Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Thanks for staying with us
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and let's continue
with Amireh Al Haddad.
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This discussion of the,
one of the hottest issues going
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even though it
seems to have slid past
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the radar in the US pretty easy,
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I think because of
the impeachment sideshow,
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or it was a
sideshow to the impeachment.
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Maybe there's a
better way of putting it.
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But there's an antecedent
to the president's designation
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first of
Jerusalem as the capital,
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and then the sudden revelation
of this final and last
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take it or
leave it peace treaty.
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As you've said,
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this come from an
evangelical faction,
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the strong base of the president
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and this is part
of their theology.
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But you mentioned
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during the break
the word dominionist?
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Yes. Tell me more?
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So I'm giving you a
probably a very brief summary
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of who a dominionist is,
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But a dominionist
is described as someone
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who is working towards
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creating God's
dominion on earth.
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They generally
believe that this nation,
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the United States
should be a Christian nation.
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They generally
believe, and not generally,
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they do specifically believe
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that this
country needs to return
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its constitution to
a more scriptural way.
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I'm glad you said that
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because it isn't
just changing society.
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It's changing the structure
of the government itself.
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It's changing the very essence
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of what this country
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is foundationally as
where we started from,
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and there, there has
been a very consistent move
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within dominionist
to kind of re-educate
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the young
evangelicals in America today.
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And they do so mainly by saying,
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"This nation was
founded on the Bible.
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Our laws are
founded on the Bible."
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What's wrong with
this country today
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is that, we're not
doing the biblical way.
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There's a song I remember.
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I'm sure I got the words are on
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but it says
wishing to make it so.
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Right.
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And you know these are people
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I think by and
large of good inclination,
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and they wish that it
was a Christian country.
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They wish that it
was a moral community.
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We all do. Yes.
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It's right. It's a good wish.
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But they sort of
projecting it on history
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and history doesn't support
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that the facts
of the establishment
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of this government and
the Constitution itself
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just doesn't bear up
this mythical godly nation.
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In essence, you
know, God's people
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like the Old Testament
in the new Promised Land.
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It's a fantasy,
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but it's a
dangerous fantasy I think.
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Yes.
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And it's a dangerous
fantasy to religious liberty.
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Right.
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Well, of course, that's
why we talk about it here.
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For the most part, we can
say, oh, we're Christians too.
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Hey, we're Protestants.
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We live in Protestant America.
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But when you
start breaking it down,
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and if you're coming from
the side of religious freedom
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that we're coming from,
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which is religious freedom
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should be available for everyone
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the way God gives it to us.
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God gives
everyone religious freedom.
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Not the country, not the state.
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Not the state.
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The state
recognized the inherent
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but it didn't
establish the right
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and then, you know,
didn't have the authority,
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especially not in the
US, because in theory,
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the very power of the government
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comes from the
people, it's not giving to us,
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we give to the government.
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We give to the
government, exactly.
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And so, for this to come through
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within dominionism,
obviously, dominion,
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the word dominionism
comes from dominating,
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to give dominion over all.
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And so, you have to
kind of ask yourselves,
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well, if you
believe in dominionism,
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and you're
going to be the person
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that controls everything,
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and you believe
that only Christianity
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is what this country is about,
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well, where is
religious liberty in that?
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But again, the evangelical base
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that is pushing this
move in the Middle East,
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also comes back to the
US and like I said before,
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you've got the tribe of Ishmael
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and the tribe of
Isaac always fighting,
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but you have this third,
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third leg that factors
in which is evangelicals,
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dominionists here in
the US affecting US policy
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overseas in order
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to prepare Jerusalem
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for Christ's second coming.
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Right, it isn't just
a matter of sympathy.
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There's a direct agenda.
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There's a direct agenda
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that is focused on
their religious beliefs.
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And it's out of
fringes, it gets quite bizarre,
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you know, it involves
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perhaps offending Islam there
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with the Al-Aqsa Mosque
on the Mount, Temple Mount,
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it involves tearing that
down or removing it in some way,
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reestablishing
the temple worship,
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the red heifer,
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the ideal
sacrifice and on we go again.
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I mean, you couldn't
create religious conflict
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more directly if you
tried than that scenario
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and they're clearly
pushing, pushing, pushing.
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And so, it's one thing
to have a religious view,
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fine, we're all entitled to that
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as right or wrong
as those views may be.
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If we're removed
from political power
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and forcing our
views on other people,
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no great harm done.
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But to put this in
tandem with US policy,
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I think we're entering
into a, at the very least,
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a very fraught time.
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But I want to take
it a little bit further.
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You brought up dominionism
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which is a term
most people know.
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Actually, I found
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that most people
don't know that term.
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Well, okay, maybe
it's the wrong way
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to put it, but
it's commonly used.
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It is commonly used.
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It's not a secret term.
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Right, yeah.
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And I listen to a lot of
the people representing it,
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and of course, their spectrum
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and not all of the
quite the same mind.
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And it ranges from people
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who are very close to the
root origin of dominionism,
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which is
Christian reconstructionism.
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And others are just wanting
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sort of to model
in this continent.
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You know, the godly
nation sort of approach
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and it's more
aspirational than anything.
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But one thing
that unites them all
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and you got onto it.
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It's in the word,
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it's not custody or stewardship.
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Dominion's control, take, tell,
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and I've seen it
expressed in so many words.
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This is the world is ours.
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We can take us much
oil out of the ground.
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We don't have to be
involved with the conservation.
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That's God gave it to us.
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We can do it
with that as we want.
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It's been said,
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but it route the
Christian reconstructionism
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which I came across,
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and I've
mentioned it on this program
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a number of times,
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but I think it's a
clear and present danger
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to clear thinking
in the United States.
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It was established by Rushdoony,
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I forget the year,
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but it's been
around many, many decades.
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His son-in-law,
Gary North carries it on
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and I see him
mentioned a lot over the years
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in these gatherings
often at the White House.
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And I know that...
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And Gary North has a very...
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He has a very
military, militant stance,
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and he talks very
militant, when he talks about,
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you know,
establishing and dominating
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the world in truth.
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In a nutshell they
want an America modeled
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after the Old
Testament theocracy.
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Yes.
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Rule by, well, I
don't know who the prophet
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or the Shekinah Glory would be,
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but probably the president
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speaking ex cathedra
on religious matters,
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and you do what you're told,
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and one of the clear parameters
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of this new nation,
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they've said that the penalties
would be mandatory death
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for adultery,
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homosexuality
and service breaking.
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I mean, no, I can't
think of an easy way
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to explain the
totalitarian vision
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that they have done
that and, but I would,
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but I say there is good news,
about a year and a half ago,
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I'd say one of
their representatives
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was on TV.
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And he must have been
in a very charitable mood,
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because he said they'd
rethought their attitude
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toward gays when
they gain control,
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that they would not
apply the death penalty
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if people kept quiet about it.
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So there is charity even
in such a hardness system.
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But you know,
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I don't myself
think in any scenario,
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or even the end of the
world scenarios in Revelation,
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I don't think this group
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will ever gain
power in their own right.
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But already
they've shown an ability
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to bleed across and influence,
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you know, their ideas to
bleed across and influence
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the larger Christian community
in quite a toxic way I think.
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It is toxic, and it
bleeds in a different way too,
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not just into the
Christian community,
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but it bleeds outside
the Christian community,
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because it hinders our ability
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to show love to other people
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who differ from us.
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Yes, because it
isn't true Christianity.
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Great.
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And it gives a false impression
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of what Christians are about.
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And why would
anybody want to be friends
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or why would anybody
want to seek Christianity,
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if that's what
Christianity is about?
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Yeah, it's not
attractive to an outsider.
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Right, it bleeds two ways.
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To the insider it gives
them and who many of whom
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are from
different spreads of life
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and say in the Bible Belt,
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it appeals more to
middle or lower class.
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You know, well, people that
need the support of religion,
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that's where religion
gets its greatest strength
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when people are
desperate and needy.
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Well, this empowers
them in a great way,
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you know, we're
on the winning side,
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we're on the move, we were,
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you know, we've
got might on our side.
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I think the dynamic
is quite frightening
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if you think it through.
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And when you think
it through far enough,
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what scares me is a version
of the Christian Taliban,
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where you really and truly
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don't want the US
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maintaining what
people's religion will be.
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You don't want laws
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that are going to
affect the country
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to be based on
Christianity alone.
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We live in a secular
society where we can all engage
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despite the fact
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that we may be
different religiously.
00:11:00.09\00:11:02.62
And that's really what
religious freedom is about
00:11:02.66\00:11:04.69
and what we try to maintain,
00:11:04.73\00:11:06.53
especially with
religious liberty
00:11:06.56\00:11:08.66
here in America.
00:11:08.70\00:11:10.03
Many ago I watched
00:11:13.47\00:11:14.84
a rather historic
movie called Khartoum
00:11:14.87\00:11:17.81
was some classic British actors.
00:11:17.84\00:11:21.28
And in one scene
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Laurence Olivier
playing the Mad Mahdi,
00:11:22.68\00:11:25.78
leading an avenging
band of Muslim vigilantes
00:11:25.81\00:11:31.12
was sweeping down the
Nile and toward Khartoum.
00:11:31.15\00:11:36.29
And he was talking
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by night to the
commander, Lord Gordon,
00:11:37.69\00:11:41.43
who eventually killed
00:11:41.46\00:11:42.80
and he says, you
know, the Allah has shown me
00:11:42.83\00:11:47.24
that I will take Khartoum
00:11:47.27\00:11:49.84
and that I will
move on to Egypt,
00:11:49.87\00:11:52.77
down to Cairo,
it will all be mine,
00:11:52.81\00:11:55.08
it's told to me
that this is my destiny.
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Made a good film.
00:11:58.98\00:12:00.38
And of course it
was based on history
00:12:00.42\00:12:02.18
and yet those not of that
fanatical stance look askance.
00:12:02.22\00:12:07.46
But if we're not careful,
even in the United States,
00:12:07.49\00:12:10.83
even in a land as
educated and advanced as ours,
00:12:10.86\00:12:15.80
we can fall into
that same thought.
00:12:15.83\00:12:19.07
American exceptionalism
should not exist, cannot exist
00:12:19.10\00:12:23.61
while there is
divine exceptionalism
00:12:23.64\00:12:26.44
and a God that rules on High.
00:12:26.47\00:12:30.51
For liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:12:30.55\00:12:33.15