Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI200459A
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00:26 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:27 This is a program bringing information 00:30 on religious liberty events in the past 00:33 and right up till the present in the US and around the world. 00:36 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty magazine. 00:40 And I want to share 00:43 something special with you today 00:45 about the world we live in and, 00:49 well, I'll cut to the chase, an environmental concern. 00:53 It's certainly been the marker of the last generation 00:58 that there's been an increasing environmental awareness, 01:02 even as some major political forces 01:05 in the US deny that 01:07 there's anything to worry about. 01:09 And even though I might say 01:10 as natural calamities abound and multiply, 01:14 but I want to start by sharing a poem 01:16 that I think sets the scene in many ways, 01:20 by what it says and when it's said. 01:22 There was a Roman Catholic poet called Gerard Manley Hopkins, 01:27 wrote some interesting poems, 01:29 and one of them was God's Grandeur, 01:32 and he wrote it in 1877, 01:35 which to me is a very fraught time 01:38 because the Seventh-day Adventist Church 01:40 was organized in 1863, 01:43 right in the context of the American Civil War, 01:47 when everything was going crazy. 01:50 You know, million people died in a very small, young country. 01:55 But yet the Adventist doctrine at that time 02:00 and now was predicated on several basic things, 02:03 including the three angels' messages 02:06 of Revelation 14. 02:10 And the first one says, 02:13 "It's a call to one of the Creator God 02:15 that created heaven and earth, 02:17 and everything that in them is." 02:19 In other words, the Creator and His creation, 02:23 that was the central rationality. 02:26 We're quite aware now, as the Bible says that 02:29 all creation is groaning together 02:31 in travail for its redemption. 02:33 And we should be aware as Adventists were 02:36 when they were talking about the end of all things 02:39 that God has promised to come 02:40 and destroy those that destroy the earth. 02:44 Unfortunately, it hasn't fully reached 02:46 that awareness in the US, 02:47 many Christians are into dominionism, 02:52 which, while it touches on our custody of the earth 02:55 really sees it more from a dominionist 02:58 or controlling point of view, like it's our 03:00 bounty to harvest the news as we see fit, rather than 03:04 in a stewardship relation to God. 03:08 But how Hopkins put it this way in this very short poem, 03:12 he says "The world is charged with the grandeur of God. 03:17 It will flame out, like shining from shook foil, 03:21 it gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil crushed. 03:26 Why do men then now not reck his rod. 03:31 Generations have trod, have trod, have trod. 03:35 And all is seared with trade, bleared, smeared with toil. 03:40 And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell, 03:43 the soil is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. 03:49 And for all this, nature is never spent, 03:52 there lives the dearest freshness deep down things. 03:57 And though the last lights off the black west went, 04:01 oh, morning, 04:02 at the brown brink eastward, springs. 04:05 Because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods 04:09 with warm breast and with ah! 04:13 Bright wings. 04:15 You know, it's a message of hope. 04:18 And an interesting... 04:22 well, not that that caught to me 04:23 but separating the destruction 04:25 and the shopworn nature of this world, 04:29 with the fact that God's Spirit is not yet 04:31 withdrawn from us and His creation 04:36 With that in mind, 04:37 let me go through three documents 04:42 that Rome has come up with lately 04:44 that end on this concern, the environment. 04:48 The first one 04:52 Caritas in veritate, 04:55 charity in truth came out in 19... 05:06 Sorry, not 19, 2008. 05:09 No wonder I was stumbling on it. 05:11 Came out in 2008, which was a very important year 05:14 because that was the year of the... 05:18 You could define it as the last great depression. 05:22 It was never defined that way, but it was pretty much 05:24 a depression in an economic meltdown, 05:29 I remember at one point, 05:31 reading and seeing graphics to illustrate it 05:34 that 60% of the world's merchant fleet 05:37 was at anchor, the world economy broke. 05:40 It just collapsed. 05:43 And, you know, God's mercy endures forever, 05:47 and the mechanisms of many people 05:50 were successful too 05:51 that we've bounced back and things, 05:52 according to the president "Have never been better," 05:55 whether that's true or not remains to be seen, 05:58 but we have struggled back from the brink, 06:01 but it was pretty bad in 2008. 06:03 And that year, 06:04 as newly elected president Obama 06:08 headed off for his first meeting of the G8. 06:11 He stopped in at Rome, 06:13 as has been the want of presidents 06:16 and other leaders of late. 06:18 It's a bit like in the Old Testament, 06:20 it says "In the spring of the year, 06:21 when the kings will want to go forth to war." 06:24 Well, the kings that want to go to Rome nowadays, 06:27 and he stopped off in Rome, and met with the pope. 06:32 And it was Pope Benedict 06:35 and he gave him 06:36 a leather bound copy of this document, 06:38 Laudato si', just released, and not Laudato si'. 06:44 Caritas in veritate, just released. 06:48 And... 06:49 Interesting document, 06:51 I remember reading a review of it 06:52 in a secular magazine, 06:54 they reviewed it as though was a political document, 06:57 which really was. 06:59 Because it dealt with issues of economic collapse, 07:03 environmental degradation, national sovereignty issues 07:07 caused by things like drone attacks, 07:10 and assassinations and so on and invasions. 07:13 It dealt with capital and labor, 07:15 the trade unions, minimum wage, 07:18 the plight of the poor and so on. 07:21 But, of course, economic collapse 07:23 was top of the list. 07:24 And the document was evaluated by this magazine, 07:30 I remember, and I gave it pretty good marks. 07:32 But at the end, 07:33 they made a very telling comment, 07:35 not a religious magazine. 07:37 I never found them much concerned with anything 07:40 except they had a little softness 07:42 for discussing the genocide 07:44 against the Jews in World War II, 07:47 which we should all have, it was a horrific time 07:50 and an act by Nazi Germany. 07:52 But other than that, 07:54 they were never interested in religious things. 07:55 And they said this is a great document. 07:58 It's a pretty good take on how to deal with these things. 08:01 But they said the trouble is, you accept this document, 08:05 the pope comes with it. 08:08 I thought that's very perceptive of them. 08:10 Because in Liberty magazine 08:11 where I can't afford to attack any religion, 08:15 because religious freedom means everyone 08:16 has the right to exist. 08:19 My angle on Rome is that it's an existential threat 08:24 to the separation of church and state, 08:26 which is a foundational constitutional truth 08:31 for the United States 08:32 and that's so because Rome is a state. 08:38 Mussolini granted them their own little state 08:41 of a few hundred acres. 08:42 So they function without the political leaders, 08:47 but it's also a church. 08:48 So depending on its needs, it can be a church or a state. 08:51 It's the absolute threat 08:53 to the separation of church and state, 08:54 it is the church and the state. 08:56 And so I thought that comment was very valid. 09:00 And in the document I read toward the end 09:03 that says there is a need for a global authority 09:07 with the power to act and to enforce. 09:10 And coming from the representative 09:12 of a church that in the mediaeval era 09:15 was quite inclined to force people into compliance 09:18 with church views. 09:19 I thought that's not a nice statement, 09:22 that's heading the wrong direction. 09:25 Well, only a few years ago now, another document appeared 09:31 under the papal auspices, Laudato si'. 09:35 And I almost think that this is the payoff to that 09:39 first Caritas in veritate document 09:43 that wasn't the first time they discussed the environment, 09:46 but it was a major aspect after the economic collapse. 09:52 Laudato si' 09:55 is an environmental document 09:59 and it starts off by saying that 10:02 the earth is like our youngest sister, 10:06 she is dying, she's in great distress. 10:11 And unless we do something, and by we, 10:14 the document makes it very plain, 10:16 not just Catholics, not just Christians, 10:17 the whole world, unless we do something, 10:21 she will die. 10:23 And in dying, we will all die with her. 10:25 So the stakes are pretty high. 10:29 You know, when the stakes are like 10:30 that extraordinary things happen. 10:33 Talking about the genocide against the Jews, 10:35 I remember reading with horror. 10:39 The story once of a number of Jews 10:41 who are hiding in a crawlspace in a home. 10:44 There weren't many of them, 10:45 including a mother who had a newborn child. 10:49 I think the child had actually been born 10:51 while they were hiding in this crawlspace. 10:54 And while they're all hiding there, you know, 10:59 couldn't sneeze or speak, 11:01 the Nazi troopers came searching the house 11:06 and the child began to cry. 11:10 And what would they do about it? 11:12 And so by mutual consent, actually more than consent, 11:16 demand, they told the mother to suffocate the child. 11:22 You know, those are horrific tales, 11:24 and the choice that they appeared to have 11:27 was child's life or their own. 11:30 If they let it cry, 11:32 they would all die including the child, 11:33 but if they snuff the life of that child 11:36 out they would survive and they did survive. 11:41 When the issue of environmentalism 11:44 was presented on that level, we're all about to die 11:48 because the world's dying, unless we do something. 11:51 What if you don't go along with such a prescription? 11:56 I think it's very likely and it's such an emergency, 12:00 there will be no option. 12:02 Likely no option given for those 12:04 that don't take the steps that this global authority 12:07 with the power to act and to enforce might recommend. 12:11 It's food for thought, 12:13 because we're coming to extreme times. 12:16 And I know there are some that 12:17 don't even want to talk about global warming. 12:20 And I think they will eventually 12:22 but I also think it's been framed badly. 12:26 You can argue whether man's actions 12:30 have caused this warming and thereby 12:34 radical disruption of climate patterns 12:36 and production of extremes of hot and cold. 12:40 You can argue about whether man had anything to do with it. 12:43 But if you take that off the table 12:45 and just describe what is and you can allow that 12:48 it could either be man's actions 12:51 or it could be a cycle, natural or, you know, 12:57 created by something beyond their kin. 12:59 Once you do that 13:00 then I think it's a lot easier to discuss 13:02 because anybody 13:03 that's traveled the world lately, 13:05 anybody that's lived other than 13:07 in their own little corner of the universe, 13:09 anybody that's watched the news knows that 13:12 the world is out of whack, out of whack. 13:17 This year, fires in Australia in a greater degree 13:22 than seen in a lifetime, 13:25 earlier in the year than usual 13:26 'cause of different rainfall patterns. 13:29 Last year, it was the Amazon basin burning 13:34 as well as much of California. 13:37 And, you know, this storm this year, 13:39 next year who knows? 13:41 At a limit of these calamities is Ellen White writing, 13:45 I think prophetically 13:47 to Seventh-day Adventists in a book 13:48 called Great Controversy. 13:49 She says that the sequence of natural calamities 13:53 is going to cause people to say that 13:55 God's wrath is upon us and that to save ourselves 13:59 we need to do some extraordinary things 14:03 in public religion and government support 14:06 of religious observance 14:07 and if you don't go along with that, 14:09 you will be seen as enemies of mankind. 14:12 It's not a farfetched scenario 14:14 from what we've already seen in recent years. 14:18 I'll take a break now. 14:20 But come back, and after a short break, 14:24 we'll continue this discussion. |
Revised 2020-05-07