Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is a program designed
to bring you news, views
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and up-to-date insights on
religious liberty 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 Elder or Pastor Alden Ho.
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You're a man of the world,
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born in Singapore
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and lived in
Canada and now pastoring,
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have been pastoring in Texas,
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the center of the world, right?
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Jefferson, Texas, head
a self supporting academy,
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Jefferson Academy there.
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You know, this is
an interesting time
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we live in.
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In fact, very exciting to me.
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Very crazy, yeah.
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You know there's times
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when I think
about my bank balance,
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so what I'm gonna do next year,
I'm getting some of the shakes.
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But as someone who loves history
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and just following
current events and so on,
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it's amazing.
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I've seen for a
while but I'm more and more
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reading from commentators
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that it's like
histories in fast motion,
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things that would take decades
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or longer to work
out in one new cycle
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or the other can produce them.
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And at the moment,
we're in the middle
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of the COVID emergency
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which I don't know
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when this program is shown
but likely still within it,
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because I think
another year at least.
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What do you think
though about the...
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It's more or
more in the foreground
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but it started as the
backdrop to the COVID lockdown,
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people started demonstrating,
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there were demonstrations,
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some violence and not just
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from the
demonstrators, police violence.
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It seems to me
evocative of the '60s that
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I remember very
well, 1968 in particular.
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Where do you
think this is leading?
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Is it a dangerous time?
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Is it a time of
opportunity or...
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You know, when we look at this,
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the times have
certainly changed.
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I mean, very much
changed because I remember,
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I think it was the
'50s when this came out,
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Andy Griffith Show,
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when Andy
Griffith and Barney Fife,
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you know, they were
dressed in their tan khakis.
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Police don't
dress that way anymore.
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Everything is in
a military format.
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They've gone very much militia.
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The times in which we're
living is very visible in
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how they're
dressing, how we react,
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what they're doing,
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how we react to
what they're doing,
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and it just
constantly goes back and forth.
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The value of life
has changed dramatically
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in that time period.
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And I think that
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they've taken
their positions to in
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what they were to protect
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and serve has taken on
a different level as well.
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You know, you're
making generalizations
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and, of course,
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there's wonderful
exceptions in these.
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Sure.
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Maybe it's a
stretch, but I think
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there's some sort of
may be very scattered
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around the US, you know.
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There are exactly for sure.
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But generally speaking,
no, the US law enforcement,
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even before I
arrived as a teenager
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had sort of morphed into...
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Now it's militaristic,
but it had already morphed
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into sort of a wider
type operation versus
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I read in Liberty on
this the other day verses
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what still somewhat
exists say in England, you know,
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the bobby and on
his local beating,
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and he's not
likely to have a gun
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or use it if he has one.
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The US policing
is long been a law
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and order brute force often
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and now it's
turned sort of toxic
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and, yeah, there's many ways
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you can track not
just the militarization,
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the hand me down of
military technology,
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it's, you can see it physically
moving into law enforcement.
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Local law
enforcement specifically.
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Yes and riot gear and so on.
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I remember 20 some years ago
I spent a week in Metro-Dade,
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with the Metro-Dade
Police in Miami doing a film.
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And they took me out on
the SWAT team operations
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and on the helicopters
and I could see then already,
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it's pretty heavy stuff.
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You know, when the
team comes in an armored car
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and they hooks a
chain to your front door,
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rips it off, then they
go in with sonar shotguns.
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That's heavy stuff. Yeah.
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It's not going to
get better either.
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No. Certainly not.
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We're at the
time period right now
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in this world's
history that it's only going to
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progressively
get worse and worse.
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Yeah.
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And what's scary is,
as our rights are fizzling
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and disappearing,
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they continue to walk
forward with this, over those.
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And you can see how it's coming.
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I don't think in
every regard anywhere,
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but particularly in the US
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is a grand master
plan for repression.
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I mean, some people may have it,
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but I don't think so.
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I think we're sort of on
a tumbling series of events,
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sort of suck everyone
into this inevitability
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and, you know,
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with the present
president of the US,
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I think he got caught in his own
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law and order sort of mantra
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that sort of scared most people,
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you know, flash-bang grenades
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and force
outside the White House
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for a group of people
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that were almost there
just to wave to the king.
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That's not a criticism,
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that's an
allusion to in England,
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you know, I've
set out front of...
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I've stood out
front of Buckingham Palace
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a few times to see
the grin of the guards
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and hope to see
a real personage.
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You know, there's a flatter
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that the people get
outside the leader's home
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and whether it's a
king or a president.
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I think people are not as ready
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as they might be in other places
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to hurl insults or whatever.
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And I think it's
very sad commentary on
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where we are that the
violence was used right up
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front of the White House.
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Very dangerous. Yeah.
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And I live in
the Washington area
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and one of my first remembrances
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of Washington in 1968,
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like I was only two
years into the country.
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I saw Washington burning
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when Martin
Luther King was killed.
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Most major cities in
the US went up in smokes
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and the nation's
capital was a massive riot.
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We lived about the
time about maybe 12 miles
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in a straight line from downtown
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and the pall of smoke coming
up from the city was massive.
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And tens of thousands
of national guard in jeeps
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and all the rest,
police with the tape
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across the window in riot gear,
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it was a city under siege.
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We're not back there yet.
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So that's, it's a roundabout way
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to say this is a bad situation,
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but I don't equate it
with the incipient breakdown
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of all of the
models of society in '68.
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It was a dangerous time.
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But you said a key word.
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We're not at that yet.
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Now, we're heading that way.
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But it's very
quickly coming this way.
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Right.
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And it might be in a
couple of months' time.
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You don't know
things are moving quick.
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Yeah.
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So, this is the time to stand up
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and be candid, right?
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This is the time
period to actually get out
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of the cities right now.
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Well, yeah, we've talked about
on another program, of course.
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It comes from a
theological point
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as Seventh-day Adventists,
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but I think it's just practical.
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You don't want
to be in harm's way.
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No, certainly not.
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Few years ago, I
was in Buenos Aires,
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and we were staying
at a hotel right downtown
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and I noticed the
traffic at all stopped
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and there were
thousands of demonstrators
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banging on tin
cans and all the rest
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and they pretty much
shut down the inner city
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and I got that same feeling,
we're in a danger zone here.
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And then I connected
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that as we've
driven to the hotel,
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we'd seen the
military and the generals
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and that with their
cockets on their hat,
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all out front of the
military headquarters.
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So there was something brewing.
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I don't know it was a coup.
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But it just reminded me,
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these big cities
get disturbed with that,
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there's no question.
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And what happens
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when they get more
and more disturbed?
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I think that
there's, with all of this,
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people are
sitting at home right now.
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They're sheltering in place
through all this COVID stuff.
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And I think there's
a lot of pent up anger
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that happens as a
result of that too.
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And we see a lot of the
writing and all that too.
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So, again, to take it
back to religious liberty.
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Yeah.
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Do we just bide that time
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when in a cascading
loss of different freedoms
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and liberties of movement even,
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then we might fight
to retain civil liberty
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or religious liberty
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when civil
liberties are drifting.
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Do we take steps
now? Do we say things?
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Do we speak about
our faith at a time
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when it might seem
people only want to hear about,
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you know, the
latest social issue?
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I don't know that you
and I can give the answer,
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but these are huge questions
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that each person in these
times must ask themselves.
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You know, as I
think about this process,
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when is the time
period to speak up?
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When is the time
period not to speak up?
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Well, we know right now that
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the movement is kind
of hostile out there.
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And then it's
going to move into,
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back to people sheltering place
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as this possible
second wave of COVID hits.
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But as these things
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continue to come
out for us there,
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I mean, let me put it this way.
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There's a black and
there's a white area.
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We want to definitely stay
in the white area with this,
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we don't want to
go into the black.
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But what Satan is doing in
these last times, I believe,
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is he's taking that
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white and black area
and stretching it out.
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So that now we have 1000
different shades of grey.
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And you could be on gray.
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I mean, the thing I
find that's interesting is,
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if you take black paint
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and you drop one drop
of white paint into that,
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it has no change.
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But if you take white paint
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and you drop one
drop of black in there,
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it changes it forever.
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Think about what you
believe as a Christian today.
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What you believe as
the Seventh-day Adventist?
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Is that being tainted
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by what is
happening all around us today?
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Is there a black drop
going inside the paint?
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Well, the load is tainted.
The loaded word is tainted.
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I think it's axiomatic
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that we're affected by
everything that happens.
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So it's that tainting,
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is that
diverting, is it blinding?
00:11:00.96\00:11:03.49
Now, these are, I guess,
mixing the metaphor a bit,
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but you need to
discuss what effect, I mean,
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what, what's the follow
on to the obvious effect?
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We're not untouched
by event surrounding us.
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No, certainly not.
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We're product of
them, if anything.
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But those events shape
us, those events mold us.
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Those events push us,
either closer to Christ
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or actually
further away from Christ.
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And if you don't have a
stance, you will be moved.
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Now, and you're getting
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to what's troubling me a bit now
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about some of my fellow
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Seventh-day
Adventist Christians,
00:11:37.39\00:11:38.73
you know, you could
make it about any group,
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it's not an
indictment of Christians,
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not an indictment of Adventist
much as people of faith.
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In the COVID era, we've
all gone to our burrows.
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We've done
nothing, doing little,
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very little church activity.
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My son is involved
in our local church
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with something that's wonderful.
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They have a food bank
drive-thru food giveaway
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at the church once a week
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and he's been
helping with it, you know,
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that's a
practical church activity,
00:12:04.82\00:12:06.22
but very little is happening
other than that sort of thing.
00:12:06.25\00:12:11.39
So you're doing nothing but yet,
00:12:11.43\00:12:13.43
I know of some
fellow members already
00:12:13.46\00:12:17.97
who have been out demonstrating.
00:12:18.00\00:12:20.80
Well, that's not wrong.
00:12:20.84\00:12:22.67
I mean, they're
demonstrating in a good cause,
00:12:22.70\00:12:24.04
but how come
00:12:24.07\00:12:25.41
they weren't
demonstrating for their faith?
00:12:25.44\00:12:28.08
They've backed off on religion.
00:12:28.11\00:12:30.35
And now when it seems
that the crowd wants to do it,
00:12:30.38\00:12:33.98
they're demonstrating
with the crowd on a good cause,
00:12:34.02\00:12:36.58
but not the cause.
00:12:36.62\00:12:38.82
That's a good question.
00:12:38.85\00:12:41.29
And it is not the
matter of right or wrong,
00:12:41.32\00:12:42.99
but it could uncover
some skewed perspective.
00:12:43.02\00:12:47.06
But technically
it is a question of
00:12:47.10\00:12:49.00
right and wrong.
00:12:49.03\00:12:50.37
It's not right and wrong.
00:12:50.40\00:12:51.73
It's still a
question of left or right,
00:12:51.77\00:12:55.37
black or white,
not on a race issue,
00:12:55.40\00:12:57.91
but it has to do with
where you stand today.
00:12:57.94\00:13:00.64
Because if you're
willing to die on one hill,
00:13:00.68\00:13:04.18
why did you not die on,
00:13:04.21\00:13:05.71
willing to die on another hill
00:13:05.75\00:13:07.35
that think that the truth is on.
00:13:07.38\00:13:08.72
Very well, or let's get back
00:13:08.75\00:13:10.62
to early Adventist history
00:13:10.65\00:13:13.59
at the time our
church was organized,
00:13:13.62\00:13:16.62
and Ellen White
and the other pioneers.
00:13:16.66\00:13:21.43
Early on, they
didn't really expect
00:13:21.46\00:13:22.86
to found a separate church.
00:13:22.90\00:13:24.23
They were Christians who,
00:13:24.27\00:13:25.60
some of them were Methodists,
00:13:25.63\00:13:26.97
some Baptists and that,
00:13:27.00\00:13:28.34
they had a unique
concern for the second,
00:13:28.37\00:13:31.67
imminent second
coming of Christ,
00:13:31.71\00:13:33.21
but once they were
ejected from those churches
00:13:33.24\00:13:35.58
for their activity,
00:13:35.61\00:13:36.95
they needed to form together
and they had an organization.
00:13:36.98\00:13:41.55
And they formed that
church at the time of the...
00:13:41.58\00:13:44.22
as the American
Civil War was breaking up.
00:13:44.25\00:13:48.26
And there were several
reasons that contributed to it.
00:13:48.29\00:13:51.46
But the overriding more and more
00:13:51.49\00:13:53.29
contentious issue was slavery.
00:13:53.33\00:13:55.60
And Ellen White, I
think speaking of truism,
00:13:55.63\00:13:58.63
but she had
sort of the authority
00:13:58.67\00:14:00.20
as the visionary in the church.
00:14:00.24\00:14:01.57
She said that God's punishment
was resting on the south
00:14:01.60\00:14:04.54
for its embrace of
slavery of the institution.
00:14:04.57\00:14:07.91
So, this was a real moral cast.
00:14:07.94\00:14:10.65
So here a country goes to
war, Civil War, Conscription
00:14:10.68\00:14:14.58
right, left and center.
00:14:14.62\00:14:16.79
That was precisely the moment
00:14:16.82\00:14:18.59
that Adventist
decided to be non-combatants
00:14:18.62\00:14:21.02
and not fight in that war.
00:14:21.06\00:14:22.56
Very interesting thing.
00:14:22.59\00:14:25.59
And not quite the
same as what's happening
00:14:25.63\00:14:27.40
with Black Lives Matter with,
00:14:27.43\00:14:29.06
but people are reacting
to a huge injustice that
00:14:29.10\00:14:31.80
you can track
it all the way back
00:14:31.83\00:14:33.44
to before the Civil
War, but of the same ilk.
00:14:33.47\00:14:36.74
But yet, I don't think
00:14:36.77\00:14:38.27
we're called to break down
00:14:38.31\00:14:39.91
the barricades
just for that one issue.
00:14:39.94\00:14:43.38
We need to take a
break now and mull it over.
00:14:43.41\00:14:45.75
We will continue the
discussion after a break.
00:14:45.78\00:14:48.55
Stay with us.
00:14:48.58\00:14:49.92