Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break,
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we were in India
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and getting very
philosophical and otherworldly.
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India is an interesting country,
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it's moving at the speed of
light into the 21st century.
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Last time, I was
there I stopped off...
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now I forgot the
name of the town,
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but they have
their own Silicon Valley
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in the Hill Country.
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It's much more technological...
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It's probably in Bombay or Pune.
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It was in the hill country,
but anyhow, in the middle.
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But the point is
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India's moving toward
technological advancements
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very quickly, they
make their own cars.
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Right.
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And I seem to remember that
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they're moving towards
space vehicles and all the rest.
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They have the atomic bomb.
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So they're not to be dismissed.
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They're modernizing,
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but it still remains a
massively populous country
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with huge challenges to feed
and to occupy the citizenry.
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But on the religious level,
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it needs an
enduring challenge out
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to untangle all of
the religious identities
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and connect from a
Western Christian point of view.
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And so you were privileged,
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I think, to be
there for a while.
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Right.
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While we were there,
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our house was
open to the students
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from other campuses,
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who had friends on
the campuses, Spicer.
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And we saw over a
period of time, again,
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how powerful the
gospel really was.
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By watching these kids
from all different places
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in the same place,
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eating the same food,
talking about things that
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they would
normally not talk about.
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In fact, we had
young people in our homes.
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For example, at the time,
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Eritrea and Somalia were at war,
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and you had these kids
sitting down in our house,
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right?
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There were things we
couldn't do in the classroom
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that we could do at home
and forming relationships
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and getting a
better understanding.
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And also from the standpoint
of having been born in England
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and lived in the United States
and then going to India shaped
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how that journey developed.
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Did you have many dealings
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with the Sikhs,
with Sikhism, and...
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Not really because we were down
in the southern part of India.
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There's an element of
Sikhism all over India,
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but it originates
in the North West.
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In Kashmir, for example.
Well, not as such that...
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Our connection
with the Sikh community
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would have happened in
the United Kingdom, right?
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But the confluence...
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Yeah, I'm
bringing it up for a reason
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because from post 9/11
in the US in particular,
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there's been a great
confusion in many people's minds
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between Sikhism and Islam,
and they're not even close.
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Well, I shouldn't
say they're not close.
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There's an element of influence,
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but they're extremely distinct.
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They are.
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And Sikhism doesn't
have any correspondence
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to actions of the
Islamic community.
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But what do you
know about Sikhs?
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I, again, what do I
know... They're a warrior...
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Yeah, they are warrior...
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Offshoot that has elements
of Islam in their history and,
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of course, trying to
combine this with Hinduism,
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but they are more tied
up to one God is that...
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That's what I
want to respond to.
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They believe in
monotheistic God.
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They're very, very structured,
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it's an amazing
religion to observe.
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And they have
probably more connections to
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what we believe
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in terms of how their
communities are developed.
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Like I was saying, we
experienced them in England,
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but we never got to
spend time with them.
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There were no Sikhs
coming down to South India
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to Spicer in particular.
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I recall an experience
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if I can just flip
from India to here.
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The week after
9/11, it was the Thursday.
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I had to go and speak
at a church in Tennessee.
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I was a little afraid
of jumping on a plane.
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This was the Thursday,
no, the week, 10 days after.
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I remember for
several months after,
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you know, quiet didn't
know what was gonna happen.
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And so travel is an education.
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So we're on the plane,
and then a Sikh family,
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brother had his turban on.
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And they had a little boy,
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probably around
seven or eight years old.
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They get onto the plane,
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and they were sitting
adjacent to where I was.
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And I remember the little
boy kind of looking around.
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And when he sat down he
said to his father and mother,
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"Why are people
looking at us like this?"
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And his father said,
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"Well, it may be
because they don't know us,"
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but he was not old enough
to understand the implications
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and the innuendos
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and how people are feeling
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about this
group of people who...
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very few people
may on that plane
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may have known as
being different to
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the ones who actually
carried out the bombing.
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And I sat down, and
I thought to myself,
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"This young boy is
experiencing something
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that his father
could not explain it.
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He didn't want to at
that particular time."
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But I could sense that
the disconnect and how...
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I'm sure it's
traumatic for them.
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It was.
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And to be fully really fair,
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I'm sure it was
traumatic for many Muslims
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in the United States who...
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Right.
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Not personally were any
way involved, and many of them,
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most of them, hopefully,
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not even sympathetic to
what was done in the name
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or involving their religion.
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There's more logic to why
they might come under a frown,
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but for someone that's
not even of that religion
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absolutely to be
seen as a threat,
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that must have
been traumatizing.
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It was traumatic,
and I felt the trauma,
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you know,
watching that play out,
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and I was
thankful to God, again,
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on the pilgrimage journey
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that I had an opportunity
to be able to engage them
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in two different contexts
but still could feel as,
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you know,
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the general mood of
people who look different
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and come from other
different places can be aligned
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or misaligned with things
that they have no connection to.
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Religion is a very
interesting dynamic.
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It is.
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And the Sikhs as a community
and aggregable community
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and most people
don't know their religion.
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They're not
violent as a community,
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but it is
interesting that they celebrate,
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if not a violence,
than a warlike thing.
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Yes, they've got
that ceremonial sword
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that they wear.
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It is the Kirpan
or something. Yeah.
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The ceremonial sword,
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and as India found out,
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there was that rebellion.
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I don't think it
was in Kashmir per se,
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but at the center of the
Sikh community around Amritsar,
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there was a civil
war for a while in India
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and then the
Prime Minister of India,
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Mrs. Gandhi was killed
by one of the Sikh guy.
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Right, of course, yes.
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So my point is that it's
not just Islam that has Jihad
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and an element that
can turn into violence,
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Sikhism has it too,
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Christianity's had
it with the crusades,
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and so on, and from
one religion to another,
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the connection
can be more direct
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or it may just be
as simple as the other
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and then take
antagonism as a buildup.
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But religion can turn
anti-social and violent,
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unfortunately, quite quickly.
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And if I can kind
of migrate from India
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back here to the United States.
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Your pilgrimage is getting
longer and longer, you're...
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My pilgrimage is
moving on. Yes, it is.
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You'll get your
frequent flyer bonus.
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Here is the other
thing too, and going back to
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what I love about
this particular ministry
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in terms of
engagement and things like that,
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I remember transitioning
from a Sunday keeping church
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to become a
Seventh-day Adventist.
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And that was a
culture shock in and of itself
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because of what they teach you.
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And Seventh-day
Adventist worship,
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the day that was given in
the Old Testament and first,
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the seventh day Sabbath,
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moralizing creation is Saturday.
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Right.
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But I do remember coming in
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and trying to understand this
thing about the Sabbath and,
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you know, and
all the other things
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and Ellen G. White,
and the teachings...
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She was a prophetic...
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A woman with a prophetic gifts
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that helped found the
Seventh-day Adventist Church.
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And I knew that later,
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but I did not
accept her straight away.
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But I could not help feeling
even among our community,
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the Seventh-day
Adventist community,
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just coming in
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feeling as though I was
not totally accepted because,
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you know, those
first day people,
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these
terminologies, these wreck frame
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of references
were not complimentary.
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But among us...
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even today, you know,
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how we view other
people who may go to
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"Oh, you've got
the mark of the beast
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because you
worshipped on Sunday,"
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and all these kinds of things.
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Definitely need to use
religion as in a pejorative way
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against anyone else.
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Yes. It's fine.
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You and I believe that
we have a correct theology
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and we found the truth,
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but we need to look at
others in a charitable way
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and grant them that same right.
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Yes, I totally agree with that.
00:10:02.30\00:10:05.00
So here we are, again,
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my journey has taken
so many twists and turns
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in the last 30-some years.
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But I'm glad for the journey
and it's been a benefit to me
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and I thank God
for the experience.
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I remember one
day visiting Myanmar
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and walking through
the capital of Yangon,
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I think, as they call it now.
00:10:26.89\00:10:28.49
And coming upon an
incredible monument
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with all of the deities,
00:10:32.79\00:10:34.56
I think they were Hindu
deities, it wasn't Buddhist,
00:10:34.60\00:10:37.03
but all of the
deities intertwined
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and scrambling over each other
00:10:39.60\00:10:41.50
in a great mix of
divine personages as we like.
00:10:41.54\00:10:48.38
And I had a trouble
applying myself to that.
00:10:48.41\00:10:52.35
But this has been the human
problem from the beginning.
00:10:52.38\00:10:55.58
Back in the Old Testament,
00:10:55.62\00:10:56.95
Moses there on the
mountain said to God,
00:10:56.99\00:10:59.49
"Show me Your face"
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And who can look
upon the face of God.
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But Moses was shown and
explicated by God himself,
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His character,
and I like to think
00:11:09.26\00:11:11.70
that with religious liberty,
00:11:11.73\00:11:13.57
we can look into
the character of God
00:11:13.60\00:11:15.77
and apply it to
our fellas, rediscover
00:11:15.80\00:11:18.81
what it is to be creatures
of the God of the universe.
00:11:18.84\00:11:24.65
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:24.68\00:11:27.58