Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider
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with guest Charles Steinberg.
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Charles, we were
really into the weeds
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of the sociological
change that we've seen
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and the religious
threat that's appeared,
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it appears to some with the gay
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and transgender movement.
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So where do you think it
can go because, you know,
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I've tried to
trace where it began
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and maybe where it
was more appropriate
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to make a moral objection.
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But now it seems
almost cruel of people
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of faith looking down then
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as people that
they might know better,
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but you know, to
some degree it's,
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they don't make
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the same profession
necessarily of faith
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and they've made that choice.
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The society is
legally supporting it.
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So all you should be
able to, or all you should be
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inclined to do
is witness to them,
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treat them
charitably in Christian,
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in a Christian way,
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but it's a little
heavier than that.
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Well, it's a little heavier
than that because you're...
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It's something unknown to you.
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If you're a Bible
believing Christian,
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you may or may not
be in that lifestyle.
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Well, I got to admit freely,
I've said it on this program.
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Me personally, in my age,
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you know where
I've live through that,
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you know, it gets my stomach
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all fluttery to
see this in action.
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It's not, you know, I
have a biblical view on it,
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but as well as that the
visceral and discomforted,
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but I can't change that.
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I hope that community is
not going to even expect me
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because I don't want to.
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But what I mean is, yeah,
I'm not comfortable with it,
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but I have to
look at it logically,
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and from a point of a
fellow creature of God,
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you know, I don't have
it rightly to abuse them.
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Already, they've
made by my judgment
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not a good choice of life.
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Why should I add
to their troubles
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by illustrating
bad Christianity.
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Exactly.
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And I'm glad you brought that up
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illustrating bad Christianity.
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Because in the example I gave
earlier with law and Maybaum
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and the Oregon
Citizen's Alliance to strip
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gay and lesbian
people their civil rights,
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that's just wrong.
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But with regard to a
duty of a person of faith,
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your duty is to witness to them.
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Yeah.
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And even though
you're uncomfortable with it,
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possibly for many reasons,
it's not your job to beat them
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over the head
with the Bible either.
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No.
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And you're getting close
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to where there is a real threat.
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It's God to judge.
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Now... Go ahead.
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Well, what I was gonna...
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Well, I'm
thinking but I'll forget,
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I'm sorry if you
forget what you're saying.
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But, you know, the
legitimate questions
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have been brought up
lately about these...
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I'm trying to think of the term
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but sort of
aversion therapy or...
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Oh, conversion therapy?
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Conversion therapy
sessions that they strike me
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as less than Christian more like
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criticism sessions
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that were popular for years ago
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for any number of things
where a group gets around
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and browbeat
someone into submission,
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break their will basically.
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Yeah, that's not very Christian.
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And I have never seen it,
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but it does
seem abundantly clear
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that certain groups
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with the
cooperation of family members
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often have
indulged in this, you know,
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I don't see who
would defend that,
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but a sensitive Christian
with friends and contacts
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and all the rest.
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it seems to me at some
point in the natural discussion
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or you know,
without forcing something
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on someone should be
allowed and probably compelled
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to make statements like
I said, even that statement
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about the cake shop guy,
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that's a way of
telling people...
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Yes.
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What view I hold without
condemning them outright.
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Yeah. If you...
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I hope that legally,
that doesn't come under
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the ban of the state, but
I think it might tend to be
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a consequence of
what's going on now.
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That will be a restriction
of religious liberty.
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It could be a
restriction of religious liberty
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in the United States
because of what we call
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hate speech laws.
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And if you take some
of the verses of the Bible
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and how it rallies
against homosexual,
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how it rails
against homosexuality,
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I know in other countries
there have been pastors
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that have taken
that on as there,
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was their hill to
die on so to speak,
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and they'll be
activists about it
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and take out large paid
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newspaper ads in
municipal newspapers.
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And then they're gonna get...
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If you're putting
yourself out there,
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you're gonna get shot out.
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And in other
countries, I know that
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they have charged
pastors with hate crimes
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for quoting parts
like that in the Bible,
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but there's a way around that
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and that is to be
have Christian charity
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towards another image,
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another person created the
image of God just like you.
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And I don't think...
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With different behavior choices.
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And I think,
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even if someone doesn't buy,
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you know, biblical worldview,
and Christians and Muslims,
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for example, share a common view
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of the end of
time and conditions
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that might accompany that.
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But even if you
don't share that,
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I think a lot of
social scientists
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and thinking
people recognize that
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we're in an interesting
point of Western civilization
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where a lot of the
norms and structures
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that have been
erected are sort of shaky
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and we're moving beyond that.
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And in that environment,
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we need to be very careful
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that we don't
major in one thing.
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As an outside observer, I
think many in the so called
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Christian Right Moral
Majority have done themselves
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a disservice by
majoring only in...
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It seems at times
only in anti-abortion
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at the expense of other
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religious
cultural sensitivities.
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And it's worth
remembering that in a wicked age
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that we live in
does have a sexuality,
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there's bestiality,
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there's child abuse,
there's a gross dishonesty,
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there's mail fraud, you know,
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there's murder and
mayhem on every front.
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So it's not so much
that we should decide
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to say nothing on that area.
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But we should be
speaking to the times,
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not just something
that gets us going.
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No, not just to a
gut level reaction...
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Which the more that's done.
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Just in the level of psychology,
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people can figure
there's something going on
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here beyond their faith.
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And in some cases that might be.
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It might be that
they do have something
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more going on
besides just their faith.
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If they're just on
the one issue thing,
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but then there's also
a political power grab,
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or to counter a
political power grab
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that they perceive
somebody else is doing.
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You know, it's
kinda like a chess game,
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but it's for political
power and vote to the church,
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when the church
wants political power.
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Yes, yes.
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And maybe that's a simple that,
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I don't see it
as political power,
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but there's a manipulative power
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over other people
in demeaning them.
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And even if people are indulging
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in something
that the Bible warns
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in the most stringent manner
we should have pity for them.
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Just like Jesus
spoke to the crowd.
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I'm sure they were
just a move, you know,
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moveable feast of all
of the ills of the time.
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Says that His heart was moved
with pity when He saw them,
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He had pity for the crowd.
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He had great pity
for the human suffering
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and the human condition.
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And we're all, you know,
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our own people
and hardened by life,
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but we somehow need
to find that I think,
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not a charity
because charity concern
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was being enabling,
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you know, like in
addiction situations
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you can really
further the situation.
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But we need to have
a burden for the times
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and we need to be a
positive force not a shrill,
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aggravating noise
like the siren comes down.
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Everyone knows
there's a fire but...
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Yeah.
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Sometimes the siren
is as much the problem,
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shut it off.
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Well, and there
is legitimate concern
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in religious liberty,
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because if I'm going to
use the hate crime legislation,
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if the hate crime
legislation comes through,
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and then same sex person
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or same sex couple claims that,
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well, this person here
has been persecuting me
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because they've been
reading Bible verses to me
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about my behavior
choices, you know,
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a Christ like
attitude, you know,
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if they're not accepting
the message in that town,
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you're supposed to shake
the sand out of the sandal
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and move on.
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And that's a clear Bible verse
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and if you are a
follower of Christ,
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you're gonna listen to that.
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Well, what did God say?
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My spirit will not
always strive with men.
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Yes. Yeah.
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So even God gives
up at a certain point.
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Yeah.
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Well, you know, but
let's see here, who was it?
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Was it Abraham
pleading for his nephew Lot
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in Sodom and Gomorrah?
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And if there are
50 righteous men,
00:09:19.75\00:09:21.19
40, 20, 10, 1?
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Oh, no, God's
charity is way beyond
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what we could ever imagine.
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God's charity.
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Humans need to take a
little bit of that piece
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because we are
created in the image of God,
00:09:30.63\00:09:32.40
and we need to have more love
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and Christian
charity toward our brother,
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even if they behave in
a way that we don't like.
00:09:35.17\00:09:39.07
Well, that's exactly how
a Christian should respond
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with charity and
an understanding,
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but not condemnation.
00:09:43.91\00:09:45.71
You know, Jesus
said, "Go and sin no more."
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Yeah, with one of the things
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about being a
Bible believing Christian
00:09:51.49\00:09:53.49
that can sometimes be hard
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for Bible
believing Christian is to act
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with Christian charity
and love toward others,
00:09:57.26\00:10:00.23
even though they are
behaving differently,
00:10:00.26\00:10:03.06
and one of the great
things about religious liberty
00:10:03.10\00:10:05.67
is that we have a
large, multicultural,
00:10:05.70\00:10:08.97
diverse opportunity to
go and reach other people
00:10:09.00\00:10:12.74
for Christ and
fulfill the Great Commission
00:10:12.77\00:10:15.78
to make disciples of all people,
00:10:15.81\00:10:18.08
baptizing them in
the name of the Father,
00:10:18.11\00:10:19.61
the Son and the Holy Spirit.
00:10:19.65\00:10:21.65
And it is a great work to do.
00:10:21.68\00:10:26.02
For decades
00:10:26.05\00:10:27.39
after the
Protestant Reformation,
00:10:27.42\00:10:29.76
Europe was
convulsed by religious wars.
00:10:29.79\00:10:34.00
It's a rather sad
retelling if you go back
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and read what
happened in Europe,
00:10:36.63\00:10:39.77
millions, as many as
8 million people died
00:10:39.80\00:10:42.70
during that time,
fighting for their faith,
00:10:42.74\00:10:46.74
got mixed up
with national identity
00:10:46.78\00:10:48.88
and the Treaty of Westphalia
00:10:48.91\00:10:50.71
established the
world as we know it.
00:10:50.75\00:10:52.58
Before that really
there wasn't anything like
00:10:52.61\00:10:54.22
the modern nation
state with borders
00:10:54.25\00:10:58.42
that can be defended
and needed to be defended.
00:10:58.45\00:11:01.76
But the takeaway that I have
00:11:01.79\00:11:03.89
from looking at that time
00:11:03.93\00:11:05.66
and the religious
component is how futile,
00:11:05.69\00:11:09.86
both Catholic and Protestant
of its different stripes.
00:11:09.90\00:11:13.13
I don't think too many of
them at the end of the day
00:11:13.17\00:11:15.50
could be seen as
truly defending their faith.
00:11:15.54\00:11:19.67
It was murderous
differences run amok.
00:11:19.71\00:11:25.61
And today, we don't
have religious wars of that
00:11:25.65\00:11:28.55
sort of violence,
at least in the West.
00:11:28.58\00:11:31.05
But we do have a conflict
of faith versus the other.
00:11:31.09\00:11:35.46
The other can be any number
of immoralities that stir us up,
00:11:35.49\00:11:39.23
but we need to remember that
00:11:39.26\00:11:40.73
that sort of violence is futile.
00:11:40.76\00:11:43.03
And that only
through deeds of love
00:11:43.06\00:11:44.90
and mercy is the kingdom of God
00:11:44.93\00:11:47.30
and a faith truly advanced
00:11:47.34\00:11:49.97
in any world and
certainly in this world.
00:11:50.01\00:11:53.54
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:53.58\00:11:56.41