Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI200473A
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00:28 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:30 This is a program designed to bring you news, views 00:32 and up-to-date insights on religious liberty in the US 00:36 and around the world. 00:37 My name is Lincoln Steed, Editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:41 And my guest on this program is Elder or Pastor Alden Ho. 00:46 You're a man of the world, 00:49 born in Singapore 00:51 and lived in Canada and now pastoring, 00:54 have been pastoring in Texas, 00:56 the center of the world, right? 00:58 Jefferson, Texas, head a self supporting academy, 01:03 Jefferson Academy there. 01:05 You know, this is an interesting time 01:07 we live in. 01:08 In fact, very exciting to me. 01:09 Very crazy, yeah. 01:11 You know there's times 01:12 when I think about my bank balance, 01:14 so what I'm gonna do next year, I'm getting some of the shakes. 01:17 But as someone who loves history 01:20 and just following current events and so on, 01:22 it's amazing. 01:24 I've seen for a while but I'm more and more 01:26 reading from commentators 01:28 that it's like histories in fast motion, 01:30 things that would take decades 01:32 or longer to work out in one new cycle 01:34 or the other can produce them. 01:37 And at the moment, we're in the middle 01:38 of the COVID emergency 01:40 which I don't know 01:42 when this program is shown but likely still within it, 01:45 because I think another year at least. 01:49 What do you think though about the... 01:51 It's more or more in the foreground 01:53 but it started as the backdrop to the COVID lockdown, 01:56 people started demonstrating, 01:58 there were demonstrations, 02:01 some violence and not just 02:04 from the demonstrators, police violence. 02:08 It seems to me evocative of the '60s that 02:12 I remember very well, 1968 in particular. 02:16 Where do you think this is leading? 02:18 Is it a dangerous time? 02:19 Is it a time of opportunity or... 02:22 You know, when we look at this, 02:23 the times have certainly changed. 02:25 I mean, very much changed because I remember, 02:29 I think it was the '50s when this came out, 02:31 Andy Griffith Show, 02:33 when Andy Griffith and Barney Fife, 02:35 you know, they were dressed in their tan khakis. 02:40 Police don't dress that way anymore. 02:42 Everything is in a military format. 02:45 They've gone very much militia. 02:48 The times in which we're living is very visible in 02:51 how they're dressing, how we react, 02:55 what they're doing, 02:56 how we react to what they're doing, 02:58 and it just constantly goes back and forth. 03:01 The value of life has changed dramatically 03:06 in that time period. 03:07 And I think that 03:09 they've taken their positions to in 03:12 what they were to protect 03:13 and serve has taken on a different level as well. 03:16 You know, you're making generalizations 03:18 and, of course, 03:19 there's wonderful exceptions in these. 03:21 Sure. 03:22 Maybe it's a stretch, but I think 03:24 there's some sort of may be very scattered 03:26 around the US, you know. 03:28 There are exactly for sure. 03:29 But generally speaking, no, the US law enforcement, 03:33 even before I arrived as a teenager 03:35 had sort of morphed into... 03:38 Now it's militaristic, but it had already morphed 03:40 into sort of a wider type operation versus 03:46 I read in Liberty on this the other day verses 03:48 what still somewhat exists say in England, you know, 03:51 the bobby and on his local beating, 03:53 and he's not likely to have a gun 03:55 or use it if he has one. 03:57 The US policing is long been a law 04:02 and order brute force often 04:06 and now it's turned sort of toxic 04:09 and, yeah, there's many ways 04:10 you can track not just the militarization, 04:13 the hand me down of military technology, 04:15 it's, you can see it physically moving into law enforcement. 04:19 Local law enforcement specifically. 04:21 Yes and riot gear and so on. 04:23 I remember 20 some years ago I spent a week in Metro-Dade, 04:28 with the Metro-Dade Police in Miami doing a film. 04:32 And they took me out on the SWAT team operations 04:34 and on the helicopters and I could see then already, 04:36 it's pretty heavy stuff. 04:38 You know, when the team comes in an armored car 04:41 and they hooks a chain to your front door, 04:44 rips it off, then they go in with sonar shotguns. 04:46 That's heavy stuff. Yeah. 04:49 It's not going to get better either. 04:51 No. Certainly not. 04:52 We're at the time period right now 04:54 in this world's history that it's only going to 04:57 progressively get worse and worse. 04:59 Yeah. 05:01 And what's scary is, as our rights are fizzling 05:05 and disappearing, 05:07 they continue to walk forward with this, over those. 05:10 And you can see how it's coming. 05:12 I don't think in every regard anywhere, 05:15 but particularly in the US 05:16 is a grand master plan for repression. 05:20 I mean, some people may have it, 05:22 but I don't think so. 05:23 I think we're sort of on a tumbling series of events, 05:26 sort of suck everyone into this inevitability 05:29 and, you know, 05:30 with the present president of the US, 05:32 I think he got caught in his own 05:34 law and order sort of mantra 05:35 that sort of scared most people, 05:37 you know, flash-bang grenades 05:39 and force outside the White House 05:41 for a group of people 05:43 that were almost there just to wave to the king. 05:46 That's not a criticism, 05:47 that's an allusion to in England, 05:49 you know, I've set out front of... 05:51 I've stood out front of Buckingham Palace 05:53 a few times to see the grin of the guards 05:55 and hope to see a real personage. 05:58 You know, there's a flatter 06:00 that the people get outside the leader's home 06:03 and whether it's a king or a president. 06:05 I think people are not as ready 06:08 as they might be in other places 06:09 to hurl insults or whatever. 06:11 And I think it's very sad commentary on 06:15 where we are that the violence was used right up 06:17 front of the White House. 06:19 Very dangerous. Yeah. 06:21 And I live in the Washington area 06:23 and one of my first remembrances 06:25 of Washington in 1968, 06:27 like I was only two years into the country. 06:30 I saw Washington burning 06:32 when Martin Luther King was killed. 06:33 Most major cities in the US went up in smokes 06:36 and the nation's capital was a massive riot. 06:42 We lived about the time about maybe 12 miles 06:47 in a straight line from downtown 06:49 and the pall of smoke coming up from the city was massive. 06:52 And tens of thousands of national guard in jeeps 06:57 and all the rest, police with the tape 06:58 across the window in riot gear, 07:01 it was a city under siege. 07:02 We're not back there yet. 07:04 So that's, it's a roundabout way 07:05 to say this is a bad situation, 07:07 but I don't equate it with the incipient breakdown 07:12 of all of the models of society in '68. 07:15 It was a dangerous time. 07:16 But you said a key word. 07:18 We're not at that yet. 07:20 Now, we're heading that way. 07:21 But it's very quickly coming this way. 07:22 Right. 07:24 And it might be in a couple of months' time. 07:26 You don't know things are moving quick. 07:28 Yeah. 07:29 So, this is the time to stand up 07:32 and be candid, right? 07:33 This is the time period to actually get out 07:35 of the cities right now. 07:36 Well, yeah, we've talked about on another program, of course. 07:39 It comes from a theological point 07:42 as Seventh-day Adventists, 07:43 but I think it's just practical. 07:45 You don't want to be in harm's way. 07:46 No, certainly not. 07:48 Few years ago, I was in Buenos Aires, 07:54 and we were staying at a hotel right downtown 07:55 and I noticed the traffic at all stopped 07:58 and there were thousands of demonstrators 08:01 banging on tin cans and all the rest 08:03 and they pretty much shut down the inner city 08:07 and I got that same feeling, we're in a danger zone here. 08:10 And then I connected 08:11 that as we've driven to the hotel, 08:13 we'd seen the military and the generals 08:15 and that with their cockets on their hat, 08:17 all out front of the military headquarters. 08:19 So there was something brewing. 08:21 I don't know it was a coup. 08:23 But it just reminded me, 08:24 these big cities get disturbed with that, 08:27 there's no question. 08:28 And what happens 08:29 when they get more and more disturbed? 08:31 I think that there's, with all of this, 08:34 people are sitting at home right now. 08:37 They're sheltering in place through all this COVID stuff. 08:40 And I think there's a lot of pent up anger 08:43 that happens as a result of that too. 08:45 And we see a lot of the writing and all that too. 08:49 So, again, to take it back to religious liberty. 08:52 Yeah. 08:55 Do we just bide that time 08:59 when in a cascading loss of different freedoms 09:03 and liberties of movement even, 09:06 then we might fight to retain civil liberty 09:08 or religious liberty 09:10 when civil liberties are drifting. 09:12 Do we take steps now? Do we say things? 09:14 Do we speak about our faith at a time 09:17 when it might seem people only want to hear about, 09:20 you know, the latest social issue? 09:23 I don't know that you and I can give the answer, 09:25 but these are huge questions 09:28 that each person in these times must ask themselves. 09:31 You know, as I think about this process, 09:34 when is the time period to speak up? 09:36 When is the time period not to speak up? 09:39 Well, we know right now that 09:40 the movement is kind of hostile out there. 09:44 And then it's going to move into, 09:46 back to people sheltering place 09:48 as this possible second wave of COVID hits. 09:51 But as these things 09:54 continue to come out for us there, 09:57 I mean, let me put it this way. 09:59 There's a black and there's a white area. 10:01 We want to definitely stay in the white area with this, 10:04 we don't want to go into the black. 10:06 But what Satan is doing in these last times, I believe, 10:10 is he's taking that 10:11 white and black area and stretching it out. 10:14 So that now we have 1000 different shades of grey. 10:19 And you could be on gray. 10:21 I mean, the thing I find that's interesting is, 10:24 if you take black paint 10:26 and you drop one drop of white paint into that, 10:29 it has no change. 10:31 But if you take white paint 10:32 and you drop one drop of black in there, 10:34 it changes it forever. 10:37 Think about what you believe as a Christian today. 10:40 What you believe as the Seventh-day Adventist? 10:43 Is that being tainted 10:44 by what is happening all around us today? 10:48 Is there a black drop going inside the paint? 10:50 Well, the load is tainted. The loaded word is tainted. 10:54 I think it's axiomatic 10:57 that we're affected by everything that happens. 10:59 So it's that tainting, 11:00 is that diverting, is it blinding? 11:03 Now, these are, I guess, mixing the metaphor a bit, 11:05 but you need to discuss what effect, I mean, 11:09 what, what's the follow on to the obvious effect? 11:12 We're not untouched by event surrounding us. 11:15 No, certainly not. 11:16 We're product of them, if anything. 11:18 But those events shape us, those events mold us. 11:22 Those events push us, either closer to Christ 11:25 or actually further away from Christ. 11:27 And if you don't have a stance, you will be moved. 11:30 Now, and you're getting 11:32 to what's troubling me a bit now 11:34 about some of my fellow 11:37 Seventh-day Adventist Christians, 11:38 you know, you could make it about any group, 11:40 it's not an indictment of Christians, 11:42 not an indictment of Adventist much as people of faith. 11:46 In the COVID era, we've all gone to our burrows. 11:51 We've done nothing, doing little, 11:52 very little church activity. 11:55 My son is involved in our local church 11:57 with something that's wonderful. 11:59 They have a food bank drive-thru food giveaway 12:02 at the church once a week 12:03 and he's been helping with it, you know, 12:04 that's a practical church activity, 12:06 but very little is happening other than that sort of thing. 12:11 So you're doing nothing but yet, 12:13 I know of some fellow members already 12:18 who have been out demonstrating. 12:20 Well, that's not wrong. 12:22 I mean, they're demonstrating in a good cause, 12:24 but how come 12:25 they weren't demonstrating for their faith? 12:28 They've backed off on religion. 12:30 And now when it seems that the crowd wants to do it, 12:34 they're demonstrating with the crowd on a good cause, 12:36 but not the cause. 12:38 That's a good question. 12:41 And it is not the matter of right or wrong, 12:43 but it could uncover some skewed perspective. 12:47 But technically it is a question of 12:49 right and wrong. 12:50 It's not right and wrong. 12:51 It's still a question of left or right, 12:55 black or white, not on a race issue, 12:57 but it has to do with where you stand today. 13:00 Because if you're willing to die on one hill, 13:04 why did you not die on, 13:05 willing to die on another hill 13:07 that think that the truth is on. 13:08 Very well, or let's get back 13:10 to early Adventist history 13:13 at the time our church was organized, 13:16 and Ellen White and the other pioneers. 13:21 Early on, they didn't really expect 13:22 to found a separate church. 13:24 They were Christians who, 13:25 some of them were Methodists, 13:27 some Baptists and that, 13:28 they had a unique concern for the second, 13:31 imminent second coming of Christ, 13:33 but once they were ejected from those churches 13:35 for their activity, 13:36 they needed to form together and they had an organization. 13:41 And they formed that church at the time of the... 13:44 as the American Civil War was breaking up. 13:48 And there were several reasons that contributed to it. 13:51 But the overriding more and more 13:53 contentious issue was slavery. 13:55 And Ellen White, I think speaking of truism, 13:58 but she had sort of the authority 14:00 as the visionary in the church. 14:01 She said that God's punishment was resting on the south 14:04 for its embrace of slavery of the institution. 14:07 So, this was a real moral cast. 14:10 So here a country goes to war, Civil War, Conscription 14:14 right, left and center. 14:16 That was precisely the moment 14:18 that Adventist decided to be non-combatants 14:21 and not fight in that war. 14:22 Very interesting thing. 14:25 And not quite the same as what's happening 14:27 with Black Lives Matter with, 14:29 but people are reacting to a huge injustice that 14:31 you can track it all the way back 14:33 to before the Civil War, but of the same ilk. 14:36 But yet, I don't think 14:38 we're called to break down 14:39 the barricades just for that one issue. 14:43 We need to take a break now and mull it over. 14:45 We will continue the discussion after a break. 14:48 Stay with us. |
Revised 2020-09-04