Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI200485A
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00:27 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:28 This is the program designed to bring you information, 00:32 news, analysis and perspectives on religious liberty. 00:37 My name is Lincoln Steed, 00:39 I'm editor of Liberty Magazine, 00:41 and I want to take you back to a time in American history 00:45 that I can just barely remember 00:47 was when I arrived as a teenager 00:49 in the US from Australia. 00:51 But it's a time that informs a lot of what's going on today. 00:56 You know, many cities in the United States 00:58 have been the scenes of social unrest, 01:04 civil unrest, even some violence, 01:08 certainly of police actions 01:10 and smoke grenades, 01:14 flashbang grenades 01:16 and perspex shields 01:18 and the whole game of riot control. 01:24 Young man was manhandled by the police, 01:30 and they knelt on his neck 01:31 for an inordinate amount of time, and he died. 01:35 That was one of the main catalysts 01:37 of this reaction. 01:38 But I, as someone that lives 01:42 here, an observer, with another context 01:46 coming from another country, I think it's a little greater. 01:50 From the get go, the US which was a society, 01:56 particularly in the south, based on slaveholding, 01:59 encouraged a sort of them versus us mentality, 02:03 a class divide that makes what exists, 02:08 and it still exists in England, the difference between 02:11 the aristocracy and the landed class, 02:14 and the educated class and the poor working class, 02:16 it makes that look nothing, 02:18 when you put in the divide 02:20 between the slave population and the free, 02:24 and they're elements of superiority. 02:27 And even though the Civil War is way in the rearview mirror, 02:31 many of the attitudes and dynamics 02:33 that inform that era have never passed. 02:36 I know, for most people 02:39 in the Western world looking at the US, 02:41 they think policing in the US 02:42 is still sort of like a plantation control mechanism, 02:46 where you have the armed vigilantes 02:48 with police badges. 02:50 I'm drawing a broad thing 02:52 because there are many wonderful police obviously. 02:54 But as a force, it's an armed group 02:59 that resort to violence 03:00 inordinately quick versus in England. 03:03 I know it's still, it's somewhat of a cliche, 03:05 but in England, you know, the bobby used to be unarmed, 03:08 would go around the neighborhood whistling 03:10 and blow his whistle, literally, 03:12 if something happened and chase on foot, 03:15 rare even to this day, 03:17 say in England for a policeman to be shot, 03:19 not so rare in the US, 03:21 because violence is the preferred 03:24 form of control. 03:26 And so in the middle of the pandemic, 03:28 when people are frustrated 03:29 which in my view is sort of the rough equivalent 03:32 of a hot summer day, 03:34 and the times of racial rioting in the inner cities, 03:38 you could almost tell it by the weather, 03:40 people's frustration would bubble up. 03:42 We've accomplished the same thing 03:44 by bottling people up in their homes 03:46 and neighborhoods with little or no work 03:49 and not much to do and restrictions on travel. 03:52 And then something like this happens. 03:56 I think we should look back on the civil rights era, 03:59 which was a pivotal time in American history 04:02 and turned out quite well really, 04:06 it could have been sort of a civil war, 04:10 but it turned into a civil rights movement. 04:13 Many laws were changed. 04:15 Men's hearts may not have been changed greatly. 04:18 But we've advanced a long way even though 04:20 it appears in the current thing that we're going back to it. 04:23 Martin Luther King was a galvanizing figure, 04:29 you know, his like will not come along very often, 04:31 if ever again. 04:33 And recently I went back 04:35 and looked at some of his sermons. 04:38 And the reason I did so is because in Liberty magazine, 04:43 we did a feature on John Lewis, 04:48 who died just about the time this came out. 04:51 Very close. 04:53 He died a few days after this went to press. 04:57 But on the cover, we have a picture of John Lewis 05:00 with Presidents Obama and Bush, 05:04 and many family members 05:06 and other administration officials, 05:08 joining John Lewis for a walk, 05:12 again, across the Lewis, is it Pettus Bridge, 05:17 where they, in the civil rights era, 05:20 a group of them holding, you know, arms linked, 05:25 marched into the face of baton wielding whip. 05:31 You know, again, the plantation model 05:33 that the police had whips, horse whips, dogs, 05:36 and everything else that they could bring to bear. 05:39 I don't think on that occasion they use water cannon, 05:41 but that was water hoses that 05:43 that was often part of the picture. 05:45 And they marched into that, 05:47 that group determined to stop them 05:49 crossing the bridge. 05:51 And as John Lewis said, "We expected to die." 05:54 And he was beaten quite severely 05:57 and concussed and lay on the ground, 05:59 while looking at his blood. 06:01 And in later years, looked back on that as a sublime moment, 06:07 where in defense of a high principle, 06:09 not just for a minority black population, 06:13 but for everybody defending the principles of freedom, 06:17 that characterize 06:19 or should characterize a free society 06:21 that honors everything from general civil rights 06:25 through to religious liberty, was a great reminder. 06:29 But I will not forget just a few days ago, 06:32 I had a phone call from a church member. 06:36 Just the minute I picked it up, they were screaming at me, 06:39 "How could you have that evil man on the cover?" 06:42 You talk about President Obama, he did this, he did that. 06:45 Well, I don't particularly think they were right anyway. 06:48 But even if they were right, I said he and President Bush 06:51 are supporting figures they are, 06:55 this is not about them. 06:57 This is about John Lewis 06:59 and his heroic stand for civil liberties. 07:05 I have no apologies 07:06 for featuring this sort of bravery. 07:10 We need more heroes like him. 07:12 He died, John Lewis died of illness in old age. 07:15 But Martin Luther King, his mentor and hero, of course, 07:20 died a long, long time ago 07:21 under an assassin's bullet in 1968, 07:27 the big year that I've often remarked on us, 07:29 everything happened in the US that year. 07:32 And Martin Luther King 07:33 gave a sermon at the National Cathedral, 07:37 just about two weeks 07:41 before he was shot in Memphis. 07:44 And it was entitled, 07:46 "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution." 07:50 And I think it's hardly inappropriate 07:52 to see in our present history, 07:56 the fact that we are in Western society, 07:59 but more particularly in the United States, 08:01 we're in a revolutionary period, 08:04 doesn't mean the government is going to be overthrown. 08:06 That's not the full meaning of revolution. 08:08 But all of the norms that we have life as we knew it, 08:13 understandings that we may have had, 08:15 they're all in play again. 08:18 This is not a settled time. 08:21 And Martin Luther King told the story, 08:25 which is quite quaint in itself. 08:26 So I remember even 08:28 as a kid growing up in Australia, 08:29 I thought it was a great story. 08:30 Rip Van Winkle goes up into the mountains 08:34 and lies down and goes to sleep. 08:37 And as he goes to sleep, King George is king of England, 08:41 King of the colonies, and the anglophile wealth, 08:46 even separated by the Atlantic was his world. 08:49 He was comfortable with it, 08:50 and he slept for a number of years. 08:53 And when he woke up, 08:54 it was President George Washington. 08:57 There'd been a revolution and he knew nothing of it. 09:00 And Martin Luther raises 09:03 that question that we can think about today. 09:05 Is it possible that we are in a revolutionary time, 09:11 but we're sleeping through it? 09:13 That's what's amazing. 09:15 He says of Rip Van Winkle, 09:18 "Yes, he slept through a revolution. 09:20 And one of the great liabilities of life 09:24 is that too many people find themselves 09:28 living amid a great period of social change. 09:31 And yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, 09:35 the new mental responses that the new situation demands, 09:38 they end up sleeping through a revolution. 09:41 There can be no gainsaying" says Martin Luther King, 09:44 "that a great revolution 09:46 is taking place in the world today. 09:49 We live in a period when changes are taking place, 09:52 and there is still the voice 09:54 crying through the vestige of times saying 09:58 'Behold, I make all things new, 10:01 former things are passed away.'" 10:05 And what he was trying to introduce is that 10:08 the Christian dynamic is itself revolutionary. 10:12 And we often have to decide, 10:14 are we going to be caught up in the cycle of disruption 10:19 that civil revolutions 10:21 and societal revolutions might evolve? 10:23 And yet, we could do that 10:26 at the risk of losing our moorings 10:27 on spiritual values, greater values, greater values. 10:31 The challenges of history must be answered. 10:36 We do have to answer the challenge. 10:38 There's no question. 10:39 Further on in that sermon, 10:41 Martin Luther King got to something 10:44 that I've heard preachers say from time to time, 10:46 but it was most apropos during this presentation. 10:49 He said this, "One day, 10:51 we will have to stand before the God of history. 10:55 And we will talk in terms of things we've done. 10:59 I don't know I'm further along than I ever thought. 11:02 And a few times I thought, what will I tell God? 11:05 Or what could I tell myself that 11:06 I've done in life that can be rather a frustrating exercise, 11:11 because, in retrospect, many of what many of the things 11:15 that we do don't seem so important, 11:17 but of course magnified by service to God, 11:20 they might be pivotal to great things. 11:23 But he says, you know what have we done? 11:26 And he says, "Yes, we'll be able to say, 11:28 we built gargantuan bridges to span the seas." 11:33 I don't know what bridge he was talking about. 11:35 But I noticed the other day that the Chinese government 11:38 offered to build a tunnel from China to Taiwan for free. 11:43 And Taiwan turned it down. 11:45 To me, it was a wonderful statement of ability. 11:49 Can they do that? 11:50 That's 100 miles, 11:52 I think it's a huge stretch span. 11:55 But he says we build gigantic buildings 11:57 to kiss the skies. 12:00 He was probably thinking 12:01 of something like the Twin Towers down now. 12:04 He says, "Yes, we made our submarines 12:06 to penetrate ocean depths. 12:09 We brought into being many other things 12:12 with our scientific and technological power." 12:15 It seems that I can hear the God of history 12:17 saying that was not enough. 12:21 "But I was hungry, and he fed me not. 12:23 I was naked and you clothed me not. 12:26 I was devoid of a decent sanitary house to live in, 12:29 and you provided no shelter for me. 12:32 And consequently, 12:33 ye cannot enter the kingdom of greatness. 12:36 If you do it under the least of these my brethren, 12:39 you do it unto Me." 12:40 That's the question facing America today. 12:44 Big moral question. 12:47 At the end of the sermon, he said, 12:49 "There comes a time when one must take the position 12:53 that is neither safe nor politic, 12:56 nor popular, but he must do it, 12:58 because conscience tells him it's right. 13:02 That's lacking today. 13:03 The conviction to do what's right, 13:07 no matter, you know, what might happen, 13:09 whether the heavens falls, it says. 13:11 I believe today, he said that 13:12 there is a need for all people of goodwill to come 13:16 with a massive act of conscience 13:18 and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 13:21 we ain't going to study war no more. 13:24 And that is the challenge facing modern man. 13:27 In another program, I mentioned attending 13:31 a service of a large non-denominational, 13:34 I think it's non-denominational church 13:35 in Los Angeles that's meeting 13:39 against COVID restrictions, 13:41 and you can defend or attack them on that. 13:43 But on the matter of conviction, undeniable. 13:47 They're doing what they think is right. 13:49 And I heard or read 13:52 at the same time about its pastor. 13:55 He went to a Bible college 13:57 where they were training ministers 13:58 and he said this to them, he says, "Just remember," 14:01 he said, "You are not studying to change the world. 14:05 You are studying to change lives." 14:08 And I think Martin Luther King, 14:11 of course named after Martin Luther, 14:13 the great reformer. 14:14 I think Martin Luther King 14:16 was threading that same dynamic. 14:19 You can't say that you're unconcerned 14:22 with good housing and good policing 14:25 and all those things, 14:26 but the real aim is to change lives, 14:29 to change attitudes toward other human beings. 14:32 You know, if you think 14:34 you're going to change the world here and now, 14:36 you're headed down a sort of a rabbit's warren 14:39 of impossibilities. 14:41 In the early Adventist Church, 14:46 which was not so far ago, there were many disputes. 14:50 And one of the biggest disputes was at the time 14:52 when in the US political scene they were discussing 14:57 whether or not to be on a gold standard 15:00 or a silver standard. 15:01 You know, we're on the no standard now. 15:03 It's made-up money. 15:05 But it used to be gold based, 15:07 I can still remember when on the dollar bill, 15:10 it would say you could redeem that 15:11 for a dollars' worth of gold. 15:13 Doesn't say that now. It's monopoly money. 15:16 And if you think it's money, it works as money. 15:19 But there was a huge debate. 15:20 And I, one of the great speeches 15:22 in American history 15:24 was William Jennings Bryan and his cross of gold speech. 15:27 Well, the church membership were not immune to this 15:31 and big disputes broke out 15:34 in the men among the membership, 15:36 whether we should be on the gold standard 15:38 or the silver standard. 15:39 And preachers were preaching sermons arguing 15:42 for one or the other, 15:44 there were disputes in church meetings. 15:46 And Ellen White, the co-founder of the church 15:49 and visionary recognized 15:51 as being inspired of God at various times. 15:56 She had a lot to say on this. 15:57 And she said several times, she said very plainly, 16:00 any minister, or any teacher, 16:03 and they were the two main positions 16:05 in the church at that time. 16:06 She says, "Any minister or teacher is involved 16:09 in party politics must resign or be fired." 16:14 And I do believe that to be involved 16:17 in partisan political matters 16:19 is not forbidden to a Christian. 16:21 But to mix that with Christian responsibility 16:25 and interchange is very wrong, 16:27 because it shows that you don't understand 16:31 what that pastor told to ministers. 16:33 It shows that you're trying to change the world, 16:36 and not accepting Jesus challenge 16:38 to change lives. 16:40 Remember, Jesus called 16:41 the disciples to be fishers of men, 16:44 to follow Him, to bring in souls to, 16:46 to point them to the kingdom, 16:49 to suit them for an eternal life. 16:51 And in so changing and suiting people 16:54 for that eternal reality, 16:57 of course, they should be better citizens. 16:59 But if you're determined 17:01 to change the world here and now, 17:04 you enter into the line of the Lenins and the Stalins 17:07 and the, you know, 17:09 the communist insurgents and other, 17:11 Al Qaeda for that matter. 17:12 Any number of people that have taken up the sword, 17:15 as Peter briefly did, 17:17 taking up the sword thinking that 17:19 by slicing off the ear of, you know, 17:22 false government official or a false government, 17:24 you somehow advance the kingdom of God, not so. 17:29 And, you know, I do admire Martin Luther King. 17:32 His non-violence, 17:34 because violence was in the air at the time, 17:36 but he turned down 17:39 some of the black revolutionaries 17:41 who were determined to fight fire with fire 17:44 and they would have been consumed by it. 17:47 And his largely non-violent approach shamed 17:51 a community of the time into granting freedoms 17:54 that they probably already knew needed to be granted. 17:57 Let's just take a break for a moment. 17:58 I'll be back to continue 17:59 this interesting line of comparison 18:02 and description of a great time in American history. |
Revised 2021-01-22