Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI180418A
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00:26 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:28 This is a program that is designed 00:30 to inform you on religious liberty issues 00:33 in the US and around the world. 00:36 I'm the editor of Liberty magazine, 00:37 Lincoln Steed. 00:39 That's my name, not the magazine. 00:41 And Liberty magazine is a magazine of 100 years plus 00:44 that has been dedicated to religious freedom 00:46 under the model of separation of church and state. 00:50 My guest on the program is John Ashmeade. 00:54 John Ashmeade. 00:56 You're the Associate Director of Public Affairs, 01:00 big mouthful, Public Affairs and Religious Liberty 01:02 for the Seventh-day Adventist Church 01:04 in its Atlantic Union, 01:05 which is basically the Northeastern United States. 01:08 United States. Right. 01:12 Let's talk history a little bit. 01:13 Okay. 01:14 And to me, religious liberty is best understood 01:17 when you mix in a bit of history. 01:18 There's antecedence to everything. 01:20 Sure. 01:22 And in fact, a good time 01:23 to mention my continuing preoccupation. 01:26 Among other things, I don't think 01:27 you could understand the American experiment 01:30 without knowing if the English Civil War 01:32 fought on religious issues by the Puritans. 01:36 And then many of them 01:38 coming after the demise of Oliver Cromwell, 01:40 a religious dictator, and coming be a lifetime, 01:44 a long lifetime before the American experiment. 01:47 But let's go even further back, 01:49 at least to what used to be accepted 01:52 as a beginning point for the US, 01:54 Christopher Columbus. 01:55 Sure. 01:56 He had a bit of a mandate, didn't he? 01:58 Not just from Ferdinand and Isabella 02:00 that the Roman Catholic Church got involved in this mandate. 02:05 As I remember, the pope helped things along by 02:08 diminishing the humanity of the inhabitants 02:11 as they discovered them, 02:13 and that led to horrible abuses. 02:15 But there's that famous saying that's been in many movies, 02:17 Christopher Columbus, who wrote about it, 02:19 "Planting the flag for Spain. 02:21 Now it's Spanish territory." 02:23 Of course, the British did it. 02:24 And the Americans recently planted on the moon. 02:27 We haven't been able to do much with the moon since. 02:29 But you know, what was going on there? 02:32 Is there a legal model 02:34 that even perhaps might pop up at the moment? 02:36 Or is that just another age, and the age of exploration, 02:39 and domination, and conquest? 02:41 Sure. 02:42 So in the 15th century, 02:46 the pope issued a few decrees, 02:49 and we now call them the Doctrine of Discovery. 02:51 I mean just in the 15th century? 02:52 Yes. They wanted to do all of them. 02:54 Right. 02:55 But you know, and ironically, 02:58 you know, this is around the time 02:59 that we see the start of the reformation. 03:01 And so at the start of the reformation, 03:04 we see a decree that really enslaved the world in a sense. 03:09 And basically, you know, 03:11 the pope authorized the kings and queens of Europe 03:15 to go throughout the world 03:16 and to conquer the world in the name of Christ. 03:19 And that's exactly what they did. 03:21 They planted a flag, and they planted the cross. 03:25 And this was done across Africa. 03:27 It was certainly done in the Caribbean 03:30 and in North and South America. 03:33 And you know, basically this authorized the nations, 03:36 whoever got there first, you owned it. 03:39 And so there was a race around the world 03:43 to basically enslave 03:45 and take the resources 03:48 and claim the land for the countries of Europe. 03:51 And under that model, 03:52 it pretty much continued right up till 03:55 World War II in my view. 03:57 It continued. 03:59 You know, there are two cases that come to mind, 04:03 but there's a Supreme Court case, 04:06 named Johnson versus McIntosh, 04:08 and there is a Supreme Court for the state of Tennessee case 04:12 that really go into detail on this issue. 04:17 And you know, basically focus 04:19 and attribute the authority of the countries to do that 04:23 all the way back to these papal decrees. 04:27 One case state the foreman dealt with a Native American, 04:32 I think from the Cherokee tribe, 04:36 committed a murder in state territory. 04:39 And the question was, 04:41 could he be tried for murder under state law or, 04:44 you know, would he have to be tried for murder 04:47 under the Indian law. 04:49 And the basic outcome of the case, 04:52 which is also consistent with the Supreme Court cases, 04:55 the United States gain right to the land 05:00 via taking the land from the British by revolution. 05:04 So whatever rights the British had, 05:06 we inherited those rights by revolutions. 05:08 Sounds like might makes right. 05:10 Might makes right. 05:12 And so, you know, that's something that 05:15 Native American people have been dealing with 05:17 for quite some time. 05:18 And in the court system, 05:20 when they have challenged the taking of their lands, 05:23 the typical response from the court system is, 05:27 "Yeah, we got the land from the British, 05:29 who got it by the Doctrine of Discovery." 05:32 So they did link it to the Doctrine of Discovery. 05:34 They linked it all the way back to the Doctrine of Discovery. 05:37 Which is interesting 05:38 because the British were clearly 05:42 by that Age of Discovery, 05:43 I'm trying to get it straight, 05:44 but couldn't have been before Henry VIII, 05:48 so it was clearly in an age of English Protestantism. 05:52 So why would England accept that papal authority? 05:55 Right. 05:56 And it's interesting, 05:58 the case in State v. Foreman mentions the fact that, 06:01 you know, despite the Protestant Reformation, 06:05 the Protestants... 06:07 They still bow to that that authority. 06:08 They still bound to that authority, 06:09 obviously because of the benefit. 06:11 They're keeping the land that they're claiming. 06:12 It's very convenient. 06:15 And you know, but when you begin to look at our system, 06:19 you know, when you start talking 06:21 about the Declaration of Independence, 06:22 and we hold these truths to be self-evident, 06:25 and, you know, we sort of stop there 06:27 because it talks about our highest and noblest ideals. 06:32 But when you read through 06:34 the full Declaration of Independence, 06:36 it then starts talking about the savage Indians that, 06:40 you know, we have to destroy before they destroy us. 06:43 And that's something that we don't think about, 06:47 you know, the very foundation of this country 06:50 while we're talking about 06:51 religious freedom for ourselves, 06:54 we are taking those freedoms away from others, 06:56 people of African descent, 06:58 and people of Native America descent. 07:01 Interesting. 07:04 But, yeah, to me, you know, 07:06 I knew about the Doctrine of Discovery not under that name 07:08 but I never realized that the US accepted it 07:12 as part of its initial authority 07:15 by extension from the British. 07:16 That's amazing, amazing. 07:18 And a really salutary lesson for all nations... 07:23 A mixture of church and state established... 07:25 Why would a church authority, the Pope in this case, 07:29 exercise true legal power to civil country, 07:35 especially one that it cut loose from it in theory? 07:38 But it also shows 07:40 which the Lord shows over and over again. 07:42 Once you accept that you've established, 07:44 that power is now enforceable, isn't it? 07:47 That dictates. 07:49 But it really talks about, in a sense, 07:51 how significant parts of the world were Christianized. 07:58 It was by force. Right? 08:00 Well, I used to listen a lot to... 08:02 Yes. 08:04 To Christopher Hitchens, 08:06 journalist turned atheist, apologist. 08:09 He probably was always an atheist, 08:11 but he became radical towards it. 08:13 But he knew his history. 08:14 And he would debate people of faith 08:17 and he always invoked 08:19 these sorts of historical anomalies. 08:21 And there's not much defense 08:23 for in the political Christian era, 08:26 the middle ages on. 08:29 In the name of religion, horrible things were done 08:32 that you cannot defend from the Bible. 08:35 So I don't need to defend it 08:36 when I say this is Christianity run amok, 08:38 Christianity off the rails. 08:40 Right. 08:42 And the Roman Catholic Church 08:43 to their credit have had some acknowledgement, 08:46 their errors during that period. 08:48 Whether they've structurally moved 08:50 beyond that, time will tell. 08:51 Perhaps not. 08:53 But there was a document Memory and Reconciliation 08:56 where they apologized for many of these abuses 08:59 including the inquisition itself, 09:00 treatment of the Jews, and so on. 09:03 But it is an interesting record. 09:06 You know, it's interesting 09:08 that you raise the issue of apologies. 09:11 The United States, 09:13 I think in a defense appropriation bill in 2009, 09:17 when President Obama... 09:19 There was an apology to Native Americans. 09:22 It's hidden in that bill. 09:24 He got into some trouble for apparently apologizing. 09:27 Right. Right. 09:28 And statements have been made over and over again, 09:31 and I don't need to define when they were 09:32 because they repeated 09:35 that no public official and particularly a president 09:38 should ever apologize for America. 09:40 I mean that is a thoroughly unchristian, 09:43 illogical point of view. 09:46 In fact, I think a country in some ways 09:49 can be greater for acknowledging its errors. 09:51 Or else it will repeat the error 09:53 if it's a large enough error. 09:55 And in this case, 09:56 to abuse whole people thinking you were justified. 09:59 Does anyone want to think that 10:00 the US would repeat such a thing? 10:02 So to apologize will be great. 10:04 In this regard, you reminded me that not too long ago the US, 10:08 I think the Supreme Court made some statement 10:10 about the detention of the Japanese 10:14 as a great injustice, and wrong, and so on, 10:16 and the reparations were not much. 10:19 But to me, it's very telling that 10:21 even after that somewhat apology, 10:23 only a few months ago, 10:25 we stated again from high officials that 10:27 that was not too wrong, 10:29 and that we might need to repeat it with other peoples. 10:32 Right, exactly, and that's the point. 10:33 When I was in law school, we studied that case. 10:35 And you know, the horror of it 10:38 and, you know, naively at that time, 10:41 we concluded that 10:42 that could never again happen in the United States. 10:45 But I think, if a catastrophic event happens 10:48 and people become fearful of their neighbors, 10:51 this is exactly what we can see take place. 10:54 You know, and when we look at this country 10:56 and our impact around the world, 10:59 you know, we need to be careful as a nation, 11:03 you know, that we respect the rights of other nations 11:08 to self-determination as we negotiate with them, 11:11 as we interact with them, 11:12 that we don't come in, and dominate, 11:14 and basically impose our point of view on them. 11:18 And that's the lesson that we need to learn from this. 11:20 This was the foundation of the country 11:22 that this is how the country was framed, 11:24 but we don't need to continue 11:26 the same mistakes of the past into the present. 11:28 Yeah, it's a good lesson, 11:30 but it may not be easy to follow. 11:33 And you know, the US, 11:35 like any other countries made up of fallible human beings, 11:38 I think most people accept that, 11:39 of course, an individual human being, 11:42 you know, we are feet... 11:43 not just feet of clay, we are clay. 11:47 But in the US, I think it's harder for many countries 11:50 to come to grips with 11:52 because this residual American exceptionalism, 11:56 which has religious origins. 11:58 I think it goes back to the papal pronouncements. 12:03 But even people that don't have a religious view, 12:06 sort of buy into it, that it's the... 12:08 You know, comes different ways, the indispensable country, 12:11 the only free country, you express it different ways 12:14 or it goes back to city 12:16 build on the hill by, you know... 12:19 Winthrop made that statement. 12:21 Of course, that was before the US was a country. 12:22 Manifest destiny. 12:23 Yeah, manifest destiny. Right. 12:26 And these have all been... 12:27 They've had their positive side, 12:29 but the negative side is 12:30 it excuses great structural abuses where, 12:35 you know, you've cast people of sub-humans, 12:37 you've effectively genocide against the Indians. 12:41 And basically what we're saying 12:43 and what this is talking about is that 12:45 God is on our side, 12:47 and God is mandating that 12:48 we go out, and conquer, and take control of the world. 12:51 And that's the real danger, you know, 12:54 God is a God of love 12:57 and He wants you to serve Him out of love, and not at, 13:00 you know, with a sword to your neck 13:02 or a gun to your head. 13:03 Yeah, Abraham Lincoln, I think, had a good understanding of it. 13:06 And he was not what you'd call 13:10 an orthodox Christian, 13:12 but he had a Christian faith. 13:13 But remember, he said, 13:15 "Both sides prayed to God in the Civil War." 13:17 He said, "God can't be on both sides." 13:20 You know, we really need to think that through. 13:23 But there is a danger in the future, 13:25 I believe, that the US will forge ahead 13:27 feeling morally immune from any criticism. 13:33 We make these statements repeatedly, 13:34 God has called us to do something, 13:36 God is motivating us, God is directing us, 13:39 you know, we are God's special people in the world. 13:43 And that's a dangerous way of thinking about things. 13:45 Absolutely. 13:47 And you know, it really can impact freedom. 13:50 And you know, I've quoted before 13:52 because it tickles my fancy. 13:53 I remember, not too long ago now, 13:55 I guess eight, nine years ago, 13:58 I remember President George Bush Junior 14:04 making a comment. 14:05 This is exactly what he said. 14:06 He says, "God has blessed America, 14:08 and He couldn't have blessed more deserving people." 14:10 Right. Wow. 14:13 We'll take a break now, 14:14 and come back for further discussion at this. 14:16 There are huge ramifications 14:17 on tracking this original papal 14:21 edict or rule for conquest 14:25 and its echoes even today. 14:27 Stay with us. |
Revised 2019-01-14