Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is the program
that's bringing you news,
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views,
information and discussion
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on religious
liberty events in the US
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and around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty magazine,
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and my guest on this
program is Amireh Al Haddad.
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You're the director of PARL,
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Public Affairs
and Religious Liberty
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for the Southern
District of the United States
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for the Seventh-day
Adventist Church, right?
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Yes, I have.
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Sounds like a
court introduction.
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Yes.
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I have eight
states in my territory
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all in the southeast.
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Yeah.
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How long have you
been working in the unions?
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Well...
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I think 20
years or so, isn't it?
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Yeah, more than 20 years.
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I don't want to
give my age away.
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But I came in 1992,
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and just kind of
worked my way through.
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So you've seen a
lot of developments
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on the religious liberty front.
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I have.
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The running joke is
that I'm not an attorney,
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but I play one on TV.
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Yeah.
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So sometimes I
think it's an advantage
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not to be an
attorney, they get to focus
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on the technicalities
and my feeling is that
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sometimes the lawyers
will willingly suspend
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a sort of a moral judgment,
so which makes them a moron.
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Right.
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Anyhow, let's talk
about some current events that
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have a bearing on
religious liberty.
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This present administration
in the United States is bold.
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Let's just say that,
even if you agree with it,
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it's bold, and disagree.
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And I think nothing shows that
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boldness more than the
president's recent offer
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of a peace plan for between
the Palestinians and Israel.
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Now, you know, we can
discuss the politics of that.
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But what do you
think lies behind that?
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Why would a US
president throw something out,
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seemingly
politically a non starter?
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But what's he
got to gain from it?
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Where's this coming from?
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You're asking somebody
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with an Arab
background to talk about.
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Well, because I know the answer
doesn't lie in the Middle East,
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it lies here.
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Correct. It does lie
here. What's informing it?
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It's a
combination of his voter base,
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our current
president's voter base,
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which is evangelical Christians,
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and his vice
president's connection
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to evangelical Christians.
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It starts with a
misunderstanding of prophecy
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within that group
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in terms of the millennium,
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what's going to
happen in the millennium,
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where the
millennium will take place.
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And what's the millennium?
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I'm sure not everybody
that watches the program
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even knows
what's this millenarian
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or millennium concept.
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So the millennium
is the thousand years
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that is talked
about in Revelation
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after Jesus comes.
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Well, that's part of the game.
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Is that the thousand
years before He comes,
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after He comes,
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after Seventh-day Adventists
even have a different timeframe
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to everything
than the other people.
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It's about three or
four different chronologies,
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which are all enabled
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because Revelation
is clearly not written
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in totally linear fashion.
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Right.
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And it really depends on
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whether or not
you're from the school
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of pre millennialism
or post millennialism.
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Do you believe that Jesus
comes before the millennium
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or after the millennium?
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And then mixed in with
this is the secret rapture...
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The secret rapture.
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The good people are taken away
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and they don't
have to suffer through
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tough stuff anyway.
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Yeah, it's actually
a very theologically
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important factor
that a lot of people
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don't recognize
the importance of it.
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And the importance is that
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if you believe as
many evangelicals believe
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that Christ is going to reign
on earth in the millennium,
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what you have done is
you've set yourself up
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to fall for the Antichrist.
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Yes, I like that.
That's a good point.
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Because the Bible's very
clear that Jesus will not,
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Jesus is clear that
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He's not going
to touch the earth
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when He comes
back the second time.
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And so this is the difference
between understanding that
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whoever touches this
earth is not going to be Christ,
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and who the real Christ is.
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Because the Bible says
that the Satan will come
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with the appearance of an angel.
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Yes.
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And it seems to
describe a fake appearance,
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at least something that
gets people's attention.
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They think, oh,
this is the Holy One,
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maybe Jesus,
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and he'll appear all
over the world and...
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And this may be too deep.
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I mean that it may be
too deep theologically
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to talk about
on Liberty Insider.
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It's very
complicated. It is complicated.
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Well, it's too deep
for us to settle it.
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Yeah.
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But I think we can bring it up,
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people need to know
this stuff is at play.
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Now on religious liberty per se,
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it doesn't matter
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when you're talking
about the right of all people
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to believe or
disbelieve whatever they want.
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But it's necessary to
get to this explain this to,
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so people understand
what's really going on.
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Yeah, because
what's really going on
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is the evangelical
base here in America
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is trying to prepare
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Jerusalem for Christ's return.
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It's one of the
reasons why in 2017
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Trump moved the US Embassy
from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
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That was a evangelical push
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for individuals who
were his base voters.
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And what troubles me,
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it should
trouble a lot of people
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that may or may not believe this
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while at placates
that basal plays to them,
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it also provokes precisely
what they think will happen.
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Exactly.
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It's a purposeful
self fulfilling prophecy.
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Yes.
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So it's really a provocation
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for the people in that area
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who already have
quite strong opinions on it.
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And this peace treaty, I
think, is the latest thing.
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To come up with a peace treaty
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that's so biased
toward Israel's agenda.
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And, you know, we're
all sympathetic to Israel.
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Some more than
others, but I think you know,
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who would wish
well to any country,
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which badly to any
country, and particularly,
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the connection to
the Jews left over in,
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in World War II
from the Holocaust.
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There was
sympathy to as they settled
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in the Middle East and so on.
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And that sort of
spiraled out of control.
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But nobody wants other
than perhaps a odd manager
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wanted to wipe them
off the face of the planet.
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But a peace
treaty which is needed,
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why would you present
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something
that's sort of packaged
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and biased
toward Israel one party
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and then say to the
other, take it or leave it?
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To me, this is the end game.
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That's what's very
troubling about it.
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And as you've
just explained well,
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the origins of that are
not necessarily in a wish
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to sort of smooth things over.
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It's to placate the base
whose very agenda is dynamite.
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They want the Armageddon.
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They want the
horse, the blood up
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to the horse's
bridle as the Bible says.
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And it is this
type of move by the US
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to placate
evangelicals in this attitude
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that really plays
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into the issue of terrorism
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and why the US is so demonized
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by Middle East
Arabs, especially Muslims.
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And it doesn't, it
does not help to continue
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to do what the accuser
is saying you're doing.
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I know.
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And I feel very sad
on this development,
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looking at the
Middle East, where you know,
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any reasonable,
intelligent person
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would want tensions to drop
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and for all parties
to be better off if,
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you know, it's unlikely
that everybody could be happy
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to the fullest degree in
any sort of a settlement.
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There's going to
be some compromise,
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but you want to ease
it, but this seems to me,
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it just throws
doctoral gas on the fire.
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And we need to
explain to our viewers
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from the point
of view of religion
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and religious liberty
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and particularly the
separation of church and state,
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the ideal, you know
what's going on here?
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I don't think
under any circumstances
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this fits the
model of separation
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of church and state.
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This fits the model
of the medieval period
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where a political
power with a religious agenda
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either goes on a crusade
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or starts a program or whatever.
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Those are not good dynamics
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when you mix any religion
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into that sort of
a dynamic, are they?
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No.
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There is, you know,
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when you pick one
religion against the other,
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you add to the
friction that's already there.
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Very little is
needed to escalate.
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You know, the conflict
that is going on there.
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Let me throw in a wildcard
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that you probably
in your wildest dreams
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wouldn't think it would
be connected to this topic.
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But do you, when I bring it up,
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can you see a connection
or a necessary connection
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between what's going
on in the US at the moment
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where we're tearing down statues
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and remembrances of
bad periods in particular
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the Civil War and some
of the anti heroes who,
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heroes to some perhaps,
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how would you
relate that dynamic
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to what we've been talking about
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in the Middle East?
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Yeah, that's a
little off for me.
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Well, I'm not really
sure that I'm not sure
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where you're coming
from on that actually.
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No, but I have a point to make.
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You know, we...
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There's a lot of
historical revisionism going on.
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Yes.
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And I think some regrets about
what's happened in the past.
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And I don't think
we should tear down
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every statue where you
sort of wipe world history.
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You go through Europe,
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and there's all sorts of men
on horseback and all the rest.
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And if you know the history
00:11:02.99\00:11:04.33
very seldom are
they Santa Claus.
00:11:04.36\00:11:08.46
You know, they cut
somebody's head off,
00:11:08.50\00:11:10.13
they did something wrong.
00:11:10.17\00:11:11.97
And you know, you
don't have to lionize them
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to recognize their
significance in history.
00:11:14.00\00:11:16.04
But to go to the good side
of what's happening in the US,
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we're looking at it
with a tender conscience,
00:11:19.17\00:11:21.21
perhaps and not wanting
to inflame the old rivalries
00:11:21.24\00:11:25.28
that in the US
led to a civil war.
00:11:25.31\00:11:27.98
Why don't we apply that
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same sort of
thinking to the Middle East,
00:11:29.38\00:11:34.12
instead of
stirring it up each time?
00:11:34.16\00:11:37.26
Or let me take
another angle on it.
00:11:37.29\00:11:40.23
If as Israel
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I think with a
religious sensibility,
00:11:44.63\00:11:46.70
even though it's
a socialist state,
00:11:46.74\00:11:49.34
keeps talking about,
00:11:49.37\00:11:50.71
I remember Begin, the
Prime Minister talk about
00:11:50.74\00:11:52.94
they had a claim to Sumeria.
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What's he talking about?
That's Bible talk, right?
00:11:55.14\00:11:58.18
How many thousand
years ago was that?
00:11:58.21\00:11:59.88
Two thousand years ago.
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Are we going to settle
the wrongs of 2,000 years ago
00:12:01.28\00:12:05.39
if we started that here?
00:12:05.42\00:12:06.99
I said on the program
recently that I filmed,
00:12:07.02\00:12:09.82
I said we'll be
living in teepees,
00:12:09.86\00:12:11.86
nobody in their right mind,
00:12:11.89\00:12:13.50
even I think the
original inhabitant,
00:12:13.53\00:12:16.50
the descendants of the
original habitants think
00:12:16.53\00:12:18.80
she can crank the, you know,
00:12:18.83\00:12:20.80
the world back to 2000 years ago
00:12:20.84\00:12:22.30
and start again.
00:12:22.34\00:12:23.84
We have to seek justice here
00:12:23.87\00:12:26.04
and try to minimize the conflict
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but not buy into a
scenario where you, you know,
00:12:29.58\00:12:33.52
you reach back into
history and this mythical ideal,
00:12:33.55\00:12:36.42
which happens to be loaded
with theological implications,
00:12:36.45\00:12:41.12
you know, and triumph,
religious triumphalism,
00:12:41.16\00:12:44.03
you're not going to
plant that as a goal
00:12:44.06\00:12:48.06
and you know that
00:12:48.10\00:12:49.43
it will bother
other religionists.
00:12:49.46\00:12:52.23
The religionist history
issue is very troublesome
00:12:52.27\00:12:57.81
because history is what it was.
00:12:57.84\00:13:01.98
And you don't want to change
it because if you change it,
00:13:02.01\00:13:04.85
how do you learn from it?
00:13:04.88\00:13:06.21
How do you remember it?
00:13:06.25\00:13:08.22
But more than that, you can't
really fully undo the past.
00:13:08.25\00:13:12.55
No, you can never undo the past.
00:13:12.59\00:13:13.92
You know, I thought about this
00:13:13.96\00:13:15.29
a lot on this
isn't religious liberty,
00:13:15.32\00:13:17.79
but just on a world history
and a human dynamic stage,
00:13:17.83\00:13:21.43
there's some justification,
00:13:21.46\00:13:23.06
I think within living
memory to do something,
00:13:23.10\00:13:27.07
certainly the
current generation,
00:13:27.10\00:13:28.90
but you get further back,
00:13:28.94\00:13:30.27
first of all
information is unreliable.
00:13:30.31\00:13:32.87
And then the facts
00:13:32.91\00:13:34.24
on the ground are
just so irrevocable,
00:13:34.28\00:13:37.25
that and then, you know,
this group and that group
00:13:37.28\00:13:40.48
and like in our
early Adventist history,
00:13:40.52\00:13:44.15
really jumping
back for Adventism.
00:13:44.19\00:13:46.09
They had huge debates
00:13:46.12\00:13:47.66
about what
Germanic tribes made up,
00:13:47.69\00:13:50.86
you know, well who were
the 10 original Germanic tribes
00:13:50.89\00:13:54.63
that made up all
00:13:54.66\00:13:56.00
of the modern peoples of Europe.
00:13:56.03\00:13:57.37
And they, you know, you
look at the history of it,
00:13:57.40\00:13:59.10
they moved here,
they lived there.
00:13:59.13\00:14:01.14
You got to try to
sort of crank back history
00:14:01.17\00:14:03.87
to where they came from,
00:14:03.91\00:14:05.71
nobody's even suggesting that,
it's an exercise in futility.
00:14:05.74\00:14:09.84
It is.
00:14:09.88\00:14:11.21
And so I think people
with the religious sensibility,
00:14:11.25\00:14:15.12
which they're allowed to have,
00:14:15.15\00:14:17.19
but they've been
granted a very dangerous power
00:14:17.22\00:14:20.96
to apply that in
a political scene
00:14:20.99\00:14:23.99
and mayhem is likely to follow.
00:14:24.03\00:14:26.53
It is, as you
know, the sons of Abraham
00:14:26.56\00:14:30.50
had been fighting
since they were born.
00:14:30.53\00:14:33.17
Ishmael and Isaac have
been fighting for forever.
00:14:33.20\00:14:37.24
To add the US dynamic into
it which is a different goal,
00:14:37.27\00:14:41.98
a different
reason for doing that.
00:14:42.01\00:14:45.68
It really just kind of
00:14:45.71\00:14:47.72
puts you at a disadvantage
00:14:47.75\00:14:51.65
on the US's side of things,
00:14:51.69\00:14:53.76
because they're
never going to be
00:14:53.79\00:14:56.69
able to work it out.
00:14:56.73\00:14:58.33
Good summary of the
situation. Let's take a break.
00:14:58.36\00:15:00.90
We'll be back to continue
this discussion shortly.
00:15:00.93\00:15:03.73
Stay with us.
00:15:03.77\00:15:05.10