Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is a program designed
to bring you up to speed
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on religious
liberty developments
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in the US and around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
Editor of Liberty magazine.
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And I want to hit this program
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running with current events.
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I think even a year from now,
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we will look back on the
events of the most recent past
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with the charges laid
against the president of the US
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on a possible impeachment,
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he was impeached
but not convicted.
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We'll see this as
something quite extraordinary.
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After all, there haven't
been that many impeachments
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in the 200 plus
years of the US history.
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Abraham Lincoln's
Vice President Johnson
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was impeached but not convicted.
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Sort of a hero of mine,
Richard Nixon, not a hero,
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but I admired him for...
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If nothing else, moving
beyond his McCarthy past,
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he was under impeachment.
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The articles had been drawn up,
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but the trial never took
place because he left town.
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Then there was, of
course, Bill Clinton,
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and he was impeached,
but again, not convicted.
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I think myself over
rather personal irregularities
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and say, you know,
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moral irregularity
and lying about it,
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but not really a
matter of state per se,
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but it was a major
issue and he survived.
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Amazingly, his
popularity increased after that.
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So that's the
history of impeachment
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until only a few weeks ago
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when President Trump
was impeached by the house
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and it went to the Senate
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where he was on
purely party lines
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or pretty much
party lines, exonerated.
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I want to share with you
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what I wrote for
Liberty magazine.
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And since it's such a hot issue,
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I want to read my
own words carefully.
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The intent is not to offend,
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but to describe the situation
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and particularly how it
relates to religious freedom
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and the separation of church
and state in the United States,
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particularly in this case.
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This is what I wrote
under the title of The Kingdom.
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On one level, events of late
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have had a certain
air of deja vu for me.
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As a young man,
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I followed the events
leading up to the decision
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to impeach President Nixon.
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The storyline was a bit like
a John le Carre's spy novel,
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involving as it did
money payoffs by Korea,
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a coincidental plane crash,
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the mad wife of
one of the principals,
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and the
incredible stretching routine
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that erased vital
evidence from tapes
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we only
belatedly realized existed
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and held a record of everything.
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No need for
redactions or summaries
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from that point on.
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And then the man I
had so looked up to,
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President Nixon,
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he of the shady McCarthy past,
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redeemed by
rapprochement with China,
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weeping about his mother
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and waving with
crooked smile as he flew away
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from the presidency
and the sure conviction.
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But pardoned by
his successor in a deal
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that may have been charitable,
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but ran against the
spirit of the Constitution,
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which forbade the president
to use his pardoned powers
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against impeachment.
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And not so long ago,
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another president ran
the gauntlet of impeachment,
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if not for the higher
crime of personal immorality,
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than for lying and
perjury, after the fact.
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Amazingly, it had
only a positive effect
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on his presidency,
and his popularity,
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which makes me think
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that these events have finally
become more political theater
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than serious legal proceedings
for the good of the Republic.
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But the sobering
reality is that massive changes
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and aggregations of
national norms are at play.
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Going into the whole event,
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we were expected
to either close ranks
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with either of the
political party lines
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or if not, then be reduced
to slack jawed fascination
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at the Kabuki
theater of the absurd.
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It didn't help that a
mad or careless lawyer
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provided comic relief
to a serious question.
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It didn't help that
much of the argument
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was deflected to a
certain, but he did it.
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Why am I in trouble?
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Only about
midpoint in the tawdry tale,
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did we get to the
real issue at play.
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It is one that has
massive implications
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for the survival
of a free Republic
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as we know it,
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and to focus my
general horror on something
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that this magazine and
this program cares about.
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There are clear implications
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for how religion
and religious liberty
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might fare under
the emerging paradigm.
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That moment was on display
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when Professor Alan Dershowitz
gave his legal two cents worth
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on the central story.
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"Even if a
president used his power
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for personal ends
upon this legal get about,
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as long as he believes
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that there is a
state interest involved,
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that is okay.
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Convenient, and surely so wrong
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that the framers
of the Constitution,
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the fathers of the Republic,
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the men who rejected
the relative autocracy
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of the British crown,
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the men who wrote so much
about the balance of powers
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and the limits to power
entrusted by the people,
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surely so wrong,
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that the howl of
derision in such a statement
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should have shaken the nation."
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But very little pushback,
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even as the professor
tried to redefine his position
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or his statement
on later TV programs.
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"The reality is that
this was merely an MTV version
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of a whole philosophy of power
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known as the unitary
theory of presidential power
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is hard to pin down.
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But it describes what
amounts to kingly power."
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Years ago
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during the confirmation
of Attorney General Gonzales,
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I remember him being asked
if the president was bound,
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and it was a
president, not this president.
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If a president was
bound by the laws of Congress,
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and he said "No."
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A senator asked him
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if a president
was bound by the laws
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passed by the
people's representatives,
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and signed into law by
himself, or a predecessor,
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again, "No, sir."
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In a hyperbolic moment,
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a presidential candidate joked
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that he could shoot
someone in the street
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and get away with it.
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Amazingly, presidential lawyers
actually took the same stance
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in front of a
New York State judge.
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My point is not so much
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that our good
president or any successor
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might actually do
such a mischievous thing.
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But to illustrate
how far we have drifted
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from a Constitutional norm.
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The partisanship we all decry,
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is actually making
this precipitous shift,
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and of course, then
making it more dangerous.
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This president has
gone out of his way
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to speak well of
religious liberty.
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And I pray that he
continues to do so.
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Liberty magazine
reprinted some of his statements
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and some actions
by his administration.
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We are thankful,
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thankful that he is
adhering to a founding principle
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so succinctly expressed
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in the First
Amendment of the Constitution.
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One of the amendments, remember,
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required by the states
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as a condition of ratification
of the Constitution,
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but full religious liberty
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is on less than
solid and shifting ground,
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if it depends on
the smile of a president
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described by the
unitary principle of power.
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Christianity, in
a 2000 year history
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went from a growing
group of persecuted followers
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of Jesus Christ,
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to an often
persecuting state ally power.
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And following a reformation
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that came at a time
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of a flowering
of personal freedom,
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arrived at its
present dynamic state
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of openness and charity.
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A big part of
that success story,
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especially in this new world,
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was a removal of state
control and an assumption
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that religion is a
private matter of conscience.
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It was the power
of a Roman emperor
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and assorted European kings
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that channeled religion
into the ditch of persecution.
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Unfortunately, much
of our present dynamic
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seems to be repeating
that model of history.
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Constantine, the
Emperor Constantine
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championed Christianity
without knowing much about it.
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He required doctrinal unity,
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and the church
obliged by regulating itself
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into conformity.
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And I might say
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that Constantine
obliged by helping them
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persecute the dissidents.
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Who cannot see that today
with the unprecedented alliance
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between a certain politically
active Christian faction
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and a very secular president,
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determined to help them
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that we have the beginnings
of the Constantine model.
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If the presidency continues,
it's for some time now,
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drift toward absolutism.
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That First Amendment mandates
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that the state is to make
no law establishing religion.
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Creative lawyers
and even people of faith
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anxious to advance their cause
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might dance
around this requirement.
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But separation
of church and state
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was the Protestant ideal,
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and was the aim of the
founders by way of the Puritans
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who railed
against a state church
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and the kings' use
of and misuse of it.
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The framers put
this in the amendment,
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along with instructions
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that the free exercise of
religion is to be protected.
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I know that
increasing numbers of Bible
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believing patriots have begun
to imagine a certain parallel
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between a godly nation
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and the way faith was protected
in the Old Testament days
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when the glory
hovered over the temple
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and God spoke good
laws through His prophets.
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It is an honorable image,
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but cannot work
absent real glory
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and real prophets.
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And it is worth remembering
that the whole thing went wrong
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when the people
wished for a king
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like the other nations.
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That first king Saul was a
man of much stature and promise.
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But as the
prophet Samuel warned,
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he usurped justice and
built up his own power,
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and even in a theocracy,
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he was not to assume
religious prerogatives.
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When Saul did that,
and acted as a priest,
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the prophet pronounced
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that his kingdom
was taken from him.
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I fear that if we, in
this secular republic,
00:12:46.83\00:12:51.57
lose sight of our
founding principles,
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forget the
Constitutional guidelines
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and advanced
religion by fiat power,
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we might experience
not virtue, but decline.
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You know, I hope that
those words in a magazine
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that goes out to,
00:13:10.89\00:13:14.29
not counting repeat
readers of any given issue,
00:13:14.32\00:13:16.76
but a magazine
that by its print run
00:13:16.79\00:13:18.66
is going up to about
165,000-175,000 people,
00:13:18.69\00:13:23.90
mostly in leadership
or public trust positions.
00:13:23.93\00:13:28.34
I hope that that
will have some effect
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on the public
understanding of where we are.
00:13:32.94\00:13:35.74
I don't imagine that just words
alone will change the reality
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but we are clearly in
this western democracy,
00:13:40.15\00:13:45.52
more than just a democracy,
00:13:45.55\00:13:46.89
more than just
a western country,
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a country that self consciously
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and even by prophetic
identification by my church,
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as a clear power
mentioned in Revelation.
00:13:56.70\00:14:00.34
I would hope
that in this country
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we see where we're heading
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and that there'd be a
groundswell of turning away
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from a bad tendency.
00:14:07.71\00:14:10.45
It's still a
relatively free country,
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arguably one of the freest
in the world, but not as free,
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not as committed to
its Constitutional ideals
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as it was even a generation ago.
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Interesting times to live in.
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Let's take a short break
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and I'll be
back after the break.
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Stay with us.
00:14:30.00\00:14:31.33