Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI200482B
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00:01 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:02 Before the break, I was reading from an interesting article 00:06 in Liberty Magazine from 1914, 00:09 on the Constitution. 00:13 And as you would, 00:14 I think, expect Seventh-day Adventist Christians 00:18 putting this together 00:19 were very concerned for the protection 00:22 of Christianity 00:23 and with an awareness of the Seventh-day Sabbath, 00:25 very concerned to protect that right, 00:28 that doctrinal uniqueness, 00:31 and not allow the Constitution 00:33 or those claiming to act within it 00:37 to be used to advance 00:39 or restrict any religious practice. 00:42 So let me just share a few more paragraphs. 00:44 It says, "The observance of a day of rest 00:46 is a religious act. 00:48 It is a duty between the individual and God 00:51 and this duty can be directed only by," 00:54 and they're quoting here, 00:55 "reason and conviction not by force or violence. 00:59 As a free people that says we should view with alarm, 01:02 the fact that Congress 01:03 is continually besieged with petitions 01:07 requesting the enactment of laws 01:09 favoring the observance of Sunday." 01:13 Liberty Magazine itself goes back to 1906, 01:18 I think was the year that we began publishing, 01:21 I wasn't alive then. 01:23 Began publishing Liberty Magazine. 01:26 But it was a continuum of a periodical 01:28 that was previously named the Sentinel, 01:32 Sentinel of Liberty, 01:34 edited by Alonzo T. Jones. 01:36 And in 1888, 01:39 he and the Adventist Church 01:41 and a few other civil organizations 01:45 and a few churches objected to a proposal 01:48 before the US Senate for a national Sunday law. 01:53 And it nearly passed. 01:54 And you can go online and read it. 01:56 It's quite horrific, 01:57 because it mandates 01:59 the ceasing of all secular activity 02:03 under punishment of law, 02:06 and directs all people 02:08 to worship the Lord on that day. 02:09 That's a Sunday law. 02:12 Might have given some sort of 02:14 sanctimonious religiosity to the state, 02:17 but it was against the principles of civil 02:19 and religious freedom. 02:22 And that was defeated at that time, 02:24 but it really laid its mark on the Sentinel of Liberty, 02:29 and then Liberty Magazine as it began, 02:31 and at various time since there have been attempts. 02:35 And there are continuing organizations 02:38 that have that as they go. 02:39 I can remember many years ago now in my life, 02:43 but not long in the great stream 02:45 of Liberty Magazine. 02:46 But maybe about 15 years ago, 02:50 I sat next to a major conservative leader, 02:53 I won't name him, 02:55 and I have great respect for him, 02:56 but a leader in the conservative movement. 02:59 Had a media ministry and so on. 03:01 And he said to me, 03:02 when I introduced myself, he says, 03:04 "You Seventh-day Adventists think that 03:05 I'm bringing the Sunday law, don't you?" 03:08 And I said, "No, I don't think that you are, 03:11 but I said much of what you're involved with 03:13 has that as its natural consequence." 03:17 And there are some 03:19 who openly are pushing for both Sunday legislation 03:23 and other legislation, 03:25 slated forms of their religious doctrinal outline. 03:28 And so we need to guard against that, 03:30 not because they're bad people, but they're misguided. 03:33 And if the goal of religion is to change the hearts of men, 03:38 if the goal of religion is to prepare the way 03:40 for the kingdom, eternal kingdom of the Lord, 03:43 surely it should be the most logical thing 03:46 that coercion of unregenerate people 03:50 is hardly the way to go about it. 03:53 It's using the devil's methods in a vain hope 03:56 that it will bring about the kingdom of God. 04:00 It says here, 04:01 continuing on this article, 04:04 it says, "Sunday is not a civil but a religious institution 04:08 and is therefore beyond the purview 04:09 of the civil power. 04:11 Let Congress legislate but once upon the question, 04:14 and the step will be followed by disastrous consequences." 04:18 And then quoting from a Senate report in 1829, 04:22 it says, 04:23 "Let the national legislature once perform an act, 04:26 which involves the decision of a religious controversy 04:29 and it will have passed its legitimate bounds. 04:31 The precedent will then be established 04:33 and the foundation laid 04:35 for the usurpation of the divine prerogative 04:38 in this country, 04:40 which has been the desolating scourge 04:42 of the fairest portions of the old world." 04:44 Should be obvious 04:46 that the experiment of religious coercion 04:48 didn't work. 04:49 And not just the Spanish Inquisition 04:51 but other attempts. 04:53 You know, the St. Bartholomew's Day 04:56 Massacre in France comes to mind, 04:59 horrible things 05:00 where church and state were mixed 05:02 and bloodshed followed. 05:06 The absence, 05:07 and this is another quote from a book Church and State, 05:11 says, "The absence of the names of God and Christ 05:14 in a purely political and legal document 05:16 no more proves denial or irreverence 05:20 than the absence of those names in a mathematical treatise, 05:23 or the statutes of a bank or railroad corporation." 05:26 Much has been made of that, 05:27 both the absence and the slight 05:30 in the year of our Lord 05:32 like that religious acknowledgement. 05:36 It says, "The title holiness does not make the Pope of Rome 05:40 any holier than he is. 05:42 And it makes the contradiction only 05:44 more glaring in such characters as Alexander VI." 05:48 It says, "We may go further and say 05:49 that the Constitution not only contains nothing 05:52 which is irreligious or un-Christian, 05:54 but it's Christian in substance, 05:56 they're not informed, 05:57 it is pervaded by the spirit of justice 06:00 and humanity." 06:01 Things that are being argued about 06:04 and demonstrated for, 06:06 as never before in the United States, 06:09 which are Christian, it says, these are Christian principles. 06:11 The First Amendment could not have originated 06:14 in any pagan or Mohammedan country, 06:16 but presupposes 06:18 Christian civilization and culture. 06:20 Christianity alone has taught men 06:23 to respect the sacredness of the human personality, 06:26 as made in the image of God and redeemed by Christ, 06:30 and to protect its rights and privileges, 06:32 including the freedom of worship 06:34 against the encroachments of the temporal power, 06:37 and the absolutism of the state." 06:40 You know, these are powerful words 06:42 from the past. 06:43 And, you know, I want to repeat these now, 06:46 because we have forgotten them. 06:48 These were the trumpet cries, 06:52 through most of the history of the United States, 06:56 reiterating these with the Constitution 06:59 as evidence, 07:01 that of itself 07:03 that it was not to meddle in religion. 07:07 Let me conclude with one more statement here 07:09 that I saw earlier, which was good. 07:11 It says, "The publishers of liberty protest 07:15 against Congress making any law respecting religion." 07:20 In other words, we uphold the First Amendment. 07:22 "They do this because they are Christians, 07:24 because they love religion in the nation, 07:27 and do not wish to see the ship of state 07:29 wrecked upon the rocks 07:31 of the union of church and state. 07:33 Let our constitutional liberties remain 07:35 in violet. 07:39 That's worth remembering now. 07:43 I intend in another program to talk about 07:45 the dynamic that's emerged 07:47 during the COVID emergency 07:50 where it's not said in so many words, 07:54 but given that, 07:56 to gather together in churches 07:58 is to sort of invite contagion. 08:01 And the syllogism has drawn that 08:03 therefore religion is antithetical 08:05 to the survival of a free society. 08:07 It's not good. It's not a good dynamic at all. 08:10 Religion is important to our personal life. 08:14 And it was so important 08:15 that the Constitution was designed to protect it 08:18 by leaving it alone, 08:20 not restricting it, 08:22 no law, respecting religion, 08:26 nor prevent the free exercise thereof. 08:30 I mean, that's a wonderful prescription 08:32 for continued religious freedom. 08:35 But how we will maintain that in the years ahead, 08:39 as we have religious diversity on a level that, 08:43 you know, we grant almost semi profit status 08:45 to the founders or the framers of the American Constitution, 08:49 but they were mere men. 08:51 I am sure they could never have imagined 08:54 the religious diversity 08:57 and, of course, the diversity of those who are informed 08:59 not by faith or tradition, but by "science," 09:04 which often means a sense of rationality 09:09 by people who are not rational, 09:12 nor always knowledgeable, 09:14 but cynical and suspicious of faith 09:18 absolutes that have come down to us. 09:20 You know how those men could have imagined that never. 09:24 We're in a stressful circumstance 09:26 for the very assumptions that formed the Constitution. 09:30 But we need to cling to that idea 09:33 of a separation of church and state, 09:36 and religion. 09:38 We can work itself out versus the power as Jesus said, 09:41 the powers of hell shall not prevail against it. 09:44 If there is faith on this earth 09:46 and Jesus worried that it would disappear, 09:48 it can take care of itself, 09:50 but let the state decide that it will either support 09:54 or worse oppose religion. 09:56 And either way, a great travesty is enacted. 10:00 It's a privilege for all of us to live in the United States 10:03 where more than most any country 10:05 in modern history, 10:07 the United States is enshrined a great reverence 10:10 for the practice of religious faith. 10:12 And it's worth remembering, 10:13 it is enshrined in the Constitution. 10:16 It is a dynamic of separation. 10:19 And it's so integrally tied to the very survival 10:23 of this great experiment 10:24 that Abraham Lincoln so extolled. 10:27 You know whether it will succeed, 10:29 we need to respect it. |
Revised 2020-11-30