Welcome back from our break.
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And before the break
with guest, Kingsley Palmer,
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we were getting...
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I was gonna say
philosophical, but biblical
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because we were
relating the role of Jesus
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in His earthly ministry,
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which is explained
in the New Testament.
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Right.
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How He interacted with
people, and applying that
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to the principle of
religious liberty in general.
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Right.
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And jumping off from
our church's emphasis
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on public affairs.
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You know, Christianity is
all to do with public affairs,
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publicly witnessing.
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Oh, you look at
the Old Testament,
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what was God
trying to do, right?
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From the call of Abraham
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to the progression.
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You know,
calling him out, right?
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Not to stay within the
confines of what He believed,
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but to share
that with other people
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all through the Old Testament.
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And when, you
know, as we already know
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that when the Hebrew
nation came out of Egypt,
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He wanted them to
be a light to the world
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even though they spent
40 years in the wilderness.
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The gospel had to be preached,
the gospel had to be lived.
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God wanted to show him,
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have a model
group of individuals
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who were not perfect,
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but would do His
will with respect
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to the people that are sacred.
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Well, in that era,
they were in the come out,
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the leaving phase
in the New Testament,
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they were in the
going phase, going back.
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Right.
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It's almost like they
regressed in a sense, yeah.
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Yeah.
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Your point is correct,
but I think as a model,
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yes, there were problems,
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and they were
drawn out of a group.
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But really, once they
were out and distinct,
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and had a message,
then you have to go back.
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Right.
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And I hope,
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our church,
Seventh-day Adventist Church,
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as all Christian and indeed,
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all religious groups
doesn't just keep to itself,
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it has to go and interact
and be part of the whole.
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Now there's a famous poem by,
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you know, "No man is an island."
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I'm sure you know the poem.
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But, you know,
no man is an island,
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we're all part of the continent.
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And in the
religious sense, very much so,
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we're part of the universe.
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Well, that sounds
like new age poem,
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you know, you are a
part of the universe.
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Well, Rod McKuen, wasn't it?
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God bless him.
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I'm old enough to
remember that, he's gone.
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That's him.
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But, you know, yeah,
we are part of a human...
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Yeah, we are
part of a human family
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representing a God
who wants to engage.
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I keep on going back to that.
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We're representing a God
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who wants to have a
relationship with all people.
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The Bible says that
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He sends the rain and the
sun on the just and the unjust.
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And it is interesting that
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He calls people out
of their comfort zones,
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if you go from
Abraham, all the way down
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to the Old Testament
into the New Testament,
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God's always stepping out,
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calling people to come to Him,
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to have a relationship with Him,
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regardless of what
their beliefs were,
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what their
values might have been.
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And oftentimes in
confrontation or in conflict
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for what He wanted.
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And this is why
the public affairs
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from we have seen it,
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you know, Micah 6:8, you know.
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Listen, don't give Me
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these sacrifices
and things like this,
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here's what I want you to do.
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Here's what I want you to do
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what is right, to
walk with Me, right?
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And to engage other people.
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And particularly
when we're strangers.
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What do you say,
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what does the Lord
require of you to do justice?
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Indeed to, just
listen, love, mercy.
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In love, mercy and walk
with all men, work with all men.
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Exactly.
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And so that is
what we supposed to do.
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It's interesting that
with The Ten Commandments,
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if I can just pull
on that for minute,
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the first four of
those commandments
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have to do with
the God's relationship
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our relationship and
responsibility to God.
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The last six focuses
on the engagement piece.
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How do you live with these?
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How do you treat people,
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you know, and Adventist
says, you know how it is.
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We get up in church and it says,
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"Remember the
Sabbath day to keep it holy."
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And we go on and then,
"Six day shall thou labor."
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And then it ends,
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"Thou, nor their
son nor their daughter,
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nor their ox and their cattle,
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nor thy stranger
that is within our gate."
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Well, we could have a whole
program on that one because...
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On that one point alone.
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Yes, amen.
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Because that is
very good instruction
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to a nation that was
ruled as a theocracy.
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I don't know how you can
apply that in the modern world
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with the truest
principle of religious liberty.
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If I have a
stranger within my gate,
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and he's not a Christian either,
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I can't easily require him
to keep my day or my religion.
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But I think the way application
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I would have is we have
an obligation to tell them
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why this is now a holy day.
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They're not to be ignored,
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they would be
included if they're willing.
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Right, and it's always a choice.
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You have to quote the Quran
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which at the time
seems to deny itself.
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The Quran says, "No
compulsion in religion."
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And that's truly a
biblical principle too.
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It's kind of interesting
that you mentioned the Quran.
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Sometimes we as
Christians have got to a place
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where our interpretation
or understanding of how,
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what we do as a faith keeping,
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God serving group of people,
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we can be compartmentalized
on the one hand.
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In other words, if
you're within my gate,
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just use the expression,
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it means that I should
demonstrate by how I behave
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and how I live
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the positive elements
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of what I believe
in reflection of God.
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But we can tend to, if
we're not very careful,
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become so close-minded,
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and even judgmental to the point
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where we ostracize people
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who are not of the
same belief system.
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We saw that with
the Spanish Inquisition,
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we see
Christianity hasn't always been
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clean and open-minded,
and objective as it should.
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That's true, you
know, I would broaden it.
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Since religion is such an
important thing for people.
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Particularly, you're getting
it more into the modern era,
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religion is
used to create walls,
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to separate one
group from another.
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And at times of stress,
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since you can easily
put the other group as evil
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or something rather sinister,
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then that can be even violence.
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It's not unique to Christianity.
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At the moment,
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we're seeing more
of this phenomenon,
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I think, with
Islamic communities.
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And a lot of
people try to dodge it.
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It's real,
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but, of course, it
can happen with any group.
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And in India,
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and I know you
worked in India for a while.
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You know, Hindu nationalists
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are indulging in
a lot of violence
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that I don't
think it's defensible,
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but it is explainable.
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They're feeling threatened.
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And the sense of their religious
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and political
other is so overwhelming
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that they lash out.
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So, you know,
dialogue between faith groups,
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I think is
profitable not to explain
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away the differences,
it might even sharpen them,
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but it will
humanize the communities
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and create a
bridge and a dialogue
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back to the public
affairs as we're talking about.
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And I'm glad you mentioned
that because a public of...
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What public affairs does,
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and I'll give you an example.
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As a pastor,
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whichever community you go into,
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you're going to see a variation
of different belief systems,
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different churches,
most of what have you.
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The thing is, if
you have an open-mind...
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I'll go back to
the umbrella, you know.
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Find the common things
that you can work with,
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you know, in
regardless of the divergence
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in terms of the,
what you believe.
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Find those common human
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things that
pull people together.
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"Blessed are the peacemakers,
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for they shall be
called the children of God."
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And so you go,
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you approach other faith
groups with an open mind,
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and with an interest.
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I mean, you're
going to be who you are,
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they're going
to be who they are,
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but find the common ground.
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Those things
that affect everybody.
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Well, the common
ground is humanity,
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and we're all children of God
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that we perhaps see differently,
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but we
recognize a divine element
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when we're talking in the
faith community, at least.
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Yes.
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Yeah, now this
is very profitable
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for us to do this.
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He allows the foundation
of basic human rights,
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you know, how I interpret that
00:09:02.64\00:09:04.57
through the lens
of my experience,
00:09:04.61\00:09:05.94
and yours maybe
a little different.
00:09:05.97\00:09:07.31
And you mentioned
India, I haven't lived there.
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Yes, I did see that happening.
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And then it became politicized.
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The Hindus on the one hand,
and you have other religions,
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not much different from
what we have in the West,
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you know, in the
western part of the world.
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You mean, the
friction between the...
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The friction, I lived
in Britain during the time
00:09:26.93\00:09:29.76
when the Irish Republic Army,
and, you know that the IRA,
00:09:29.80\00:09:35.70
and the bombings and
everything like that.
00:09:35.74\00:09:38.67
It was politically motivated.
00:09:38.71\00:09:40.11
But it was a time when
the Roman Catholic Church
00:09:40.14\00:09:42.74
and Protestants,
00:09:42.78\00:09:44.21
you know, from centuries
back had their differences.
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And I clearly
remember what that thing...
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Very violent
time, remember the...
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It was extremely violent.
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Once the host guards were bombed
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on the way back
from Buckingham Palace.
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Yes, yes, I'm
glad you mentioned that
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because I was living in London
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at the time when the
bombings were going on.
00:09:59.56\00:10:02.86
People were afraid, the
conflict began to escalate.
00:10:02.90\00:10:07.17
And I can recall,
00:10:07.20\00:10:08.60
going into train
stations and worrying about,
00:10:08.64\00:10:12.91
you know, what
would happen next.
00:10:12.94\00:10:15.54
You look at a trash can
00:10:15.58\00:10:17.08
and you think there
could be something in it.
00:10:17.11\00:10:18.81
It was a very unsettling time
00:10:18.85\00:10:20.78
because religious divides
00:10:20.82\00:10:24.35
and issues that
have not been resolved,
00:10:24.39\00:10:27.82
you know, created
this very unsettling,
00:10:27.86\00:10:30.46
unsafe atmosphere.
00:10:30.49\00:10:32.53
And that it's not something
I would want to go back to.
00:10:32.56\00:10:36.30
One of the special rewards
00:10:36.33\00:10:37.67
of working with public
affairs and religious liberty
00:10:37.70\00:10:40.44
for me has been meeting
some of these public officials.
00:10:40.47\00:10:44.37
And one that I'll never forget
00:10:44.41\00:10:46.01
was actually before
00:10:46.04\00:10:47.38
I was working
with Liberty Magazine.
00:10:47.41\00:10:49.04
I was working with
the drug education journal
00:10:49.08\00:10:51.81
for our church.
00:10:51.85\00:10:53.18
And I met at my request,
00:10:53.21\00:10:55.85
with certain general
00:10:55.88\00:10:57.42
who had been one
of the top generals
00:10:57.45\00:10:59.85
in the first Iraq war.
00:10:59.89\00:11:02.62
I won't name him, but
he was very well-known.
00:11:02.66\00:11:05.16
And we spoke for a long
time, I shared my faith.
00:11:05.19\00:11:08.86
To me, it's unavoidable,
00:11:08.90\00:11:10.23
necessary when you're
meeting with these people.
00:11:10.27\00:11:12.60
And we talked about it,
00:11:12.63\00:11:13.97
and he said he owed his life
00:11:14.00\00:11:15.34
to a Seventh-day
Adventist cause men
00:11:15.37\00:11:16.84
who had saved
his life in Vietnam.
00:11:16.87\00:11:19.24
And then after
explaining that he had to go.
00:11:19.27\00:11:21.51
Half an hour
after the allotted time,
00:11:21.54\00:11:23.95
and I'll never forget
him walking down the hall,
00:11:23.98\00:11:26.61
calling out to me several times,
00:11:26.65\00:11:28.48
"We believe what you are doing,
we believe what you're doing.
00:11:28.52\00:11:31.89
Keep doing it."
00:11:31.92\00:11:33.76
That is the
reward that we often get.
00:11:33.79\00:11:37.16
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:37.19\00:11:40.06