Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is your program,
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bringing you everything
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that matters on
religious liberty.
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Everything. Everything.
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I guess he's
already into the game here.
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But we're bringing you
news, you need that information,
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you need that and perhaps
an interpretation and analysis.
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And my name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty magazine.
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And my guest on the
program, Attorney Alan Reinach.
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A man that speaks up
without any inhibition.
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Not a big wall fire, no.
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Not a bit of it.
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From the Church State
Council in California,
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Executive Director.
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So we'll talk about something
that I could be tempted to do
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when someone
speaks up like othering,
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addresses of othering.
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Take the word other
and make it into a verb.
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Now you're preaching
on this at the moment.
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You told me preparing a sermon.
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Liberty magazines
had an article on this.
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It isn't just a whimsical topic
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that we want to share right now.
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I think this is a very real
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dynamic that's
happened in the past before,
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but we're definitely
living through a process
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where other human beings,
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either from another
race, another ethnicity,
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or nationality, or
of another religion,
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just of another group of humans
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or other made into
ultimately non humans.
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And then very bad
things often happen
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when that
dynamic kicks in, right?
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You know, Lincoln, what
I want to do is contrast
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two passages of scripture,
Revelation 13 and Matthew 25.
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Revelation 13, we have
persecution against those
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who do not accept
the mark of the beast.
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And I don't know...
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Which is pretty severe
because you can't buy or sell
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unless you go along with this.
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You can't buy or sell.
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And ultimately
it's a capital offense
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not to participate
in the majority form
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of worship.
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I mean, people get
hung up on whether,
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you know, it's in the fold,
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I mean where it's
branded on you or whatever.
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But it's clearly a
distinguishing characteristic
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that you buy into.
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But what we miss, if we read
this to, you know, shallowly,
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what we miss is persecution
is the end of a long sequence
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where first you have
to identify the other,
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the other becomes the scapegoat.
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Well, can I quote Ellen White,
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an early writer of our church
and I can't memorize it...
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I haven't memorized it exactly.
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But she says, talking
about persecution, she says,
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other than, you know,
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people give in other than
expose themselves to derision,
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insult, threaten persecution.
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And this is a progression
and it usually starts with,
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you know, you're not
part of the in crowd.
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And then very cutting insults,
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then maybe legal action
and all, but it's a process.
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Othering is not just
instantly you're someone else.
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It's a dynamic, so it
has to be worked through.
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In American life, we
other in many different ways.
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You know, I grew
up in New York City.
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I was a big fan
of the New York Mets.
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We had a big rivalry.
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I was a Knicks fan,
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rivalry between the
Knicks and the Lakers,
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and the Knicks and the Celtics.
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You know, we other
based on our allegiance
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to our sports teams.
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Now this may seem trivial,
but of course we also other,
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we identify ourselves.
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Oh, I'm a southerner.
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I'm a Yankee.
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I'm a Texan.
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You know, geographically
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and by ethnicity and, of course,
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by nationality, I'm an American.
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So we tend to define
our own identity in a way
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that excludes others.
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Well, I mean,
as we get into this
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and I agree with you.
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We need to say this,
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if not a good then a
natural element to it.
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I think in modern society
what we're really searching
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for is a sort of
a tribal identity
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which like the tribal
identification provided,
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we get it through other means.
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You could be all
united by your club identity
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in football so.
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The mark of the beast
is the extreme example
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of what happens
when we scapegoat
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a group of
people, they're the other,
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they're the problem,
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they're the ones who are causing
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all the trouble in the world,
and they have to be eliminated.
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Extreme form of othering.
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Now let's contrast
that with Matthew 25.
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Matthew 25, Jesus says,
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"And as much as you've
done it to the least of these,
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you've done it to Me."
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Now in the parable,
the sheep and the goats,
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they didn't realize that
they were doing it to Jesus.
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But, of course, Jesus
has pulled the curtain aside.
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So now we have no excuse.
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We've read the parable.
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We know that how
we treat the other,
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the least of these is the other.
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It's the people
that are not one of us.
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Whoever that is, if you
see somebody is beneath you,
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they are the other,
and how we treat the other.
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Brings them into the world.
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Where is how
we're treating Jesus.
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Yeah, but by
treating them that way,
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it shows that they are
included in God's care.
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They're not on the
outside, they're actually in.
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Of course. We brought them in.
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Well, and if you, you
know, understand what this,
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Jesus taught this parable,
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this is the
standard in the judgment.
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Okay.
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Now Christians, you know,
we kind of blindly think, "Oh,
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well, if I've
accepted Jesus into my heart,
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you know, and I
confess my allegiance
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and my love for
Jesus, then I'm saved."
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And that's the end of it.
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I'm saved, I'm a
Christian, right?
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Well, Jesus tells us parable,
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the standard in the judgment
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is not whether you
accepted Jesus in your heart,
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and I believe in all of that.
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Well, it's a prerequisite.
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But it's how you
treat the least of these.
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Do you treat people
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with the kind of
respect and courtesy,
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kindness and compassion
as if they were Jesus.
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It's a judgment parable.
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That's what it is.
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And it's the
opposite of othering,
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because we look,
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we all have
various kinds of biases.
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It comes with our cultural
baggage, with our heritage.
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It is unavoidable.
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It's not a sin
to have the biases.
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The question is, are we going
to become conscious of them
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and are we going
to consciously seek
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to overcome them.
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Our natural tendency...
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Yes, I'm glad you said
that because I think we need
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to overcome or transcend
them, maybe is a better word.
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Because you know Paul says
that there is in Christ now,
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neither Jew nor Gentile,
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male nor female, slave nor free.
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We're all in the
common brotherhood of man,
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and we need to
hang on to that thought.
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We also need to reject
the politics of othering
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because politics is
all about creating enemies,
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creating danger, selling fear.
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You know, the
liberals are going to get us,
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the conservatives
are going to get us,
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those wacko fundamentalists
are going to get us,
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or the
immigrants are the problem,
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or the Muslims are the problem,
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you know, somebody
else is the problem.
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And you need to vote for me
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because I'm going to
deal with the problem.
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We're selling fear and
we're selling othering.
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Well, at the moment
the situation in the US
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troubles me and I'm not sure
anybody has thought it through.
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You know, we're all,
but war with the Iranians.
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We're even threatening
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for the first time Saudi Arabia.
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We're talking up China
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as an existential enemy, Russia.
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I mean... North Korea.
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Even Australia got into trouble.
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So, well, but Canada's
threat the national security.
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Canadian steel anyway.
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My life's not
been very successful,
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but I've even
thought several times,
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it's not good
on a personal level
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to have a war
on too many fronts,
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you can't fight everybody.
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So we're in the process of...
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I've said for years,
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you have to choose your battles.
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Yeah, so we're in the
process in the US as a nation,
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like it or not
because we don't control it
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individually very much.
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But we're in the process
of othering everybody else.
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And the suspicion
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and the antagonisms
that come as a result of that
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are very bad and they're
not going to play out well,
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both in a secular
and religious sense
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because it based on how
we see fellow human beings.
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You know, we've
spoken in another program
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about the originally Protestant,
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but now generally Christian
mindset of the populace.
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But how can that be
sustained when enemies here,
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enemies there, others there.
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And I don't
think it's by accident
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that within the year
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I've heard open talk
from people with authority
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that we might need to
do something analogous
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to detaining all the Japanese
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which was a great blot
on the US historical record.
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Why would we do it again?
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In what situation will
we detain a whole people?
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Look, I'm quite sure
that most of our listeners
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who are Christian conservatives
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would reject the notion
that they're racist, okay?
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I don't know, you know,
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any of the folks
I go to church with,
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nobody's going to say, "Yeah,
I'm, you know, I'm racist."
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No, that's the same
with religious liberty.
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I never met anyone that says
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they're against
religious freedom.
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But how they execute
it is very telling off.
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And yet, you know, you and
I have both been in circles
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where in, you know,
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the name of
national self interest
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and all kinds of political ideas
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we hear very blunt,
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racially
insensitive positions taken,
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you know, whether
it's about immigrants,
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whether it's about demographics
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and, you know, which population
groups are reproducing faster,
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and what we need
to do to maintain the,
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you know, white supremacy or...
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That's not
usually said that openly,
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but that says something.
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I've heard, I have heard
it said quite openly in events
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that you and I
have both attended.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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I won't name, you know...
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The climate is changing
in really dangerous ways.
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And I don't think
even some of the people
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making these
statements quite know
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what they're
saying, like you say,
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how be anybody will openly
acknowledge they're racist.
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But under certain circumstances
they'll subtle let slip
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a comment that reveals all.
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Well, look...
00:11:13.40\00:11:14.74
And permission is being
given in subtle ways for people
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to say and act
on those sentiments.
00:11:17.81\00:11:21.21
But, you know,
we've said before racism
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is America's original sin.
00:11:24.58\00:11:27.05
And it strikes
many commentators,
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certainly strikes
myself that the phenomenon
00:11:32.65\00:11:36.32
of the Trump election
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was a backlash in
particular against two aspects
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of the Obama era.
00:11:43.37\00:11:45.70
One certainly was
kind of the overreach
00:11:45.73\00:11:48.97
of LGBT rights,
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and then
morphing into the emphasis
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on transgender,
and the bathroom issue.
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And I think many
Americans looked at these trends
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and were horrified.
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And so
naturally, despite the fact
00:12:02.65\00:12:06.99
that there was a
pretty strong conservative,
00:12:07.02\00:12:10.69
you know, what do they
call it, a know Trump movement.
00:12:10.73\00:12:17.63
The fact is, you know,
00:12:17.67\00:12:19.57
between the choices
that were presented,
00:12:19.60\00:12:22.20
many Americans
chose to go with Trump
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because they couldn't stomach
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more of the
liberal social trends
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that were started under Obama.
00:12:30.88\00:12:32.61
But the other aspect of this,
00:12:32.65\00:12:34.62
you know, pendulum swing
or backlash was eight years
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of an
African-American president.
00:12:38.29\00:12:40.32
And the backlash...
00:12:40.36\00:12:41.79
It was offensive
to a certain group.
00:12:41.82\00:12:43.36
It was very offensive.
00:12:43.39\00:12:45.19
And we've seen a
considerable degree of racism
00:12:45.23\00:12:48.83
in the backlash.
00:12:48.86\00:12:50.20
And one of the
things that, you know, look,
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I explained to liberals
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who don't
understand how we got Trump,
00:12:55.10\00:12:57.51
I explain to them
why I think we got Trump.
00:12:57.54\00:13:00.11
But I also like to explain
to conservatives, guess what?
00:13:00.14\00:13:03.24
There's life after Trump.
00:13:03.28\00:13:05.01
You know, whether he gets
four years, or eight years,
00:13:05.05\00:13:08.08
or whatever happens, you know,
00:13:08.12\00:13:09.85
the pendulum is going to
swing back the other way.
00:13:09.88\00:13:12.39
And the sharper the
swing in one direction,
00:13:12.42\00:13:16.02
you know, there's an
equal and opposite reaction...
00:13:16.06\00:13:18.66
To some degree, yes.
00:13:18.69\00:13:20.03
There's no question,
00:13:20.06\00:13:21.40
but it's not as simple as
just emphasis at the time.
00:13:21.43\00:13:24.97
There's underlying
and you've alluded too.
00:13:25.00\00:13:27.04
There is underlying
attitudes that have been along.
00:13:27.07\00:13:29.90
And, yes, I think the apparent
victory over historic bias
00:13:29.94\00:13:36.01
with Obama's
election actually made things
00:13:36.04\00:13:39.41
worse in a strange way.
00:13:39.45\00:13:41.72
But you know, when
it comes to othering,
00:13:41.75\00:13:44.15
and you know, like as I said,
00:13:44.19\00:13:46.42
I like to tie this in
with the mark of the beast.
00:13:46.45\00:13:49.19
The problem that most Christians
00:13:49.22\00:13:52.73
overlook is Jesus'
00:13:52.76\00:13:54.80
comments in Matthew
24 about the end times.
00:13:54.83\00:14:00.04
And He suggests
that the very ones
00:14:00.07\00:14:02.57
who are going to be othered
00:14:02.60\00:14:04.01
are the Bible
believing Christians.
00:14:04.04\00:14:06.27
That's true.
00:14:06.31\00:14:07.64
And unfortunately, they
left behind another books
00:14:07.68\00:14:09.94
that sort of spun
that in the wrong direction
00:14:09.98\00:14:11.75
because they throw
in the secret rapture.
00:14:11.78\00:14:14.25
Well, they say,
"We'll all be gone,
00:14:14.28\00:14:15.75
so it won't matter."
00:14:15.78\00:14:17.12
But unfortunately for them
00:14:17.15\00:14:19.79
and unfortunately for God's plan
00:14:19.82\00:14:22.42
to make a strong
witness at the end of time,
00:14:22.46\00:14:25.26
we're going to see it through
and the othering is a dynamic
00:14:25.29\00:14:28.56
we will have to face.
00:14:28.60\00:14:30.40
We'll take a break now.
00:14:30.43\00:14:31.77
We'll be back and
pursue this a little further.
00:14:31.80\00:14:34.04
A biblical prediction
perhaps of where we're heading.
00:14:34.07\00:14:37.41
Stay with us.
00:14:37.44\00:14:38.77