Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI190426B
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00:04 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:05 Before the break, we were really waxing of... 00:09 One of us, maybe my guest, 00:11 you're waxing eloquent on church history 00:13 and the Puritanism. 00:16 They're excesses, as they were many, 00:18 and I was reminding you 00:21 and the viewers of the great heritage 00:23 that we get by way of John Milton, 00:24 who was secretary for foreign languages 00:30 to Oliver Cromwell, very close associate. 00:32 And he wrote Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, 00:35 as well as some other great works of literature. 00:39 But let's talk about the application to the day. 00:42 What echoes do we see of that year 00:44 and of that mentality today in the United States, 00:47 maybe in the English speaking world? 00:50 Well, the reality is when Puritanism began, 00:55 it was fighting for religious freedom, 00:58 but what it meant was 00:59 it wanted freedom for itself to exist. 01:02 And when it did come into power, 01:04 it restricted religious freedom 01:07 because it had achieved its goal. 01:09 Then I brought up Roger Williams 01:12 as having been kicked out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony 01:17 because of his religious descendants 01:19 and his desire to have a religious freedom. 01:21 It didn't happen instantly though. 01:23 No, no. 01:24 They even offered him 01:27 to be the pastor of the main church there 01:28 if you remember. 01:30 Yes, I don't know if it would have gone well, but... 01:32 No. 01:33 And I think he knew that, but he wasn't... 01:35 My point is he wasn't disliked on first blush. 01:38 No. 01:39 They wanted to incorporate him, 01:41 but they soon found out 01:42 his views were a little different. 01:44 And his views got him into trouble with them. 01:48 And then when he left, 01:50 he kind of becomes one of the main voices 01:55 in America early on for religious freedom, 01:59 and the Pennsylvania experience, 02:02 and the whole thing that happens there 02:04 is another voice for religious freedom. 02:06 But the current forebears... 02:12 I mean not forebears, 02:13 the current descendants of Roger Williams 02:16 are largely the Baptists now, 02:18 and the Baptists who have been strong 02:20 on religious freedom. 02:23 The institute of religious freedom down at... 02:27 What's that institute called in Waco. 02:29 Baylor Institute. Baylor Institute. 02:31 J.M Dawson Institute and Baylor. 02:33 There we go. But it's been closed up. 02:35 It doesn't exist. Correct, correct. 02:37 And that corresponded with what you're referring to 02:39 sort of rethinking of how they would present 02:42 religious freedom. 02:44 Because they had been presenting largely... 02:47 Seperationism. 02:48 Religious freedom by separation from church and state, 02:51 and now the majority of the Baptists 02:55 seem to be calling for Christian state 02:57 in order to have religious freedom for Christians. 03:00 And as we all know what the Southern Baptists, 03:03 they're not always that unified. 03:05 No. 03:06 And in Washington, 03:07 there's the Baptist joint committee 03:09 for religious freedom, 03:10 and we work very closely with them, 03:12 and their view is exactly 03:13 as you stated the historical position, 03:15 the religious liberty for all 03:17 under the model of separation of church and state. 03:20 But more and more, there's a populist... 03:22 It's a move away. 03:24 For a Christian nation that is seeing... 03:28 And you've been in terming it as religious entitlement 03:31 rather than religious freedom. 03:33 Yes. 03:34 And it's the idea of religious freedom 03:36 for me and my kind, 03:37 but no religious freedom for anyone else. 03:40 Well, they've never gone that far to say that, 03:42 but that's implicit in that model. 03:44 It's true. 03:47 In many ways, the cats are out of the bag 03:49 because this coalition and their actions 03:53 through the administration in dealing with blocking people 03:56 from Islamic countries and so on, 03:58 that shows that there's a, 04:00 you know, they haven't said particularly bad things beyond 04:04 we want to exclude them, 04:05 but what they should have said instead was, 04:08 "You know, this is not right to sort of marginalize 04:11 whole religious groups under the excuse of terrorism," 04:13 or whatever. 04:14 Right. 04:16 But they've lost that opportunity. 04:17 So they're not sensitive 04:19 to the liberties of non-Christian, 04:22 non-Baptist, and so on. 04:24 In previous programs, you've emphasized 04:27 that the rights of the minority are at the core 04:33 of the understanding religious freedom. 04:35 Why don't you articulate that a little more 04:37 in the current circumstance? 04:39 Well, the best I could do is 04:41 I'll tell you an example that I told you in the break. 04:45 Recently, I got into a discussion 04:46 with a black Muslim Chaplain 04:52 at a certain meeting, 04:54 and he was a wonderful person. 04:55 I really was impressed by him as an individual. 04:58 I was a little troubled, 05:00 you know, they hear reiteration 05:02 of the theology of nation of Islam, 05:05 and he put himself particularly referred 05:07 to a larger Muhammad and Farrakhan and so on. 05:12 Louis Farrakhan has got a lot to answer for, 05:14 you know, he appeared with Gaddafi, 05:16 and Gaddafi was attacking the US, 05:19 and he was in Iran recently when they were chanting Death 05:22 to America and so on. 05:24 And I wouldn't want to be associated with that. 05:27 But I told this, this fellow I said, 05:29 "It shouldn't be necessary to argue 05:34 at our differences so much that I'm 100% satisfied 05:37 with your theology and you with mine 05:39 before I can defend your right." 05:41 I said, "True religious liberty means 05:44 that I grant you the right to be wrong, 05:46 grossly wrong to believe something 05:47 that I find doctrinally offensive, 05:50 but I will defend your right to believe that 05:52 and to practice that to the death." 05:54 Well. 05:56 That's got to be religious liberty 05:57 because you would want the reverse, 06:00 you know, we were talking about Adventists 06:01 in their early days, marginalized, even persecuted, 06:04 the other thought they were a crazy little group. 06:06 Yeah. 06:07 I don't think that's the case today, 06:09 we've become very respectable, which is not always a blessing. 06:13 But, you know, it's in the extreme, 06:16 just like freedom of speech, 06:19 and it's fine to have a principle. 06:20 But if that just means you allow people to say things 06:23 that you're comfortable with that agree with you, 06:25 there's no freedom of speech. 06:26 It's precisely when you defend the right of something 06:29 that you find purely objectionable, 06:31 incendiary, or whatever, 06:33 then you have freedom of speech. 06:35 And for the US to have continued religious liberty, 06:38 it must defend what apparently is the indefensible. 06:41 Yeah. 06:42 And I'll say the obvious, 06:45 it's absolutely obvious that an element 06:50 of Islamic thinking leads directly 06:53 to terrorism and terrorist activities. 06:57 That's... 06:58 By any means that all Muslims are so inclined? 07:01 Hardly. 07:03 But even if you could connect that, 07:04 as I just did with Islam, 07:07 why would you restrict the practice of a faith? 07:09 Right. 07:11 In fact, I'll go even further, and this is... 07:14 I haven't read this anywhere else, 07:15 but I have to hold this as a principle. 07:18 If they were a religion that was premised 07:21 on sacrificing babies and all the rest, 07:24 I would allow it. 07:26 Defend their right to believe whatever. 07:28 If they sacrifice the child, they go to jail. 07:32 You can't allow things that are against 07:36 normal civil interaction. 07:39 As I say that, you've got to be careful about, 07:41 as Scalia said, 07:42 "Laws of general applicability 07:44 that might snare certain religious practice." 07:46 Obviously, that's sort of, 07:49 you know... 07:51 Daniel got caught into that where the counselors 07:54 gave the king an idea for a law 07:56 that was designed to snare Daniel. 07:57 Correct. 07:59 But you know, different times, 08:01 different religious groups have done things 08:03 that may have harmed either themselves 08:07 or other people in the name of their religion. 08:09 You can't allow that 08:10 because it's a general civil interest. 08:13 But you still cannot restrict the right of someone 08:17 to believe a religion, 08:21 you know, it's deeply held. 08:22 And the US legal system is recognizing 08:25 that when you ask for religious accommodations, 08:27 not because your church advances, 08:29 that is because you're onscience-bound. 08:31 No. 08:33 And Jefferson and the others greatly respected conscience. 08:37 We have to honor a deeply held conscience position 08:41 of an individual. 08:43 But that doesn't mean that in the name of religion, 08:46 you can declare Jihad 08:48 or crusades not allowed 08:54 or the president ran up against to his detriment, 08:57 you know, the neo-Nazis and all the rest. 09:01 It's fine to say neo-Nazi, no one likes Hitler. 09:03 People forget that the neo-Nazism 09:05 and some of these groups are also referred 09:09 to Christian theology. 09:10 They've got a theological base 09:12 corrupt as it might be. 09:14 So I give the right to people to believe things, 09:17 but they can't do anything in the name of it. 09:22 So in the end, 09:24 you have to have a minority protection 09:29 in religious liberty. 09:30 You have to have the idea of those you disagree 09:34 with need to have religious freedom 09:36 in order for you to have true religious freedom. 09:42 There is a point in Tennyson's poem, Ulysses, 09:45 where he has the aged hero return 09:48 from the Trojan Wars, 09:50 wishing that he could take another adventure 09:52 and he says to his old sailor friends, 09:55 he says, "It's not too late to seek a newer world. 09:59 Let's push off. 10:00 And, you know, go wherever the winds may take us," 10:04 for the Western world, in many ways, 10:06 they had that sensibility. 10:08 The old world, 10:09 especially under the Dark Ages had been a pretty fearsome, 10:13 desolate place. 10:14 But now with the Age of Exploration, 10:16 off we go to the new world. 10:18 Oh, that would have been so simple as this newer world 10:22 was to be the paradise they hoped, but it wasn't. 10:26 Unfortunately, many of the same sins 10:29 were visited on the new world. 10:31 And when we study religious liberty 10:33 and it's yearnings and development 10:36 under the reformation, as it came to the new world, 10:41 many of the same problems were brought across, 10:44 and we need to recognize the continuum 10:46 of man's search for freedom 10:48 and also the continuing futility 10:51 because those same breakers that so frustrated Ulysses 10:55 and his efforts to get home 10:57 are still breaking on the efforts of men 10:59 to make their own homeland without God. 11:02 We need to have God and His eternal principles 11:05 of freedom for a true successful voice. 11:09 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln steed. |
Revised 2019-04-08