Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI210505A
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00:26 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:28 This is a program designed to bring you information, 00:31 analysis and up-to-date facts and figures 00:34 about religious liberty through the ages 00:36 and around the world, mostly in the United States. 00:40 My name is Lincoln Steed. 00:42 I've been editor of Liberty magazine 00:44 for 22 years 00:45 and doing this program for most of that time. 00:49 Usually I have a guest. 00:52 Today I've decided to self guest 00:56 and some of the camera crew here have been 00:58 waggishly suggesting that 01:00 it might be trouble 01:01 if I get into an argument with myself. 01:04 And since I don't get into arguments with the guests, 01:06 I think we'll be fine. 01:08 But I want to share a few things with the viewers. 01:11 And some of you have been with me most of that time, 01:14 for others, you may have just discovered this program. 01:17 And I hope that 01:18 even in discovering this program, 01:20 you've figured out of late that religious freedom, 01:24 civil liberties, religious liberties, 01:27 issues of conscience 01:29 are front and center today. 01:33 I've lived in the US for most of my life, 01:35 but I was born and raised in Australia 01:38 and left there almost at 16. 01:42 I remember turning 16 on the boat coming over. 01:46 There were planes when I was young, my "children" who are, 01:52 one a teen and the other in early 20s, 01:54 but still as their age befits, 01:56 they're a little cynical about their dad. 01:58 And, you know, they might jokingly say, oh, 02:01 "Did they have planes when you were young?" 02:03 When I tell my life story, I sometimes wonder myself 02:07 because we came to the US in a boat, 02:10 there were planes, but it was at that crazy stage cheaper 02:14 to take a British ocean liner in the manner of the Titanic, 02:19 where there was still the classes 02:21 and the lower classes were locked in a separate section, 02:25 it was the old style way of traveling. 02:27 And it was cheaper than traveling in a plane. 02:31 And the jets, even though they existed then 02:34 were not quite capable of doing non-stop flights to Australia 02:37 as they now are. 02:40 The national airline of Australia 02:43 has an Airbus 380 that does a non-stop 02:49 from Dallas, Texas to Sydney, Australia. 02:53 Amazing. 02:55 Although I noticed that if the winds are little off, 02:58 they can't make it and they have to land short 03:00 somewhere else. 03:01 So, I don't like that sort of an idea. 03:03 But when I think back I can remember on the streets, 03:06 outside our house, the horse drawn bread carts, 03:11 there were trucks around and cars, 03:13 but they were still using horse drawn camps 03:15 for certain sales jobs. 03:17 I can remember the men carrying long sticks, 03:21 saplings down the street on their shoulder 03:24 and calling out clothes props. 03:27 Australia's a little behind the US 03:29 although they think ahead, 03:30 because many people would rather hang their clothes out 03:33 to dry to get that fresh smell, rather than an electric dryer. 03:38 So, they had a few, 03:39 but it was still where most people were washing 03:43 maybe by hand, 03:45 certainly with a more simple mechanical ringer arrangement 03:49 and they needed those clothes props. 03:51 Another era, I can remember even as some Americans 03:54 may resonate with the fuller brush man going door to door. 03:58 But what I most remember it stuck in my mind 04:01 as a young person with the issues of conscience. 04:05 I grew up in the aftermath of World War II, 04:08 and the emergence of a... 04:11 What was seen in the west is a global communist threat. 04:15 And as I've gotten older, 04:17 I think a lot of it was political hype. 04:21 It wasn't made up, but it was twisted in ways 04:23 that were only just understanding 04:25 that a Russia per se, the Soviet Union, 04:28 I don't think now was ever a direct military threat to us. 04:32 It certainly was not likely 04:34 to momentarily visit on us. 04:37 What in the newspapers in Australia 04:39 would regularly show as the destruction zone, 04:43 when the nuclear bomb hit over the general post office, 04:46 they would be circular lines out of the, 04:49 you know, the first mile, half a mile 04:51 or something incinerated, you're gone. 04:53 Then the next one, you know, badly burned, 04:55 maybe never recover, then radiation sickness. 04:58 And I remember we were about 14 miles out 05:02 when I first noticed this at our division headquarters 05:06 up in the hills, and that was the zone 05:09 where you would have some sort of lingering illness. 05:12 And, of course blinded, if you looked at the light and so on. 05:16 But we felt a little safe that we were gonna survive, 05:19 but it did trouble me a little. 05:22 And even to this day, I think it's sort of odd 05:24 that why was that bomb going to explode 05:27 over the general post office? 05:29 I don't even think after watching the Iraq War, 05:32 the Middle East War, that these so-called smart bombs 05:35 are quite that smart. 05:37 Once the killing starts either the accuracy drops 05:40 or the interest in being accurate. 05:43 But that was the era that we lived in this massive threat, 05:46 the communist hordes moving down into Korea 05:49 and of course, Indochina and so on. 05:52 And then as I came to the US as a teenager, 05:55 Australia was already fighting there. 05:58 The US was, and I was faced with the double hazard. 06:01 If I stayed in Australia, 06:03 I would be inducted into the military, 06:05 in the US subject to the draft here, 06:08 but it was all seemed in a good cause to stop global communism. 06:12 But what was really going on unassailably true 06:16 was direct persecution of Christians, 06:20 particularly in communist countries. 06:23 Because communism, if you know nothing else 06:26 about it is the religion of man and his progress. 06:31 Very few people have read Marx and Engels. 06:33 You should, it's not gonna pervert 06:36 a clear thinking person, but it will convict many people 06:40 who have never thought about it 06:41 before of the injustice and the inequalities 06:44 and the social strata that passed for the way things 06:48 should be, but where people that have power 06:50 and money squeezed down those below. 06:53 The Bible talks a lot about that. 06:56 In Revelation it says, howl you merchants, 06:59 for you have kept back the wages by fraud. 07:04 And it also says that those merchants 07:05 are gonna howl with horror, as they see the great city, 07:09 this industrial commercial edifice 07:12 that they've erected toward the end of time, 07:15 they'll see this disappear and their money, 07:17 their fortune, and their livelihood disappearing 07:20 in one hour. 07:22 Even if it was one relapse, 07:23 but even a prophetic hour would just be in days. 07:29 All of it to disappear like that. 07:32 That's predicted at the end, 07:33 but it's in the context of great personal abuses 07:37 or abuses against individuals. 07:41 And the persecution of Christians by communism, 07:45 because religion was not, not just not necessary. 07:49 It was a counter to communism, which was the religion of man 07:54 and his perfectibility and the prosperity 07:58 that would come by having all things in common. 08:01 Sounds familiar, the New Testament talks about that, 08:03 but for a different purpose in anticipation 08:06 of God's eternal kingdom. 08:08 I can remember the first time my father, 08:11 who was the temperance leader 08:12 for the Seventh-day Adventist world headquarters. 08:16 And in educating against alcohol and drugs 08:21 and tobacco in particular, he traveled the world. 08:25 And many, many times he was able to get 08:27 into communist countries at the invitation of the government, 08:31 not as a church leader, not just to talk to church members, 08:35 but at the invitation of the governments, 08:37 because they were very moralistic. 08:41 People have forgotten that, 08:42 the religion of man means the perfectibility of man. 08:45 The perfectibility of man means you don't want him 08:48 ruining his mind and his body by habits and substances 08:52 that are gonna destroy him. 08:54 So they will welcome him to come in and teach them. 08:58 And I remember the first time I went with him 09:01 as he was a guest of the government 09:03 in Bulgaria it was. 09:05 We were picked up at the airport 09:07 by communist officials. 09:09 We didn't know who they were in a big limousine. 09:13 And we drove from the airport down to a large not motel, 09:18 hotel in the middle of Sophia, the capital. 09:20 But along the way, all down the side of the street 09:24 were these huge murals, some of them with the, 09:28 you know, the crowds marching and communist fervor, 09:30 but most of them at that time were close up 09:34 framed cameos of the different leaders. 09:39 And I remember one time my father 09:41 looked at our not the driver, but our guard. 09:45 And saw it was his picture. 09:48 And dad says, "You know, what's going on?" 09:50 He says, "Oh, it's election time." 09:52 And dad says, "Well, 09:54 I certainly wish you the best in the election." 09:55 "Don't worry, he says, nobody's running against me." 09:58 So, he was the leader of, I don't think the country 10:02 at that point, but at certainly of the communist party 10:05 in Bulgaria, they had elections. 10:07 They were just rather rigged. 10:10 And we think we've got rigged elections. 10:12 Some people who had nothing like what was going on there. 10:16 But they had this moralistic take. 10:19 And during that same visit, 10:22 I remember being seriously impressed 10:25 by the difficulties that our members faced. 10:28 We went to church. 10:29 My father never made it secret 10:32 that he was a Seventh-day Adventist Christian. 10:34 And I don't believe that we should go 10:37 as Ellen White writing to Seventh-day Adventist said, 10:40 she says, we're to unfurl our colors. 10:43 People have a right to know who you stand for, 10:47 who you represent, unfurl your colors, don't hide it. 10:53 And my father didn't, and I can remember they allowed him 10:57 to speak and I'm gonna read my, one of my editorials, 11:01 my last editorial in the second half of the show. 11:04 And I do allude to the same story, 11:05 but they said that he could bring greetings, 11:07 not allowed to preach to them 11:09 because these were the scum of the earth 11:12 for the communist regime. 11:13 They only let him talk to these people 11:15 'cause they were his fellow church members. 11:17 But in communism, you weren't always directly persecuted, 11:20 but you were marginalized because by openly acknowledging 11:25 that you were a Christian, 11:26 you were opting out of the worker's paradise. 11:29 You were showing that you were not going to be part 11:32 of this paradise on earth, 11:34 that you were not gonna be loyal to the state, 11:37 loyal to the party interests, loyal to the people, 11:40 to your neighbors. 11:41 You were loyal to God. 11:42 You were part of another kingdom 11:44 and their best policy outside of the persecutions of Stalin 11:48 and a few other despots, 11:50 which certainly under communism, 11:52 but that was an aberration even of their dream. 11:56 But you know, part of what was going on there 11:59 was that they thought if they could isolate Christians. 12:02 Give them a limited time to meet, 12:05 restrict their ability to pass on their faith 12:08 to their children. 12:10 If they could keep it sort of compounded at a distance, 12:14 those people would die out, lose interest, lose life, 12:17 disappear, and communism would go towards its grand future. 12:23 And I do remember clearly my father 12:28 talking for a long time, 12:30 I think it was an hour bringing greetings. 12:32 And it sounded like a sermon to me. 12:34 It was a sermon, but the communists 12:37 were accepting that, well, this is his greetings. 12:40 And afterwards we met with the translator and his daughter 12:44 and the translator with tears in his eyes said 12:46 that this is my daughter, she comes to Sabbath school. 12:49 She comes to church. 12:50 She's supposed to go to a school on Sabbath 12:53 and the state is going to take her away from us 12:57 as they would and did many times. 12:59 And the thing that I try to tell 13:03 even people in the United States, 13:05 there are cases and will be many more cases 13:08 where even here social services have that same power. 13:12 And if it's deemed that your religion 13:14 is harmful to the children and some religions, 13:17 some cultish beliefs are dangerous. 13:22 And if that's deemed to be certain, 13:25 they'll take the children away, 13:26 but it was certainly far more common 13:28 under communism of that era. 13:29 And the threat was real. 13:31 That was persecution, family breakup, 13:34 and that stuck in my mind. 13:37 And I can remember making a determination 13:40 that in some way I would raise an awareness 13:43 of this in the rest of my life, 13:44 and never knowing that I'd be with Liberty magazine 13:47 or doing a TV program like this, though, 13:49 it planted in me a compulsion to speak 13:53 about religious liberty, 13:55 in the larger context of civil liberties. 13:58 There is a reason for religious liberty. 14:01 It is not as many people imagine 14:03 just a litany of court cases and the efforts 14:06 to supposedly recover what's automatically 14:10 in the US Constitution or any constitution. 14:14 You know, Paul used his citizenship 14:17 as a Roman to certain advantage. 14:20 But I could hardly imagine Paul 14:24 making a gospel construct 14:27 that Rome was sort of God's way of protecting the faith. 14:31 Not at all. 14:32 Rome was opposed to true belief, just as capitalism, 14:36 even democracy in its modern human form. 14:39 At best they're benign toward religion 14:42 because all systems are defunct 14:46 and defective compared to God's system, 14:49 God's eternal coming kingdom. 14:51 Let's take a break. 14:53 And after the break, I wanna share that editorial with you 14:55 that I wrote fairly recently. 14:57 I think it's just barely been printed 14:58 and not knowing when this will be shown, 15:01 but this is my swansong statement 15:03 in Liberty magazine. |
Revised 2021-09-20