitution does, 07:07 not what it says. 07:08 It divides power 07:10 among the branches of government. 07:12 We also divide power among federal state 07:15 and local government. 07:17 We also recognize the institutional separation 07:20 between the institution of religion of the church, 07:23 and its schools, and etcetera, its churches, and governments. 07:28 So we have these principles that by separating power, 07:33 we protect against tyranny, 07:35 we protect against the accumulation 07:38 and abuse of power. 07:39 Let's talk about something, often, it comes up here, 07:41 but, you know, the Constitution, 07:44 I think, protects religion, 07:46 and the United States' history, I studied history... 07:50 It does protect religion. Sorry, what did I say? 07:54 You said you think it does. It does protect religion. 07:56 Well, no. 07:58 But I mean, I just, yeah, I agree with that. 07:59 Right. 08:01 But, you know, the United States' history 08:02 like the history of all people's gets mixed 08:04 with myths and facts 08:06 and fiction, sort of intertwined. 08:08 And you can easily make 08:10 a good track of religious dissidents 08:12 coming to these shores 08:13 and being sheltered, that's true. 08:14 But of course, 08:16 it had a very extremely secular history 08:17 at the same time. 08:20 And so I don't question the role of religion. 08:22 In fact, I believe the founders made an automatic assumption 08:27 that the society that operated under the Constitution 08:32 would probably always be Protestant Christian. 08:37 I don't think they could have ever envisaged 08:40 that it was anything other. 08:41 And a lot of the functioning the government 08:44 is predicated on that norm which is gone. 08:47 It's not even... 08:49 It's a grossly secular mindset, 08:52 and it shifted now not just to Roman Catholicism, 08:56 which is inordinately represented 08:57 in the government, but, you know, 09:00 when we have 30-40 Muslims, and so on. 09:02 So it's a whole different game. 09:04 Well, we're living on borrowed cultural capital 09:06 in that sense 09:07 because our concept of rights is a very Protestant concept. 09:12 Yeah, you're getting to what I'm building to. 09:13 But we've lost the philosophical 09:16 or the religious foundation for our rights. 09:19 In many ways, I see that constitutional 09:21 is almost code to link with this cultural 09:25 understanding that they brought 09:26 as a Protestant and Anglo Protestant community. 09:31 But that said, 09:33 on the separation of church and state, 09:34 it's very simple, isn't it? 09:35 Just half of one Amendment. 09:37 Congress shall make no law establishing religion. 09:40 Respecting the establishment of religion. 09:42 Establishment of religion. 09:45 Or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. 09:47 What's that? 09:48 I mean, I read all sorts of articles 09:50 about separation or otherwise or whatever. 09:53 But how could you read those words 09:54 anything other than the government 09:56 is out of the game? 09:57 Well, this is... 09:59 It's not meant to be... 10:00 The basic principle. 10:01 Legislating period on religious. 10:03 It's just off limits. Right. 10:04 Religion is not the object of civil government, 10:06 that's what Madison said, you know? 10:10 So what makes America great truly 10:13 is this foundation of how we deal with power in order 10:17 to protect civil and religious freedom, 10:20 that and then how we use those principles 10:23 in how we project our influence globally. 10:28 If our global influence is simply 10:30 for our own economic self-interest, 10:33 for our own power base, 10:35 that's not what America has been historically... 10:38 That has been the premise of every world empire 10:41 that has risen or fallen 10:42 and has succumbed to the temptations 10:44 of the devil. 10:46 You know, the devil offered Christ 10:48 the whole world 10:50 if he would bow down and worship. 10:51 And when we seek for power, for our own sake, 10:55 we are bowing down before the devil. 10:57 Yeah. 10:58 And I... 11:00 You didn't read McCain's speech, 11:02 but in our meeting, the other day, 11:03 that you and I attended, 11:05 I read a bit of my own editorial 11:06 which is rather hubristic. 11:11 But, you know, I tried to make the case, 11:13 the point of the highest recent greatness, 11:18 sounds bad, of the US. 11:20 To me, that was the period 11:21 when we were actively trying to project a Christian norm 11:25 as against a secular communism. 11:28 And that was the era where we had the Peace Corps 11:31 and disinterested giving 11:34 because the US population have shown great generosity, 11:37 and I think it derived not from who we are as Americans, 11:41 I think it derived from this Christian 11:43 Protestant sensibility, which is disappearing. 11:48 The US doesn't give much to other countries now. 11:50 It's not just this president administration 11:52 closing the gates. 11:54 It stopped once the Soviet Union collapsed. 11:56 We no longer... 11:57 we're operating on a consciously Christian 12:00 basis of helping others because we want to help. 12:04 We turn people away at the borders 12:06 much more than we used to because now it's not... 12:09 The actions are not, 12:10 the back drop is not Christian charity, 12:13 its national self-interest. 12:15 And I think the disappearance of a Christian Protestant value 12:19 is the biggest change. 12:21 Figures that might be saying one thing or the other, 12:23 at the moment, you know, I find objectionable. 12:25 But that's, they're sort of moving into the situation. 12:28 You know, and I'll invoke the Hitler thing again. 12:31 You know, Hitler was one of the blots on history. 12:34 But I'm certain 12:35 that if Adolf Hitler hadn't appeared 12:37 at that time, somebody else with similar views would have. 12:40 Germany was ripe for it. 12:42 And at the moment, we are losing our values, 12:45 and this sort of catch cry or some equivalent of... 12:49 It would have come up anyway. 12:50 Well, I don't think we can talk about what makes America great, 12:53 the lamb-like horns, without also talking 12:56 about the dragon's influence and the speaking as a dragon 12:59 in the context of the prophecy. 13:01 And who is the dragon? 13:02 Well, the dragon in Scripture is the devil. 13:04 But, you know, 13:06 that if you look back at American history, 13:08 I mean, from the get-go, 13:10 it seems to me that the major theme 13:12 in dragon-like conduct has been our treatment 13:16 of Native Americans, of blacks, of immigrants. 13:20 You know, I'll be speaking in a Hispanic Church, 13:23 and I'll say to them, 13:24 "You know, you guys think you're special. 13:26 You think that America 13:27 is treating you really badly, right?" 13:29 And of course we are. 13:31 And I'll say, "But I got news for you. 13:33 We've treated every generation of immigrants 13:36 just as badly as you guys." 13:38 And part of that of course is debased human nature 13:41 and all of the imperial powers 13:43 as they projected, Spain, England, 13:45 Portugal, and Germany, they did the same things. 13:48 The Europeans, I think, 13:50 were culturally vicious. 13:56 So we don't have much to be proud of on that. 13:59 But I think I can make a good case 14:01 that the US in the... 14:03 or the expansion of the US, 14:05 and then under its national sovereignty, 14:07 it was moderated a bit 14:09 because of this Protestant Christian sensibility. 14:12 Of course. 14:15 I can see we're right at the break point, 14:18 at a natural pause, but please come back with us 14:21 as we discuss greatness and its necessity 14:24 and how you and I can be involved in it. |
Revised 2018-11-26