Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI200466A
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00:29 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:31 This is your program 00:33 for discussion of religious liberty events 00:35 in the US and around the world. 00:37 My name is Lincoln Steed, Editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:40 And my guest on the program is Amireh Al Haddad, 00:45 Director of Public Affairs 00:47 and Religious Liberty for the Southern Union 00:49 of Seventh-day Adventist, big mouthful. 00:50 I wish you had a shorter title of another one of your jobs 00:54 'cause I know you have many hats. 00:56 Let's talk about something that as we record, 00:59 this is rising as a mountain on the horizon. 01:03 And this probably should be up 01:05 before then the US presidential election. 01:09 It's gonna be all consuming as far as Fox and CNN 01:12 and some of the other networks. 01:15 I think it's already all concerning. 01:17 Already, but it's gonna get much worse. 01:18 Yeah. 01:20 And maybe worse is the wrong word 01:22 because it's the center 01:24 of what the American democracy is all about 01:27 and there's so much at stake this time 01:28 not least of all attitudes on religious liberty. 01:32 Now how should, you know, 01:34 the Christian right 01:35 and the politically active Moral Majority is an old term, 01:38 you know, they're already politically engaged, 01:40 but how should the average person 01:42 and certainly from a Christian perspective, 01:44 what would we tell people 01:46 about how to be involved 01:47 or what to do or what's their responsibility? 01:50 What role does voting have for a Christian, 01:52 you know, set for that far Kingdom? 01:55 You know, the issues of voting 01:59 for the Seventh-day Adventist Church 02:01 have kind of gone back and forth, back and forth. 02:04 And there's a... 02:08 I'm not gonna say a small majority, 02:11 I think that there is a set of church members 02:16 who think that they shouldn't vote 02:18 and they don't vote, 02:20 I think you're probably one of that set. 02:23 Not directly. Not directly. 02:25 But you talk about... 02:27 I'm not a political activist myself, 02:29 but I think 02:30 there's a good argument to be made as a Christian, 02:35 whatever country you're in, 02:36 you have a certain need to be not politically involved, but, 02:40 you know, take part in the social life 02:43 and the public life of the country. 02:45 And if voting is before you, 02:47 as long as you do it thoughtfully, 02:49 and I know you're gonna get onto this, 02:51 just to throw away your vote worse on a candidate 02:54 you haven't thought about 02:55 that could be very irresponsible 02:57 and bringing evil to the country as a whole. 02:59 And maybe a rebuke from the Lord 03:02 that watches over all of us. 03:04 Well, when you vote it's doing something 03:09 that we like to call exercising the franchise. 03:12 Yes. 03:13 Using old term for voting, but what happens is, 03:19 you have to find these balancing points. 03:23 And I think that today finding that balancing point 03:27 is more difficult now than it's ever been. 03:31 So you and I 03:33 come from a Seventh-day Adventist tradition. 03:36 We understand historically 03:39 how Seventh-day Adventist have regarded voting 03:42 and why we've taken different positions on voting, 03:48 but, you know, 03:50 I can tell you that I've worked for the church 03:52 for over 25 years 03:55 and I am seeing 03:57 a very new and very worrisome trend 04:01 among church members... 04:03 Already I can say yes. 04:04 I know. I see this. You see it as well. 04:07 Anyone who in positions like we are where, 04:12 you know, looking at the public affairs side 04:14 of church work, 04:16 we see what is happening 04:19 and we've seen it over a span of 25 years. 04:23 And that is that 25 years ago, 04:26 I had, you're gonna love this story, 04:28 by the way, 04:29 and I don't know if I've ever told you 04:30 this story, 04:32 but I had a law professor 04:33 from the University of Alabama call my office. 04:36 And he said, 04:38 "I'm teaching constitutional law one on one. 04:41 And one thing that I want to do 04:43 is I want to get Liberty Magazine 04:46 to all of my students." 04:51 I said, "Well, I can make that happen. 04:53 That's not a problem." 04:54 And so, we started chatting 04:56 because, of course, I'm a female 04:58 and I'm gonna chat whoever calls me on the phone. 05:02 He said, "You know, Seventh-day Adventists have..." 05:06 He actually called us queer ducks. 05:08 He said, "Yeah, we're queer ducks." 05:10 And I just kind of jokingly quacked in his ear, 05:12 you know, quack quack 05:14 and I said, "Well, what makes you think 05:15 that we're queer ducks?" 05:17 And he said, 05:18 "Seventh-day Adventists are very conservative 05:21 when it comes to theological issues." 05:24 He said, "But when it comes to political issues, 05:28 you appear to be more 05:30 in the middle of the road politically 05:32 less partisan, 05:34 more bipartisan 05:36 than any other 05:37 Protestant denomination out there." 05:39 When did you have this conversation? 05:40 This was 25 years ago. Yes, not today. 05:42 He would not call and tell me that today. 05:45 Yeah. 05:46 And, you know, 05:47 as I've tried to evaluate and look 05:50 at why he wouldn't call and tell me. 05:53 Now, I think he's still gonna tell me 05:55 that overall we're conservative theologically, 05:59 but I don't think he's gonna tell me 06:00 that we're middle of the road when it comes to politics. 06:02 Well, we haven't changed our official church stance 06:06 on public issues. 06:09 And theology hasn't changed, 06:12 but I think culturally within Adventism, 06:15 there's been a massive shift. 06:16 It has been. 06:18 And maybe I should let you say it, 06:20 but I've started on this route. 06:22 I think, Anglo Adventists by and large 06:25 are quite right wing conservative. 06:27 Yes. 06:29 Hispanics and blacks 06:31 on the main are quite liberal democratic oriented. 06:35 And it's very interesting because you're correct. 06:38 If you are more Anglican, if you're Caucasian, 06:42 you're more likely, not 100% likely, 06:45 but you are more likely to be conservative more. 06:48 Well, generalizations fall down on a particular. 06:49 Exactly. 06:51 But I'm certain of the generalization. 06:52 Yeah, and interestingly enough, 06:56 Seventh-day Adventists in that regard 06:59 are absolutely no different 07:01 than other Protestants in America today. 07:04 So you cannot today say 07:07 that Seventh-day Adventists are different 07:09 than other Protestants in that regard. 07:12 And, to me, 07:15 I've always liked being a queer duck. 07:17 Yeah. 07:18 Well, in some ways, 07:20 our end time movement and our theology 07:22 is predicated on being different. 07:24 Yes. 07:25 We're either seeing ourselves as a reformed group 07:28 that are pulling the others into the right line 07:30 'cause they're not anymore 07:32 or even a very progressive movement, 07:34 you know, that's why we took a lead 07:36 in against alcohol and tobacco. 07:40 That's why even in the earliest days, 07:42 they were abolitionists. 07:45 We weren't in the mainstream then, 07:47 but we are somewhat now. 07:50 But even that doesn't worry me so much, that's fine, 07:54 but it's the way it's happened. 07:55 It's become a lockdown reflex sort of a position. 07:59 Right. 08:00 It is because 08:01 it takes on the secular world's attitudes 08:05 towards different or differing political parties. 08:10 And that's worrisome 08:12 because I think 08:13 that the secular world's attitudes 08:15 towards differing political parties 08:18 is very mean spirited and unchristlike. 08:21 Well, it's become that way. 08:22 Yeah, and it doesn't matter 08:24 which, I'm not talking one party against the other. 08:26 I'm saying both sides. 08:29 Well, yeah, I've seen it happened. 08:30 Yeah. 08:31 And you put a, 08:33 what 25-year spread on your analysis. 08:35 That might be just 'cause that's 08:37 when you've been involved with it. 08:39 You know, I've been with Liberty Magazine 08:41 about 21 years or so, 08:43 but the shift is within that area, 08:46 I'd say it's in the last four to... 08:51 No, over the last 8 to 12 years, 08:55 something's happened in America 08:57 'cause in that whole time I've been listening 09:00 as much as I can and I commute to work, 09:01 this is my... 09:03 You know, I bona fide my excuse for this, I commute. 09:08 If I drive quickly 09:10 about an hour and a half to work 09:11 and if I stop for gas and all the rest, 09:13 or there's an accident, 09:15 it could be two and a half, four hours 09:16 I've taken this long to get to. 09:17 I'm listening all the time to Talk radio. 09:21 And sometimes on television, 09:23 I have a screen in my car 09:24 that's in no traffic enforcement watching. 09:30 But, you know, I listen to the different tone radios, 09:32 so Rush Limbaugh. 09:34 Oh, no, that's not his title. What is it? 09:36 Medal of Honor? Rush Limbaugh. 09:39 I listen to him from the earliest days. 09:41 I used to like him. 09:43 I lost a lot of interest 09:45 somewhat into the Clinton administration, 09:47 I realized that he can't say a single good thing 09:50 about the Clinton's. 09:52 And right or wrong, 09:53 nobody's all right or all wrong, 09:55 and that troubled me. 09:57 So I've listened 09:58 and the rhetoric 10:00 is just escalated and escalated. 10:02 And it's reached the point where it's very common, 10:06 more so on right wing than left, 10:07 but it's not unknown on left wing 10:09 because left wing is sort of, 10:11 it diffuses out into nothingness. 10:13 Right wing as it is doctrinally is, sort of, 10:16 you know, they're behind the readout. 10:18 Right. 10:19 And the right wing more often, but the other sometimes, 10:22 they'll say things like the opposition is, 10:24 they're not American. 10:26 They're traitors. 10:27 They're terrorist sympathizers. 10:29 These are killing charges. 10:32 And I wrote once in Liberty Magazine 10:35 in an editorial 10:36 that this is how I put it as I remember, 10:39 I said the difference between the right wing hate radio 10:42 that preceded the genocide in Rwanda 10:47 and the right wing hate radio in the US, 10:50 I said, "It is one of the green, 10:52 not of kind." 10:54 And I know it's trendy for some people just to say, 10:57 I think they just calamity hell as, you know, 10:58 that even the President made the statement, 11:00 you know, civil war could happen whatever, 11:02 I don't think so. 11:04 I remember the 70s the weatherman 11:06 and all the rest of US 11:07 was sociologically shaky then 11:09 with rioting in '68 in all the US cities. 11:13 That's not true, 11:15 but we've planted a horrible seed 11:17 in the public discussion, that unless something is done, 11:22 it has its natural end some sort of cleansing, 11:26 violent cleansing within society. 11:27 It's very, very bad. Yes. 11:30 And, of course, the thing I'll throw in for free, 11:32 it's worth remembering the framers, 11:34 the founders of the US, 11:36 were adamantly opposed to factionalism to parties. 11:40 And that's the great irony that we've got it with 11:42 a vengeance now. 11:44 You do exactly what I tell church members not to do. 11:48 And what's that? 11:49 You spend four hours a day, 11:51 listening to political commentary. 11:54 Well, I have to. So I've to speed on it. 11:58 So what I tell... 12:00 But I should tell you something, 12:01 and it's a homage to my father too. 12:03 My father's been dead since 2006. 12:06 And I've got all of his stuff in the basement. 12:10 My mother died afterwards and we emptied the house 12:12 and brought it in a truck to our home 12:13 and it's in the basement. 12:15 I haven't yet settled it. 12:16 It's maybe a job for a time, 12:18 but I was going through a box the other day 12:20 and I found some papers from my father 12:21 that I've never seen before. 12:23 He was sort of writing, is writing to himself, 12:26 but presuming we would see it sometime and he said, 12:28 "I've decided." 12:29 He said, "I've resolved to filter everything 12:33 through the Bible and Ellen White, 12:35 I test everything." 12:36 And he was that way, 12:38 I could tell him this whatever. 12:39 Oh, but the Bible says this, oh, but Ellen White says this. 12:42 And you have to have a point of reference, 12:44 otherwise information will just overflow 12:47 your sensibility. 12:48 And especially 12:50 if you're getting as the president 12:51 somewhat correctly says, 12:53 there's a lot of misinformation, 12:54 a lot of, you know, lies passing as news. 12:57 If you just absorb it all and take it as fact, you gonna, 13:00 who knows... 13:01 Well, the Bible says you like the driven, 13:03 you know, like the wind, 13:05 the wicked are like the wind, 13:06 you know, blown hither and yon. 13:09 Well, you know, the more I visit with churches, 13:14 I do see that 13:16 within the churches that are democrat, 13:21 there's a heavy feeling 13:24 of sorrow. 13:28 And not just because of who sits in the White House. 13:33 There is a sense of desperation when I visit with churches 13:39 that are majority Republican. 13:43 I doubt there's not a sense of we're winning there either. 13:46 No one is feeling good. 13:48 So what happens is 13:50 that one is feeling dejected and the other one, 13:53 the Republicans are feeling angry. 13:56 And they feel threatened. 13:57 And they feel threatened. I listen to their stuff. 13:59 Yes. 14:00 Not all of them, these are all generalizations, 14:02 but there's a prevailing view, 14:03 this is the last good chance 14:05 to save the country for what they stand for, 14:07 but that's a very dangerous thing 14:08 because it's a do or die option. 14:12 And so extreme measures are used, 14:13 an extreme polarization sets in. 14:16 Yeah. 14:18 And the US as a whole is really into this mindset. 14:21 It's not quite the same as the voting blocks, 14:23 but with the collapse of the Soviet Union, 14:26 an illusion, oh, not illusion, 14:27 but a model that we carried forward 14:30 all during the Cold War that it was a godly, 14:33 democratic free country in opposition 14:35 to the repressed nation over there. 14:39 It was always somewhat true 14:40 and always somewhat an illusion, 14:42 but with the counterpoint gone, 14:45 what reason do we have to maintain the fiction? 14:47 Now we can be rough at the border. 14:49 Now we can be as profane as we like. 14:51 Now, you know, secularism can rise up and, 14:54 you know, even we have... 14:56 What is it? 14:58 The Freedom from Religion Foundation 15:00 challenging at the Supreme Court level. 15:02 We don't have to make a pretense 15:03 we're a religious country the same way as before, 15:05 so that the floodgates are opened. 15:08 And I think this desperation of the right wing, 15:10 you're right, 15:11 it's not just the left wing feeling threatened. 15:14 That's what makes it dangerous. 15:15 I believe they think this is their last good chance. 15:19 And I know the military also in the late 80s, 15:23 when the Berlin Wall came down. I used to listen. 15:26 I listened to a lot and read a lot too. 15:28 They were really disillusioned and afraid 15:33 because their long-term battle plan 15:35 for the fear, 15:37 but plan for full confrontation, 15:40 as McNamara said 10 nuclear bombs per city 15:43 that was their only plan. 15:45 Now with the fragmentation of the enemy, what do you do? 15:48 And we suddenly, we have a king of the hill 15:51 and here is China rising. 15:53 So the planners have known for simple reality 15:56 we have maybe 15:57 or we had maybe 20, 30 years max 15:59 to order the world 16:00 as we weren't before it comes in 16:02 and crowds us in a way that we can hardly imagine. 16:05 And I think that's easily translatable 16:08 to the attitude of the voting blocks 16:10 and the right wing in particular, 16:11 they're mostly good people, 16:14 but and they think a good cause, 16:16 they've embraced even a horrible mentality 16:19 that anything is worth it, no matter how they go about it, 16:22 since their cause is just as good. 16:24 And I'll end with before the break 16:28 with one example 16:29 that I have shared before on this program, 16:31 but to me it was the most telling thing possible. 16:33 I remember on a television program, 16:36 Jerry Falwell, 16:38 the late Jerry Falwell, 16:39 and Al Sharpton were on a TV program together, 16:44 being interviewed, and I forget what program, 16:47 but the topic they got onto was anti-abortion, 16:50 which they shared in common 16:51 and was everything was hunky-dory. 16:53 Then Sharpton 16:55 got on to inner city justice and so on. 16:58 And Falwell was obviously bothered 17:01 'cause this was off message. 17:02 So it turned to him and there was not reps prelude, 17:05 no prelude at all. 17:06 That's exactly what he said, he turned to him and he said, 17:08 "If you believe that, 17:09 he says you are not a Christian, 17:11 you are not an American, 17:12 you are a terrorist sympathizer." 17:14 And that makes my blood run cold 17:16 because I know what we do to terrorist sympathizers. 17:18 Yeah. 17:20 I mean, there's Guantanamo, you disappear no, 17:22 no legal protections or whatever. 17:23 And he meant that rhetorically, but, you know, 17:26 someone with intelligence and, you know, 17:28 in the moment of the heat of discussing can say it, 17:31 but you filter down to with 17:32 the foot soldiers of political action. 17:35 They don't filter it, they act on it. 17:36 Yeah. 17:38 It's strong words 17:41 to call someone terrorist sympathizers. 17:42 Unjustified. Unjustified. 17:44 Yeah, very unjustified. 17:45 But that's the context. 17:47 So we'll discuss it after a break. 17:49 Please stay with us and we'll talk a little bit 17:50 of more about the dynamic 17:52 as we come into a major election season. 17:56 Stay with us. |
Revised 2020-06-25