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Speaker 1: The Michael Berry Show. Welcome to our Saturday podcast. If

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Speaker 1: after hearing this podcast, you have a thought you'd like

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Speaker 1: to share, maybe a suggestion of something you'd like or

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Speaker 1: suggest or recommend we use for a future podcast, or

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Speaker 1: in any other way, want to communicate with me. The

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Speaker 1: website is Michael Berryshow dot com. You can sign up

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Speaker 1: for our blast list there. It's our free newsletter we

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Speaker 1: send every afternoon with links to things we talked about

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Speaker 1: on the show. And I mean, we don't sell you anything,

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Speaker 1: and we do have merchandise on the site, but we

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Speaker 1: don't try to push it to you. And you can

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Speaker 1: sign up there. It's free. We never sell or share

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Speaker 1: your email ever ever, never have, never will. We're not

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Speaker 1: harvesters anyway. Glenn Elmers is an American political commentator and

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Speaker 1: scholar specializing in political philosophy and a most fascinating moment

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Speaker 1: in world history, the founding of America. He studied under

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Speaker 1: the renowned political philosopher Harry V. Jaffa. He's been a

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Speaker 1: speechwriter for two US Cabinet secretaries, been associated with research institutions,

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Speaker 1: and he has written some interesting books, including one on

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Speaker 1: Harry V. Jaffa. His sort of mentor. He has been

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Speaker 1: an interesting part of the national conversation about the founding

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Speaker 1: of America and what it means. There are those who

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Speaker 1: wish to change the meaning of the founding and who

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Speaker 1: our founding fathers were, and what those founding documents mean.

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Speaker 1: This is important. We're going back to the bylaws of

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Speaker 1: the nation here. And I love the fact that he

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Speaker 1: draws upon classical sources as well as contemporary It means

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Speaker 1: he's better grounded, he has a better understanding of the

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Speaker 1: source documents. So this week we wanted to play for

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Speaker 1: you a lecture that he gave at Hillsdale College, which

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Speaker 1: we think does wonderful work on the theological problem, sorry,

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Speaker 1: the theological political problem, and the American founding. It's going

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Speaker 1: to be a little more taxing and probably a little

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Speaker 1: less what you would have expected, and certainly not lightfare,

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Speaker 1: but we enjoyed it and we thought you might as well.

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Speaker 1: So here goes.

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Speaker 2: Thank you Hannah for that very gracious introduction. Thank you

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Speaker 2: to Hillsdale College for having me here. It's a pleasure

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Speaker 2: and an honor. One of the most beautiful things written

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Speaker 2: during the American Founding, In fact, one of the most

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Speaker 2: beautiful things written ever, is George Washington's seventeen ninety letter

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Speaker 2: to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island. Washington had

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Speaker 2: visited Newport in August of seventeen ninety and met with

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Speaker 2: many groups of citizens, including members of the Truro Synagogue.

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Speaker 2: Shortly after his visit, one of the leaders of the

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Speaker 2: Jewish community there are men named Moses Sexis, writing on

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Speaker 2: the behalf of the congregation, sent Washington a nice letter,

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Speaker 2: thanking him for his visit and congratulating him on his

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Speaker 2: conduct as President. Washington wrote back, in turn of very

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Speaker 2: memorable letter, and I want to read the whole thing,

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Speaker 2: since it's relatively short and deserving of our full attention.

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Speaker 2: I'll read it from this lovely book that Hillsdale College

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Speaker 2: has put out called Constitution a Reader, which is full

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Speaker 2: of wonderful documents from the founding era.

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Speaker 3: If you don't have one, I encourage you to get one.

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Speaker 2: This is Washington's letter in reply, gentlemen, while I receive

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Speaker 2: with much satisfaction your address, replete with expressions of esteem,

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Speaker 2: I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you that I

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Speaker 2: shall always retain grateful remembrance of the cordial, welcome I

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Speaker 2: received in my visit to Newport from all classes of citizens.

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Speaker 2: The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which

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Speaker 2: are past is rendered the more sweet from a consciousness

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Speaker 2: that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security.

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Speaker 2: If we have the wisdom to make the best use

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Speaker 2: of the advantages with which we are now favored, we

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Speaker 2: cannot fail, under the just administration of a good government,

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Speaker 2: to become a great and happy people. The citizens of

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Speaker 2: the United States of America have a right to applaud

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Speaker 2: themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged

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Speaker 2: and liberal policy, a policy worthy of imitation all possess

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Speaker 2: alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is

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Speaker 2: now no more that toleration is spoken of as if

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Speaker 2: it was by the indulgence of one class of people

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Speaker 2: that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.

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Speaker 2: For happily, the government of the United States, which gives

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Speaker 2: to bigotry, no sanction, to persecution, no assistance, requires only

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Speaker 2: that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves

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Speaker 2: as good sos citizens, giving it on all occasions.

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Speaker 3: Their effectual support.

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Speaker 2: It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character,

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Speaker 2: not to avow that I am pleased by your favorable

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Speaker 2: opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity.

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Speaker 2: May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell

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Speaker 2: in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good

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Speaker 2: will of the other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit under

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Speaker 2: his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be

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Speaker 2: none to make him afraid. May the Father of all

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Speaker 2: mercies scatter light and not darkness in our path, and

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Speaker 2: make us all, in our several vocations, useful here and

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Speaker 2: in his own due time, and way everlastingly happy.

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Speaker 3: It's quite a letter. I think.

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Speaker 2: The principle of religious liberty and shrine in the American Founding,

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Speaker 2: which Washington magnificently he summarizes in this letter, was one

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Speaker 2: of the greatest accomplishments in human history. Yet can we

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Speaker 2: say that the United States lives up to Washington's hope Today?

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Speaker 2: We've all seen the vicious anti Semitism on display in

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Speaker 2: many college campuses, not this one, thank god, but at

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Speaker 2: many campuses. Protests over the war in Gaza include despicable

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Speaker 2: acts of intimidation and violence against Jewish students, Can we

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Speaker 2: claim that what Washington prayed for in seventeen ninety, that

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Speaker 2: everyone shall sit under his own vine and fig tree,

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Speaker 2: and there shall be none to make him afraid, still

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Speaker 2: obtains today. Of course, the principle of religious liberty is

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Speaker 2: now under assault, not only against Jews, but against Christians

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Speaker 2: as well. In innumerable ways, American Christians and Jews find

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Speaker 2: their faith mopped and threatened by an aggressively secular, even atheistic,

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Speaker 2: ruling class. I'd like to sh to share with you

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Speaker 2: some thoughts and reflections on this precious gift of religious liberty,

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Speaker 2: which we seem to be in danger of losing, and

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Speaker 2: talk a little bit about where the idea came from

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Speaker 2: and why it took almost two thousand years for Christianity

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Speaker 2: to put this idea into practice. We're going to jump

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Speaker 2: into a sort of a time machine and hop back

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Speaker 2: and forth a little bit to look at certain key

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Speaker 2: moments in the history of Western civilization, and our first

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Speaker 2: stop will be twelfth century England, where we will examine

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Speaker 2: the confrontation between King Henry the Second and Saint Thomas Beckett.

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Speaker 2: This confrontation was an important milestone in the slow development

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Speaker 2: of religious Liberty. Beckett lived from eleven eighteen to eleven seventy,

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Speaker 2: so his contribution to our story occurs almost four hundred

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Speaker 2: years before Martin Luther kicked off the Protestant Reformation in

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Speaker 2: fifteen seventeen, which was about two decades before King Henry

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Speaker 2: the Eighth established the Church of England in fifteen thirty four.

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Speaker 2: Now I want you to get your money's worth from

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Speaker 2: this lecture, so we're going to have a little audio

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Speaker 2: visual segment and watch a short scene from the classic

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four film Beckett. If you've never seen it,

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Speaker 2: maybe this clip will induce you to go rent it

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Speaker 2: from Netflix or someplace. It's really a marvelous movie and

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Speaker 2: it stars Richard Burton as Thomas Beckett and Peter O'Toole

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Speaker 2: as King Henry the Second. Beckett and the King had

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Speaker 2: been very close friends and confidence, but their friendship, as

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Speaker 2: we will see in a moment, had become strained by

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Speaker 2: a huge battle over the question of religious versus political

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Speaker 2: authority and whether the church could be or should be.

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Speaker 3: Independent of the King.

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Speaker 2: In the scene we're about to watch, in a moment,

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Speaker 2: Beckett is the Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest ranking religious

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Speaker 2: figure in England, which of course, at this point still

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Speaker 2: means Catholicism. Beckett is in exile in France, having fled

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Speaker 2: King Henry's wrath because he refuses to submit to the

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Speaker 2: King's authority over the church. Now, in this scene again,

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Speaker 2: Richard Burton as Beckett, Peter O'Toole as King Henry, and

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Speaker 2: John Gilgood in a marvelous cameo role as the Pope,

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Speaker 2: lay out their essential dispute. So if we could roll

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Speaker 2: the video clip, I'll make some remarks after that.

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Speaker 3: Start Go Thomson.

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Speaker 4: You know it's a strange thing, but make its safety

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Speaker 4: has become quite dear to me.

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Speaker 5: You look older, Thomas, So do you, my prince?

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Speaker 6: You cold?

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Speaker 4: I'm frozen, stiff, chill blames are killing me.

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Speaker 7: You love it?

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Speaker 4: Of course You're in irrelevant, aren't you? Just that monk's habit.

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Speaker 5: I always told you one must fight the cold with

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Speaker 5: the cold's weapons, Strip yourself naked every morning and splash

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Speaker 5: yourself with cold water.

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Speaker 8: I used to when you were there to make me.

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Speaker 8: I never washed. Now I stink. How's your son? He

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Speaker 8: must have come of age.

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Speaker 4: He's an idiot and sly like his mother. Thomas, don't

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Speaker 4: you ever marry.

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Speaker 5: You took that matter out of my hands when you

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Speaker 5: had me ordained.

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Speaker 4: If we start on that with shorter quarrel about something.

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Speaker 5: Else very well, as your majesty done much hunting lately? Yes,

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Speaker 5: every day.

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Speaker 4: It doesn't amuse me anymore, Beckett, I'm bored, my prince.

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Speaker 3: I wish I could help you.

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Speaker 4: What are you waiting for?

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Speaker 5: For the honor of God and the honor of the

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Speaker 5: king to become one?

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Speaker 4: That may take long?

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Speaker 5: Yes, that may take long.

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Speaker 4: I'm the King, Thomas, and so long as we are

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Speaker 4: on this earth, you owe me the first move. I'm

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Speaker 4: prepared to forget a lot of things, but not the

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Speaker 4: fact that I am king.

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Speaker 5: You yourself taught me that. Never forget it, My prince,

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Speaker 5: you have a different task to do. You have to

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Speaker 5: steer the ship and you what do you have to

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Speaker 5: do to resist you with all my might when you

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Speaker 5: steer against the Lord God?

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Speaker 4: What you expect of me?

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Speaker 6: Then?

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Speaker 4: Are you hoping I'll weaken?

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Speaker 5: No, I'm afraid we must only do absurdly what it

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Speaker 5: has been given to us to do.

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Speaker 3: Right to the end.

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Speaker 4: Look, suppose we come down to worth and use words

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Speaker 4: that makes sense to a boor like myself. Otherwise we'll

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Speaker 4: never get anywhere, and there'll be two frozen statues trying

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Speaker 4: to make their peace in a frozen eternity.

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Speaker 5: My Lord, I was doing my best to make you

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Speaker 5: understand I'm an idiot.

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Speaker 4: Then talk to me like an idiot. Will you lift

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Speaker 4: the excommunication you've pronounced on Lord Gilbert.

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Speaker 5: No, because it's the only weapon I have left to

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Speaker 5: defend what was given into my care.

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Speaker 4: Will you agree to the ten proposals which the bishops

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Speaker 4: accepted in your absence, particularly to the surrender of priests

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Speaker 4: who seek the protection of the church to escape my

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Speaker 4: courts of justice.

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Speaker 8: No.

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Speaker 5: My role is to defend my sheep, and they are

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Speaker 5: my sheep. But I shall agree to the nine other

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Speaker 5: articles in a spirited peace, and because I know you

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Speaker 5: must remain king in all and of all save the

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Speaker 5: honor of God.

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Speaker 4: All right, I will give away on this one point

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Speaker 4: the memory of our past friendship.

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Speaker 5: You may return to England. Thank you, my Prince. I

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Speaker 5: meant to go back in any case and give myself

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Speaker 5: up to your power. But in all things that concern

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Speaker 5: this earth, I owe you obedience.

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Speaker 4: We're finished now.

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Speaker 5: And I'm cold.

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Speaker 3: I feel go too.

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Speaker 5: Now.

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Speaker 4: You never loved me, did you, Thomas, in so far

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Speaker 4: as I was capable of love?

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Speaker 6: Yes, I did.

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Speaker 4: Did you start to love God?

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Speaker 9: You know?

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Speaker 6: I'll have a simple question.

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Speaker 5: Yes, I started to love the honor of God. I

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Speaker 5: should never have seen you. It hurts too much, my prince. No,

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Speaker 5: no pity, it's dirty.

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Speaker 4: This is the last time I shall come begging to you.

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Speaker 5: Go back to England, there will, my Prince, I say tomorrow,

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Speaker 5: I know that I shall never see you again.

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Speaker 4: I'll dare you say that to me? When I've given

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Speaker 4: you my royal word?

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Speaker 6: Do you take me for that?

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Speaker 4: Trade?

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Speaker 6: Tops?

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Speaker 3: All right?

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Speaker 2: So that you can gather the gist of their dispute

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Speaker 2: from that scene, The solution to the dilemma we just

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Speaker 2: saw there might seem clear to us. The King has

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Speaker 2: his authority and the Church its authority, and these are separate.

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Speaker 2: The king oversees worldly matters, the Church has sovereignty in

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Speaker 2: the spiritual realm. There can be peace and harmony when

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Speaker 2: each authority, political and ecclesiastical recognizes the authority and independence

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Speaker 2: of the other. But this solution, which seems so obvious

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Speaker 2: to us, was not obvious in the twelfth century, or

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Speaker 2: at least not completely. So we see here the beginnings

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Speaker 2: of religious liberty, or the beginnings of a practical solution

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Speaker 2: to the theological political problem, but only the beginnings. To

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Speaker 2: understand why it would take another six hundred years to

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Speaker 2: put that solution into practice, we need to go back

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Speaker 2: into our time machine and travel back a little further,

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Speaker 2: actually another millennium and a half, to the ancient world,

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Speaker 2: the pre Christian world. As with so many things, the

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Speaker 2: past is the secret to understanding the present. This is

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Speaker 2: another reason to study history and philosophy. You can't understand

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Speaker 2: the modern world without looking to its roots in Jerusalem, Athens,

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Speaker 2: and Rome. The most important fact about the ancient world

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Speaker 2: for our purposes is that prior to Christianity, all religions

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Speaker 2: were emphatically political. Now what do I mean by that?

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Speaker 2: A few verses from the Old Testament can help us

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Speaker 2: understand the point. Many of you will know this passage

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Speaker 2: from Exodus twenty quote. I am the Lord, thy God,

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Speaker 2: which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt,

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Speaker 2: out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no

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Speaker 2: other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee

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Speaker 2: any graven image or any likeness of anything that is

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Speaker 2: in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or that

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Speaker 2: is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not

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Speaker 2: bow down thyself to them, nor serve them, For I,

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Speaker 2: the Lord thy God, am a jealous God. We also

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Speaker 2: read in the Bible of God's special covenant with the Jews,

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Speaker 2: who are repeatedly described in the Old Testament as God

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Speaker 2: chosen people. Now, what's interesting is that all the ancient

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Speaker 2: tribes or nations considered themselves chosen people, chosen and protected

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Speaker 2: by their own local gods, whether it was Apollo and

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Speaker 2: the other Olympian gods in Sparta, Marduk and Nabu for

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Speaker 2: the Babylonians, ra and Isis and Osiris in Egypt.

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Speaker 3: Or Jehovah among the Jews.

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Speaker 2: The gods of the ancient world were always particular. The

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Speaker 2: gods were always the gods of some specific people. That

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Speaker 2: is what I mean by saying that religion in the

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Speaker 2: ancient world was always political. In this respect, Jerusalem was

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Speaker 2: like all the other cities in the classical world. It

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Speaker 2: was unique in one respect. Israel was monotheistic. The Hebrew

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Speaker 2: God was, or I should say is singular, mysterious and omnipotent,

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Speaker 2: He was the god of the whole world. In that sense,

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Speaker 2: Judaism obviously prepared the way for the first truly universal religion, Christianity,

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Speaker 2: but the ancient Israelites did not proselytize or seek converts.

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Speaker 2: In fact, no pre Christian city, including Jerusalem, wanted to

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Speaker 2: share its gods. Unlike Israel, the other ancient nations typically

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Speaker 2: had a pantheon.

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Speaker 3: Of gods pagan gods.

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Speaker 2: But apart from this important qualification, the story of the Israelites,

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Speaker 2: their way of life is basically the same as what

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Speaker 2: we find all over the Mediterranean. All ancient cities, including Jerusalem,

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Speaker 2: were closed societies, where civil and religious obedience were identical.

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Speaker 2: All law was divine law. To be a good citizen

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Speaker 2: meant to be a pious worshiper of the city's gods.

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Speaker 2: There was no such thing as religious toleration or religious pluralism.

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Speaker 3: That was unthinkable.

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Speaker 2: Priests were public officials, and the distinction between church and

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Speaker 2: state was incomprehensible.

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Speaker 3: Every city had its.

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Speaker 2: Own god or gods, which belonged to them alone, and

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Speaker 2: which protected its chosen people. To defeat another nation in

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Speaker 2: war meant to defeat its gods Even this militant and

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Speaker 2: somewhat bloodthirsty aspect of the ancient world shows up to

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Speaker 2: some degree in the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy seven, we

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Speaker 2: read quote, when the Lord thy God shall bring Thee

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Speaker 2: into the land, whither thou goest to possess it, and

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Speaker 2: hath cast out many nations before Thee, the Hittites and

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Speaker 2: the Gergoshites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Parizites,

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Speaker 2: and the Hibbites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and

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Speaker 2: mightier than thou. And when the Lord thy God shall

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Speaker 2: deliver them before Thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly

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Speaker 2: destroy them. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor

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Speaker 2: show mercy to them. And then a little later in

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Speaker 2: Denteronomy twelve, ye shall overthrow their altars and break their pillars,

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Speaker 2: and burn their groves with fire, and ye shall hew

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Speaker 2: down the graven images of their gods and destroy the

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Speaker 2: names of them out of that place.

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Speaker 3: Now this is.

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Speaker 2: What the New York Times might call extremist rhetoric, but

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Speaker 2: in fact it was perfectly normal in the ancient world.

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Speaker 2: And it was how all the tribes of the classical

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Speaker 2: world viewed their enemies as unclean heretics who had to

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Speaker 2: be destroyed because they worshiped false and hateful gods. Now,

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Speaker 2: just to belabor this point a little bit further, I

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Speaker 2: want to emphasize one key aspect of ancient religion that's

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Speaker 2: absolutely essential, and it is, in a way the central

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Speaker 2: point of my whole presentation about religious liberty and where

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Speaker 2: it came from and why it took so long to

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Speaker 2: put into practice in the pre Christian world. And again

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Speaker 2: I'm speaking of Western civilization, not China or India. The

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Speaker 2: authority of the law always came from God or the gods.

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Speaker 2: The laws were absolutely binding and sacred because they came

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Speaker 2: directly from a divine authority. You all know the story

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Speaker 2: of Moses descending from Mount Sinai with the tablets. God

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Speaker 2: directly and immediately issued his commandments to his people, and

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Speaker 2: each people had its own divine commandments which came from

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Speaker 2: its particular gods. That means that Moses's authority as a

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Speaker 2: political leader also came directly from God. And this was

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Speaker 2: true again for all the ancient cities. Plato's longest dialogue,

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Speaker 2: even longer than the Republic, is called the Laws and

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Speaker 2: The very first word of that dialogue is God. The

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Speaker 2: main character, who is a kind of Socrates in disguise,

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Speaker 2: is on a pilgrimage walking to a Greek holy site,

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Speaker 2: and he asks his two traveling companions, one from Sparta

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Speaker 2: and one from Crete, where do your laws come from,

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Speaker 2: you spartan in Eucrete, from a man or a god?

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Speaker 2: And both answer a God. Of course, God is always

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Speaker 2: the source of all law, all political authority, and there

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Speaker 2: is no distinction between civil and sorry between religious and

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Speaker 2: civic obligation. To be a good citizen meant to obey

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Speaker 2: the sacred law. Every ancient city, every polis, if you

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Speaker 2: know this Greek word, understood itself to be a holy city.

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Speaker 2: So if we're clear on that, let's jump back into

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Speaker 2: the time machine and return to twelfth century England and

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Speaker 2: meet up again with Thomas Beckett and King Henry.

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Speaker 3: When Henry the second in.

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Speaker 2: The film clip we just saw, rejected any distinction between

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Speaker 2: political and religious authority and believe that he could supervise

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Speaker 2: the clergy and he could enforce the canon law. He

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Speaker 2: was relying on a very old tradition. He thought that

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Speaker 2: piety and citizenship go together. Because his authority came directly

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Speaker 2: from God. And he believed for the very good reason

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Speaker 2: that people had always believed that, of course political authority

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Speaker 2: came from God. Where else could it come from. And

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Speaker 2: of course the law commanded both the body and the soul,

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Speaker 2: because morality includes both. How could you attempt to separate

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Speaker 2: the obligations of piety from the obligations of citizenship. Good

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Speaker 2: citizens are good people, and therefore they obey the law,

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Speaker 2: which is not some invention of self interest or utility,

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Speaker 2: but reflects the commands issued by God. Yet, as we

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Speaker 2: saw in the film, this approach, this attitude creates as

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Speaker 2: many problems as it solves. About one hundred years after Beckett,

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Speaker 2: another Thomas Saint, Thomas Aquinas.

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Speaker 3: Would start to develop the philosophical.

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Speaker 2: Distinctions between the ecclesiastical and the political realms. But this

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00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:07,280
Speaker 2: was also very preliminary and strictly theoretical. That distinction would not,

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Speaker 2: as I've mentioned, have any practical effect until the American founding.

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00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:17,160
Speaker 2: Both Thomas's Beckett and Aquinas were wrestling with a problem

384
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Speaker 2: that did not exist in the ancient world. They were confunctioning.

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Speaker 2: They were confronting a problem created by Christianity. Now let

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Speaker 2: me be clear I don't mean to say that Christianity

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Speaker 2: itself as a faith is a problem, but only that

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Speaker 2: from the point of view of political philosophy, from the

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00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:39,560
Speaker 2: perspective of how political obligation had always been understood, it

390
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:45,200
Speaker 2: presents a problem, in fact several. Of course, in one sense,

391
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Speaker 2: the fact that Christianity complicated things should not be surprising.

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Speaker 2: The Incarnation changed the world, and Jesus himself says, I

393
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:59,360
Speaker 2: bring not peace but the sword. So what exactly were

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00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 2: these difficulties that Christianity introduced. Let me first clarify that

395
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:07,920
Speaker 2: the political problems were actually created by two factors, two

396
00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:14,639
Speaker 2: massive monumental events and their confluence, the biblical monotheism of

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Speaker 2: the New Testament plus the rise of the Roman Empire.

398
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Speaker 2: When the old Roman Republic ended with Julius Caesar, the

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00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 2: new Roman Empire became the universal city, the regime of

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Speaker 2: the whole Mediterranean world. All the small independent tribes of

401
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:35,240
Speaker 2: the old ancient world were incorporated into a single regime,

402
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:39,840
Speaker 2: a single empire. And when Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the

403
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:43,639
Speaker 2: official religion of the Roman Empire, the old unity was restored.

404
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 2: One regime, one God, one law. So far, so good.

405
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:55,080
Speaker 2: The union between citizenship and piety holds. But when Rome

406
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:59,439
Speaker 2: is sacked by the Visigoths and the empire collapses in

407
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 2: the fourth sen Country, a real dilemma emerges, actually three dilemmas,

408
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:08,720
Speaker 2: which would not be resolved for more than a millennium.

409
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:10,680
Speaker 3: Problem one.

410
00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 2: The collapse of Rome leaves one God but many regimes

411
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:19,880
Speaker 2: many kingdoms. For the first time in Western civilization, religious

412
00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:23,879
Speaker 2: and civil authority become separated. That is to say, the

413
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 2: divine and the civil law are no longer the same.

414
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 2: All of Europe belongs to one church, but is split

415
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 2: into many principalities under many rulers. Citizens confront for the

416
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:43,520
Speaker 2: first time the challenge of dual allegiance. They were required

417
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:47,119
Speaker 2: to obey both their king and their pope. But what

418
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 2: if those two disagree? We saw an indication of that

419
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 2: in the film. What if your prince tells you something

420
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:59,440
Speaker 2: different from your priest? This political schizophrenia, as we might

421
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 2: call it, was something new problem too. What is the

422
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:08,800
Speaker 2: source of political authority? Why should anyone obey the law?

423
00:28:09,520 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 2: Remember that in the ancient city, the laws come directly

424
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 2: from God. Moses literally brought the commandments down from Mount Sinai.

425
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Speaker 2: The Spartans likewise, believed their laws came directly from Apollo

426
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 2: and so on in all the ancient cities. But where

427
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 2: did the Prince of Bavaria, for example, in the year

428
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:32,719
Speaker 2: twelve hundred, get his authority. The solution the Europeans came

429
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 2: up with is something you've all heard of, the doctrine

430
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 2: of divine right of kings. This was an attempt to

431
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 2: reconnect civil and divine authority, and that was necessary because,

432
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 2: as all the ancient cities understood, the laws must be

433
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:56,239
Speaker 2: sacred in order to command obedience. Political authority must have

434
00:28:56,320 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 2: some supernatural foundation. The divine right of kings means, in practice,

435
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 2: is hereditary monarchy as a religious and political necessity. If

436
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 2: the king's ancestors receive their authority directly from God, as

437
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 2: the idea of divine right holds, then only the king's

438
00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 2: direct descendants can exercise that authority. This causes enormous problems

439
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 2: for the question of succession monarchical succession.

440
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 3: What if the king.

441
00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 2: Has no legitimate heirs, or what if the only heir

442
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:33,960
Speaker 2: is totally unqualified to rule.

443
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 3: We saw the.

444
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:36,800
Speaker 2: Comment in the film in which Henry says his son

445
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:41,840
Speaker 2: is an idiot. This sort of problem happened, and what

446
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:45,040
Speaker 2: if a nephew or a cousin, someone with a partial

447
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:48,960
Speaker 2: claim on the throne is far more qualified. Well, we

448
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:52,720
Speaker 2: know what happens, because it did happen over and over again,

449
00:29:52,920 --> 00:29:55,400
Speaker 2: as anyone familiar with the history of England can tell

450
00:29:55,440 --> 00:30:01,280
Speaker 2: you Civil War. Many of Shakespeare's history plays examine these issues.

451
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 2: As my teacher Harry Jaffa liked to say, the doctrine

452
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 2: of divine right of kings never finds a way to

453
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 2: combine legitimacy with competence. Again, this was not a problem

454
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:18,040
Speaker 2: that the ancient world had to deal with. Problem three.

455
00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 2: The content of belief, or the question of doctrine becomes

456
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 2: incredibly important in a way that was not the case

457
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 2: in the classical world.

458
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 3: Recall what I said.

459
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 2: Earlier about the paramount importance of law. Now, it would

460
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 2: be an exaggeration to say that what you privately believed

461
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 2: in the ancient cities was irrelevant.

462
00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 3: That would be too strong.

463
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:44,880
Speaker 2: But there was very little investigation into private matters of conscience.

464
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 2: Socrates only got into trouble because he was so vocal

465
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 2: and so obnoxious about questioning the sacred opinions of the Athenians.

466
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:59,120
Speaker 2: Because all ancient religions were political. What was overwhelmingly important

467
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 2: was that you'd your loyalty to the community and its

468
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 2: gods by obeying the divine law, by participating in the

469
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:11,520
Speaker 2: public ceremonies, by performing.

470
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 3: The appropriate rituals.

471
00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:17,400
Speaker 2: This outward expression of piety, showing that you were a

472
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:23,480
Speaker 2: good citizen of Sparta or Jerusalem, that's what mattered. In Christianity,

473
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 2: of course, belief becomes paramount, and this opens the door

474
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 2: to persecution in a way that you simply didn't have

475
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 2: in the pre Christian world. Even before the Reformation, which

476
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 2: ushered in centuries of conflict between Catholics and Protestants, the

477
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 2: problem of doctrine was already present in terms of heresy.

478
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:48,680
Speaker 2: Early on, the Church had to spend centuries hammering out

479
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 2: the precise content of the Catechism. Gnosticism, arianism, Pallagianism, and

480
00:31:55,800 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 2: many other heresies had to be investigated and then declared

481
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 2: to be errors. And of course, since these errors undermine

482
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 2: the faith, they could not be tolerated and had to

483
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 2: be stamped out. So the issue of religious persecution emerges

484
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 2: as yet another challenge. You may know that during the

485
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:18,600
Speaker 2: Spanish Inquisition, the Church determine what constituted deviation from the faith,

486
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:23,320
Speaker 2: and the state then imposed the punishment. But these lines

487
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:26,400
Speaker 2: were not so easy to maintain, and the problem of

488
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 2: theocracy or some variation on theocracy, was a constant danger

489
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:38,719
Speaker 2: in medieval Europe. These difficulties, which Western civilizations struggled with

490
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 2: for hundreds of years all through the Middle Ages, emerged

491
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 2: because Christianity is the first non political religion of the West.

492
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:50,880
Speaker 2: To reiterate, being a Christian is not a question of

493
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:54,520
Speaker 2: what political community you belong to, what your tribe is,

494
00:32:55,160 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 2: but a matter of choice of faith, of belief that

495
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:02,440
Speaker 2: is incredibly liberating.

496
00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 3: Of course, it.

497
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 2: Means salvation is potentially open to every human being, but

498
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 2: it creates all the challenges that I've mentioned for politics

499
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:17,280
Speaker 2: and citizenship. Now, one more trip in our time machine

500
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 2: for our last stop, which will bring us to the

501
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:22,719
Speaker 2: American colonies in the seventeen seventies, and I think at

502
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 2: this point we're in a better position to appreciate the

503
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:31,520
Speaker 2: challenges that the American founders faced the problem of establishing

504
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:36,640
Speaker 2: republican self government included at the most fundamental this complicated issue.

505
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 2: The title of my talk the theological political Problem, and

506
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 2: I've tried to lay out what that problem meant in

507
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:48,080
Speaker 2: the Christian West. The American founders had to figure out

508
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 2: first how to create moral and political legitimacy for a

509
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 2: new nation and at the same time established the sacredness

510
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:01,520
Speaker 2: of the law, which alone can command people's devotion and

511
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 2: obedience and address the problem of religious conflict and persecution

512
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:11,880
Speaker 2: that had plagued Europe. A pretty difficult set of challenges,

513
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:15,239
Speaker 2: I think, and the answer they came up with is

514
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:18,360
Speaker 2: right there in the Declaration of Independence. As you all know,

515
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:24,319
Speaker 2: the laws of nature and Nature's God. I think we

516
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:29,280
Speaker 2: don't always appreciate the genius of this revolutionary truth, which

517
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:33,920
Speaker 2: manages to combine in a prudential way, human reason and

518
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 2: divine revelation, and thereby provide the best practical solution to

519
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 2: the theological political problem possible in the modern world. The

520
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 2: founder's political science or political theory, grounded in the laws

521
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:52,920
Speaker 2: of nature and Nature's God, made it possible for the

522
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:57,880
Speaker 2: first time in history to establish religious liberty and solve

523
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:03,080
Speaker 2: the theological political problem in a practical way. Incidentally, I

524
00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 2: might add that the final version of the Declaration says

525
00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 2: that the truths derived from the laws of nature are

526
00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:13,480
Speaker 2: self evident, But in Jefferson's first draft he had written

527
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 2: sacred and undeniable, and it was Benjamin Franklin who had

528
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:19,440
Speaker 2: suggested the new language.

529
00:35:20,080 --> 00:35:20,839
Speaker 3: I think this.

530
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:23,920
Speaker 2: Indicates that the framers knew they were grappling with the

531
00:35:23,920 --> 00:35:28,279
Speaker 2: theological political problem, and they understood that their efforts could

532
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:33,840
Speaker 2: be traced back to Jerusalem and to Athens. The laws

533
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 2: of nature and Nature's God mean that there is an

534
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 2: objective moral order in the world, because that world is

535
00:35:41,239 --> 00:35:46,600
Speaker 2: created by a benevolent God, because God is reasonable, and

536
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 2: because our minds are a gift from God which he

537
00:35:49,160 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 2: intends us to use. We can perceive much of this

538
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 2: moral order through our own rational faculties. We can't know

539
00:35:57,719 --> 00:36:01,560
Speaker 2: those things that come only from revelation, including the first

540
00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:05,239
Speaker 2: Table of the Decalogue. Aristotle, who lived hundreds of years

541
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:09,000
Speaker 2: before Christ, could not know about keeping the Sabbath holy,

542
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:13,320
Speaker 2: but he could know the precepts of the second Table

543
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:18,359
Speaker 2: of the Decalogue, the commandments about theft and murder and

544
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:22,400
Speaker 2: honoring one's parents. And that's why Aristotle's book on Ethics

545
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 2: is almost perfectly compatible with the morality proclaimed in the Bible.

546
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:31,160
Speaker 2: There are some minor differences on the questions of piety

547
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:35,000
Speaker 2: and pride, but we can set those aside. They don't

548
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 2: affect the main point. Let me add that this natural

549
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:42,840
Speaker 2: moral order exists outside of our will.

550
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:45,160
Speaker 3: It exists whether we like it or not.

551
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 2: We are born into a physical and a moral world

552
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 2: we do not create. However, much today's leftists think that

553
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:59,279
Speaker 2: they can command or alter human nature, for example, by

554
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:04,479
Speaker 2: allowing Chill to choose gender reassignment surgery. This will never

555
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:08,320
Speaker 2: work and it will never lead to true happiness because

556
00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 2: we cannot change human nature. Now, all of this is

557
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:16,480
Speaker 2: extremely significant for the question of religious liberty, because the

558
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 2: laws of nature and Nature's God become the new ground

559
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:25,040
Speaker 2: for political authority, and they supply the law with its

560
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:30,480
Speaker 2: sacred and transcendent authority. This allows the principles of the

561
00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 2: Founding to address all three of the problems I mentioned earlier. First,

562
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:40,360
Speaker 2: it solves the problem of political schizophrenia, the split between

563
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:46,600
Speaker 2: piety and citizenship, by supplying a common ground for morality. Because,

564
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:51,239
Speaker 2: as Aristotle showed, we can understand virtue and vice through

565
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 2: our own rational faculties. The law can support and enforce

566
00:37:56,200 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 2: moral precepts that are acknowledged by both political and ecclesiastical authorities.

567
00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:05,400
Speaker 2: In other words, because the morality of the Bible and

568
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:10,480
Speaker 2: the morality of reason are compatible, one can be both

569
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 2: a pious believer and a good citizen without invoking the

570
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:24,319
Speaker 2: contentious sectarian disputes that tore Europe apart. Second, because of

571
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:27,719
Speaker 2: this common ground of morality, it is now finally possible

572
00:38:27,760 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 2: to clearly delineate the political and the religious realms. The

573
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 2: separation of church and state becomes possible as a practical

574
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 2: matter for the first time, which we can see most

575
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 2: clearly in Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Bill for Religious Freedom of.

576
00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:45,120
Speaker 3: Seventeen eighty six.

577
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 2: The Declarations teaching about the laws of Nature and Nature's

578
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:58,040
Speaker 2: God establishes a kind of political theology, a non sectarian

579
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:03,440
Speaker 2: ground of legitimacy that can make the laws sacred without

580
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:07,800
Speaker 2: getting the government involved in disputes about the Trinity, or

581
00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:14,360
Speaker 2: transubstantiation or faith versus works. According to many Protestant ministers

582
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:17,279
Speaker 2: during the Founding era, this also allows what they called

583
00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:21,480
Speaker 2: true Christianity to flourish for the first time, because it

584
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:24,880
Speaker 2: is now possible to practice Christianity with a free and

585
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:27,959
Speaker 2: loving heart as a choice rather than as a matter

586
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 2: of coercion, and you can find this point made in

587
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:37,400
Speaker 2: many sermons from the Founding era. Third, the Founders solved

588
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 2: the problem of religious persecution. Because the government and the

589
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 2: churches can agree on a moral code that is compatible

590
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 2: with both reason and revelation. Each can now operate within

591
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 2: its proper realm without intruding on the other. It becomes possible, therefore,

592
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:03,360
Speaker 2: to institutionalize religious liberty by prohibiting religious tests for office

593
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:08,640
Speaker 2: and keeping the government out of the business of punishing heresy.

594
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:12,919
Speaker 2: As George Washington said in the letter that I read

595
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 2: at the beginning, the government of the United States gives

596
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:23,919
Speaker 2: to bigotry, no sanction, to persecution, no assistance, and requires

597
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 2: only that those who live under its protection should demean

598
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:32,520
Speaker 2: themselves as good citizens, giving it on all occasions their

599
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:40,040
Speaker 2: effectual support. The American Founder's invocation of the transcendent moral

600
00:40:40,120 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 2: authority of nature is one of the most remarkable acts

601
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:49,360
Speaker 2: of statesmanship in human history, and providing a ground for

602
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:52,680
Speaker 2: religious liberty is only one way in which the laws

603
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:56,280
Speaker 2: of nature and Nature's God serve the cause of self government.

604
00:40:57,560 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 2: If I had more time, I could discuss how eliminating

605
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 2: religious persecution also grants freedom to philosophy. That is, it

606
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 2: protects the metaphysical freedom of the human mind. We could

607
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:14,960
Speaker 2: also talk about how prohibiting religious coercion goes hand in

608
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:20,880
Speaker 2: hand with the Founder's elimination of artificial class distinctions and

609
00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:25,960
Speaker 2: allows for what Jefferson called true aristocracy to emerge, that is,

610
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:30,840
Speaker 2: the aristocracy of merit in contrast to the artificial aristocracy

611
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:35,080
Speaker 2: of birth. In old Europe, the old medieval caste system

612
00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:40,360
Speaker 2: and the old structures of theocratic oppression were great impediments

613
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:46,719
Speaker 2: to human excellence. Under the Founder's revolutionary new conception of

614
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:52,919
Speaker 2: republican government, equality under the law would liberate moral virtue,

615
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:59,800
Speaker 2: while freedom of conscience liberates intellectual virtue. Now I recognize

616
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:02,319
Speaker 2: that I I've covered a great deal of historical and

617
00:42:02,440 --> 00:42:05,760
Speaker 2: intellectual ground, and we can discuss some of the details

618
00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 2: in the Q and A. I hope I've given you

619
00:42:08,239 --> 00:42:11,960
Speaker 2: some sense of the problems the Founders confronted and the

620
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:18,120
Speaker 2: brilliance of their practical solution. The question which we and

621
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:23,319
Speaker 2: all American patriots confront today is whether we still understand

622
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 2: and appreciate this incredible gift left to us by the Founders.

623
00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 2: Do we still have the knowledge and the courage to

624
00:42:33,600 --> 00:42:37,480
Speaker 2: keep alive the sacred Fire of liberty.

625
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:49,759
Speaker 10: Thank you very much, thank you, thank you.

626
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:52,960
Speaker 11: Doctor Elmers has agreed to sign copies of his book

627
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:56,600
Speaker 11: The Soul of Politics directly after the session in the

628
00:42:56,640 --> 00:42:58,920
Speaker 11: Serle lobby. We now have time for Q and A.

629
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:01,360
Speaker 11: If you have a quotquestion, please make your way to

630
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 11: a microphone. Student questions will be given preference.

631
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:11,960
Speaker 2: Everything was so clear, there are no questions.

632
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 12: Hello, and thank you so much for your talk. You

633
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:35,600
Speaker 12: mentioned at the end that you mentioned at the end

634
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:42,600
Speaker 12: of your talk that the old cast system prevented people

635
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 12: from achieving excellence. And though I agree with that point,

636
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:53,000
Speaker 12: Tokville argued that it was the old aristocracy that actually

637
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:59,360
Speaker 12: allowed for great education and for true nobility, and that's

638
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:07,640
Speaker 12: how how people like people became great philosophers, and Americans

639
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 12: don't really have any good philosophers or people of great genius.

640
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:14,719
Speaker 12: That's his argument. Anyway, how would you respond to that?

641
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:16,360
Speaker 3: Sure, it's interesting.

642
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:18,360
Speaker 2: I just wrote an article on Tokfoe which was just

643
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:22,560
Speaker 2: published in the New Criterion. Tokevil had many brilliant insights.

644
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:25,520
Speaker 2: He was a brilliant man. He didn't quite understand everything

645
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 2: about America. It's important to remember Chokeville studied democracy in

646
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:32,399
Speaker 2: America because you wanted to understand democracy as a kind

647
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 2: of phenomenon, as a kind of historical force, and then

648
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:37,759
Speaker 2: learn how France could deal with it.

649
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:40,080
Speaker 3: And so he missed a couple important.

650
00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:45,759
Speaker 2: Things about about how democracy operates in America. He was right,

651
00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:47,799
Speaker 2: I mean, he thought that there was a kind of

652
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 2: aristocratic spirit in Europe that you know, the life of

653
00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:53,560
Speaker 2: the gentleman, the life of the leisure gentlemen who can

654
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:55,320
Speaker 2: pursue knowledge for its own sake.

655
00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:55,960
Speaker 3: That.

656
00:44:57,320 --> 00:45:01,560
Speaker 2: Gets overclipsed a little bit in the frenetic, entrepreneurial activity

657
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:05,160
Speaker 2: of democratic capitalism. So we had a fair point. But

658
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 2: I think he overstated some things, and.

659
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 3: I think.

660
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 2: Jefferson's understanding of I think the founder's own self understanding

661
00:45:14,760 --> 00:45:19,000
Speaker 2: was not as hostile to excellence as Tokel suggested. On

662
00:45:19,040 --> 00:45:25,560
Speaker 2: the contrary, Jefferson's whole point about allowing the aristocracy of merit,

663
00:45:25,960 --> 00:45:28,799
Speaker 2: the natural aristocracy, to emerge. It's precisely so that human

664
00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:32,360
Speaker 2: beings could pursue excellence without the artificial inhibitions that you

665
00:45:32,440 --> 00:45:36,200
Speaker 2: saw in the old European aristocracy.

666
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:40,400
Speaker 7: Doctor Elmers, thank you for your enlightening lecture. My question

667
00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 7: relates to whether or not the theological political problem really

668
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:49,520
Speaker 7: in the solving of it by the Founders, really relates

669
00:45:49,520 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 7: to Christianity. It solves it in so far as it

670
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:56,320
Speaker 7: allows for Christianity or kind of Christianity to be congruent

671
00:45:56,920 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 7: with political life, because it seems as though there are

672
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:04,560
Speaker 7: ultimately still claims made by the state contra certain religious

673
00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:06,759
Speaker 7: teachings that have to be taken into account, and one

674
00:46:06,840 --> 00:46:10,280
Speaker 7: has to be supreme over the other. In the American context,

675
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:12,480
Speaker 7: it seems an older and a newer issue would be

676
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:16,520
Speaker 7: Mormonism and Islam, both religions that in their religious teachings,

677
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:21,239
Speaker 7: for instance, allow polygamy, and that's something that ultimately the

678
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:24,120
Speaker 7: state has to adjudicate whether that's going to be allowed

679
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:27,640
Speaker 7: or not. So I'm wondering if my understanding's correct, that's

680
00:46:27,680 --> 00:46:30,799
Speaker 7: what you're referring to as Christianity and the politics can

681
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:32,920
Speaker 7: go together under the Founder's scheme, or whether there's some

682
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:36,239
Speaker 7: way that all religions can go can work under the

683
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:37,480
Speaker 7: Founder's scheme, thank.

684
00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 2: You well, not all religions, the religion of Moloch, the

685
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:44,920
Speaker 2: religion of the Aztecs, which included human sacrifice, and even

686
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:49,120
Speaker 2: in some cases, yeah, they had a problem with Mormon polygamy,

687
00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:51,200
Speaker 2: and they certainly would have had a problem with the

688
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:52,279
Speaker 2: extreme versions.

689
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:53,520
Speaker 3: Of Sharia that we see.

690
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:56,239
Speaker 2: So this goes back to the point I made about

691
00:46:56,280 --> 00:47:00,279
Speaker 2: the compatibility between the virtue that we can understand our

692
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:03,360
Speaker 2: natural reason and the morality of the Bible. It's only

693
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 2: in so far as they are compatible that you can

694
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:11,400
Speaker 2: have a society, a Christian society in which Christian morality flourishes.

695
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:16,560
Speaker 2: Any interpretation of Christianity or any other religion which undermines

696
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:20,400
Speaker 2: just government, which undermines a decent society, that is a problem,

697
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:22,480
Speaker 2: and it is both the right and the duty of

698
00:47:22,520 --> 00:47:25,880
Speaker 2: the state to prohibit that. So insofar as someone interprets

699
00:47:25,960 --> 00:47:29,120
Speaker 2: Christianity in a way that undermines public morality or is

700
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:33,960
Speaker 2: in some way offensive, or any other religion promotes things

701
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:37,920
Speaker 2: that are offensive to natural decency and natural morality, it

702
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:40,360
Speaker 2: is the obligation of the government to prohibit those things.

703
00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:40,799
Speaker 3: Yeah.

704
00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:45,719
Speaker 13: So, if the sacredness of American law comes from the

705
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:49,279
Speaker 13: idea that nature was created by a God and you

706
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 13: can therefore know certain truths sort of a posteriority, is

707
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:56,719
Speaker 13: there any basis for following law or any basis that

708
00:47:56,760 --> 00:48:00,120
Speaker 13: the law is sacred in a society that's atheistic entirely.

709
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:04,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a real problem. My teacher's teacher, who is

710
00:48:04,719 --> 00:48:10,080
Speaker 2: a famous political philospher named Leo Strauss, once said, Now,

711
00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:12,320
Speaker 2: he said this in the middle of the last century,

712
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:14,759
Speaker 2: in the nineteen fifties or sixties, there's never been a

713
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 2: completely atheistic society in the history of the world. If

714
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:19,680
Speaker 2: he had lived a little longer, he might have changed

715
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:21,920
Speaker 2: his mind when he saw the contemporary the United States.

716
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:25,360
Speaker 2: But I think, as my remarks indicated, it's not working.

717
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:27,440
Speaker 2: You know, I wrote a little book in which I

718
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 2: claim that wokeism and you know, political correctness and this

719
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 2: weird ideology that the left has is in a way

720
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:37,880
Speaker 2: there deranged substitute for religion. I think there's something built

721
00:48:37,920 --> 00:48:41,480
Speaker 2: into the human soul that requires a need for the sacred,

722
00:48:41,719 --> 00:48:44,480
Speaker 2: a need for the transcendent. And if you reject that,

723
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 2: something has to fill the hole in your soul, and

724
00:48:47,680 --> 00:48:53,440
Speaker 2: it becomes whatever weird paganistic belief. Wokeism is right, but

725
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:57,360
Speaker 2: you people have to believe in something. And so I

726
00:48:57,400 --> 00:49:00,239
Speaker 2: think it is true that no society become can be

727
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:04,120
Speaker 2: completely atheistic, and if it tries, it's simply substitutes something else.

728
00:49:04,239 --> 00:49:06,440
Speaker 3: What is that great line from G. K. Chesterton.

729
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 2: When people stop believing in God, it's not that they

730
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:13,360
Speaker 2: believe in nothing, they'll believe in anything, right, And so

731
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:16,840
Speaker 2: that's trying to achieve the atheistic society. Trying to achieve

732
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:19,520
Speaker 2: an atheistic society just opens you up to believing all

733
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:22,600
Speaker 2: sorts of crazy things instead.

734
00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:28,360
Speaker 14: So my question is about priests or somebody who has

735
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:33,359
Speaker 14: some sort of theological authority, and whether there'd be a

736
00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:41,240
Speaker 14: way that they can hold political office or interact politically

737
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 14: as well. Do you have any thoughts on that?

738
00:49:43,640 --> 00:49:46,080
Speaker 2: So like a minister being elected to Congress.

739
00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:47,360
Speaker 3: Perhaps, I don't know.

740
00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:49,120
Speaker 14: I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on that for

741
00:49:49,160 --> 00:49:50,760
Speaker 14: the theological political.

742
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:55,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's I wouldn't say there's an absolute

743
00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:59,160
Speaker 2: rule against it. You know, the Founders, although they agreed

744
00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:03,080
Speaker 2: on a great did have some minor differences on some things.

745
00:50:03,160 --> 00:50:08,560
Speaker 2: And how exactly the religious liberty is supposed to work

746
00:50:09,520 --> 00:50:12,360
Speaker 2: on the ground in the details is a complicated questions

747
00:50:12,600 --> 00:50:16,240
Speaker 2: and it requires some use of prudence as circumstances change.

748
00:50:16,320 --> 00:50:18,799
Speaker 2: If you're interested in this question, I take it you're

749
00:50:18,800 --> 00:50:21,000
Speaker 2: a student, a friend of mine who I went to

750
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 2: grad school with, who's a professor at Notre Dame named

751
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:25,400
Speaker 2: Philip Munoz, has written what I think is one of

752
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:30,160
Speaker 2: the best books on religious liberty, and he explores how

753
00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:32,799
Speaker 2: there were some differences among the founders that I think Jefferson,

754
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:37,240
Speaker 2: for example, would not have appreciated having a clergyman holding

755
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:40,759
Speaker 2: elective office. Madison might have been more open to that.

756
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:44,400
Speaker 2: These are difficult questions, and I'm reluctant to say that

757
00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:47,200
Speaker 2: there's a hard and fast rule. I think what they

758
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:50,080
Speaker 2: agreed on is the important point, right, no religious test

759
00:50:50,120 --> 00:50:55,560
Speaker 2: for office, no persecution. On the other hand, there's no obligation,

760
00:50:55,680 --> 00:50:59,200
Speaker 2: no public obligation to accept religious practices that are clearly

761
00:50:59,239 --> 00:51:03,319
Speaker 2: indecent or moral. On some of the finer points, I'll

762
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:06,360
Speaker 2: beg off and say that that that requires a statesman,

763
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:10,840
Speaker 2: a statesmanly exercise of prudence to decide in the moment.

764
00:51:11,280 --> 00:51:14,480
Speaker 2: But read Phil's book, I think you'll find it a

765
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:17,480
Speaker 2: much more nuanced response to your question.

766
00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:26,200
Speaker 15: Thank you very much for your interesting talk. Jurney. Through time,

767
00:51:27,680 --> 00:51:30,920
Speaker 15: it seems like secular Americas and principles held together by

768
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:33,960
Speaker 15: the judiciary and it's working or not, which you comment

769
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:37,560
Speaker 15: on that, Yeah, it's.

770
00:51:37,760 --> 00:51:38,560
Speaker 3: Kind of strange.

771
00:51:38,600 --> 00:51:41,160
Speaker 2: You know, the judiciary is the third branch of government.

772
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:43,240
Speaker 2: It was supposed to have, according to the Vegulist papers,

773
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:45,919
Speaker 2: neither force nor will. And yet it seems that we're

774
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:47,440
Speaker 2: ruled by the Supreme Court.

775
00:51:48,040 --> 00:51:49,200
Speaker 3: And it's also weird.

776
00:51:49,600 --> 00:51:51,920
Speaker 2: I just mentioned this, oddly enough a week and a

777
00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:53,879
Speaker 2: half ago when I was down at Ole, miss giving

778
00:51:53,960 --> 00:51:57,680
Speaker 2: a talk for Constitution Day, that all the populace and

779
00:51:57,800 --> 00:51:59,840
Speaker 2: advocates of direct democracy who want to get rid of

780
00:51:59,880 --> 00:52:02,919
Speaker 2: the electoral college and all these impediments to the direct

781
00:52:02,960 --> 00:52:06,640
Speaker 2: expression of popular will, heave in a way reversed the

782
00:52:06,680 --> 00:52:10,680
Speaker 2: electoral college, and we now elect presidents and a Senator

783
00:52:10,880 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 2: whose main job is to pick the Supreme Court, and

784
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:15,800
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court rules it. So we picked the president

785
00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:17,600
Speaker 2: of the Senate, the president, and the Senate picked the

786
00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:19,279
Speaker 2: Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court rules us.

787
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 3: That's not how it's supposed to work.

788
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:24,359
Speaker 2: Needless to say, so how we got to that point

789
00:52:24,520 --> 00:52:29,319
Speaker 2: is a very strange story. It does affect, you know,

790
00:52:29,360 --> 00:52:31,720
Speaker 2: it creates all sorts of prems, including in the area

791
00:52:31,719 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 2: of religious liberty. Another virtue of Professor Munos's book, which

792
00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:38,200
Speaker 2: I just mentioned a moment ago, is he looks at

793
00:52:38,239 --> 00:52:41,160
Speaker 2: some of the Supreme Court jurisprudence and brings out all

794
00:52:41,200 --> 00:52:45,040
Speaker 2: the ways in which it's had a very inconsistent approach

795
00:52:45,080 --> 00:52:48,040
Speaker 2: to the very important questions of religious liberty. But yeah,

796
00:52:48,040 --> 00:52:51,840
Speaker 2: the simple answer to your question is everything is completely

797
00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:54,279
Speaker 2: upside down in the country right now, and one of

798
00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 2: those manifestations is that the court seems to be the

799
00:52:57,560 --> 00:53:00,520
Speaker 2: ruling branch, which is exactly opposite of what Madison intended.

800
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:05,440
Speaker 16: I've worked as a clinical psychologist for thirty years, and

801
00:53:05,600 --> 00:53:09,680
Speaker 16: identity emerges all the time, and in order to form

802
00:53:09,800 --> 00:53:14,280
Speaker 16: a healthy identity, morality is necessary because the human condition

803
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 16: is about the tension between what I am and what

804
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:20,560
Speaker 16: I need to be. Could you please comment about the

805
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:24,279
Speaker 16: necessary or necessity of that morality? Right?

806
00:53:24,320 --> 00:53:27,919
Speaker 2: I mean, in a way that's a kind of carloid corollary.

807
00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:31,279
Speaker 2: Excuse me, to the point of the atheistic society, right,

808
00:53:31,760 --> 00:53:36,239
Speaker 2: I mean, a lot of people think that they're, you know,

809
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:40,560
Speaker 2: avatars of the Enlightenment, they're beyond morality. But just like

810
00:53:40,600 --> 00:53:44,040
Speaker 2: the atheistic society ends up believing in all sorts of

811
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:48,319
Speaker 2: crazy things, people who think they're beyond morality end up

812
00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:52,319
Speaker 2: substituting a kind of airsots or degraded or deranged form

813
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:54,719
Speaker 2: of morality in its place, even though they don't recognize

814
00:53:54,719 --> 00:53:55,200
Speaker 2: it as such.

815
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:55,440
Speaker 3: Right.

816
00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:58,799
Speaker 2: I think if you go to Berkeley and talk to

817
00:53:58,880 --> 00:54:03,720
Speaker 2: some purple haired sociology's grad student, right, she might tell you,

818
00:54:03,719 --> 00:54:05,480
Speaker 2: you know, if you can understand her through all the

819
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:08,480
Speaker 2: piercings in her face, I don't believe in morality, but

820
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:11,680
Speaker 2: of course that's bogus. She believes in all sorts of morality. Right,

821
00:54:11,680 --> 00:54:14,759
Speaker 2: She's extremely eager to impose her morality on you, even

822
00:54:14,760 --> 00:54:15,759
Speaker 2: though she doesn't call it that.

823
00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:16,000
Speaker 14: Right.

824
00:54:16,040 --> 00:54:20,040
Speaker 2: So people can't live without people can't live with a

825
00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:22,760
Speaker 2: spiritual hole in their soul, and they can't live without morality.

826
00:54:22,800 --> 00:54:24,480
Speaker 3: And if they try to repudiate it.

827
00:54:24,520 --> 00:54:26,600
Speaker 2: They just end up putting something else in its place,

828
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:30,440
Speaker 2: which is more than likely to be something weird and

829
00:54:30,480 --> 00:54:32,480
Speaker 2: deranged and counterproductive.

830
00:54:34,640 --> 00:54:36,200
Speaker 10: We have time for one more question.

831
00:54:38,080 --> 00:54:40,080
Speaker 9: Thank you very much for your talk, doctor Elmers. I

832
00:54:40,120 --> 00:54:43,759
Speaker 9: actually study theology and religion at John Carroll's Society, and

833
00:54:43,880 --> 00:54:46,880
Speaker 9: I've really been quite interested in your research, so I

834
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:49,280
Speaker 9: appreciate very much this opportunity to hear you in person.

835
00:54:49,960 --> 00:54:53,799
Speaker 9: So John Courtney Murray argues that freedom of religion being

836
00:54:53,840 --> 00:54:57,160
Speaker 9: enshrined in our constitution is protected in a plerialist society.

837
00:54:57,200 --> 00:55:00,319
Speaker 9: And I'm curious as we continue to move forward in

838
00:55:00,360 --> 00:55:03,799
Speaker 9: this post modernist society where religion is only guaranteed a

839
00:55:03,840 --> 00:55:05,880
Speaker 9: place at a table in the name of tolerance, if

840
00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:08,080
Speaker 9: you still think his theology holds true.

841
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:17,719
Speaker 2: John Kurtney Murray's point, Yes, yeah, I mean, uh, I

842
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:22,040
Speaker 2: mean yeah, sure, I mean that's obviously the answer is yes. Look,

843
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:25,920
Speaker 2: all of us here on the right are concerned about

844
00:55:26,040 --> 00:55:29,360
Speaker 2: the crisis in the West, the crisis in America. The

845
00:55:29,400 --> 00:55:31,800
Speaker 2: whole country seems to be sort of coming apart of

846
00:55:31,840 --> 00:55:35,760
Speaker 2: the seams under the intense pressures. And there's two problems,

847
00:55:35,800 --> 00:55:37,880
Speaker 2: and one is the institutional problem. And this sort of

848
00:55:37,920 --> 00:55:40,080
Speaker 2: came up with the gentleman's question about the court. We

849
00:55:40,200 --> 00:55:43,200
Speaker 2: have to fix the institutions of government, which are all

850
00:55:43,239 --> 00:55:45,359
Speaker 2: out of whack. But the other problem, and the more

851
00:55:45,400 --> 00:55:48,719
Speaker 2: difficult problem, and what John Courtney Murray is sort of

852
00:55:48,719 --> 00:55:51,520
Speaker 2: pointing to, and it's interesting John Carroll. People may not

853
00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:53,120
Speaker 2: know that John Carroll was the first bishop in the

854
00:55:53,239 --> 00:55:56,040
Speaker 2: United States. His brother they were a very wealthy family,

855
00:55:56,080 --> 00:55:58,360
Speaker 2: a very wealthy family in Maryland. One brother signed the

856
00:55:58,360 --> 00:56:00,840
Speaker 2: Declaration of independence. One was the first Catholic bishop of

857
00:56:00,840 --> 00:56:04,080
Speaker 2: the United States. But the other point is, even if

858
00:56:04,080 --> 00:56:06,280
Speaker 2: we fix the institutions, we have to fix the people.

859
00:56:06,320 --> 00:56:06,480
Speaker 14: Right.

860
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:10,200
Speaker 2: The founders were emphatic, you cannot have self government without

861
00:56:10,200 --> 00:56:13,160
Speaker 2: a moral people, and moral generally means by and large,

862
00:56:13,200 --> 00:56:14,000
Speaker 2: religious people.

863
00:56:14,080 --> 00:56:14,200
Speaker 3: Right.

864
00:56:14,600 --> 00:56:17,359
Speaker 2: And if people lose their attachment to religion and lose

865
00:56:17,360 --> 00:56:20,880
Speaker 2: their attachment to morality, they cannot have the habits and

866
00:56:20,920 --> 00:56:24,040
Speaker 2: the virtues that make self government work. Now, how to

867
00:56:24,040 --> 00:56:27,000
Speaker 2: fix the institutions, that's a big challenge. How to fix

868
00:56:27,080 --> 00:56:29,400
Speaker 2: this other problem, right, How to bring the people back

869
00:56:29,760 --> 00:56:32,280
Speaker 2: to the moral habits and virtues necessarily for self government.

870
00:56:32,560 --> 00:56:34,759
Speaker 2: I don't have a simple answer to that, but we

871
00:56:34,840 --> 00:56:37,240
Speaker 2: need to do both, as difficult as that sounds.

872
00:56:38,400 --> 00:56:41,440
Speaker 1: If you like the Michael Berry Show in podcast, please

873
00:56:41,600 --> 00:56:45,759
Speaker 1: tell one friend, and if you're so inclined, write a

874
00:56:45,840 --> 00:56:50,840
Speaker 1: nice review of our podcast. Comments, suggestions, questions, and interest

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Speaker 1: in being a corporate sponsor and partner can be communicated

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Speaker 1: directly to the show at our email address, Michael at

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Speaker 1: mieow dot com, or simply by clicking on our website

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Speaker 1: Michael Berryshow dot com. The Michael Berry Show and podcast

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Speaker 1: is produced by Ramon Roebliss, the King of Ding. Executive

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Speaker 1: producer is Chad Nakanishi. Jim Mudd is the creative director.

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Speaker 1: Voices Jingles, Tomfoolery, and Shenanigans are provided by Chance McLean.

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Speaker 1: Director of Research is Sandy Peterson. Emily Bull is our

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Speaker 1: assistant listener and superfan. Contributions are appreciated and often incorporated

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Speaker 1: into our production. Where possible, we give credit, Where not,

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Speaker 1: we take all the credit for ourselves. God bless the

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Speaker 1: memory of Rush Limbaugh. Long live Elvis, be a simple

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Speaker 1: man like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally,

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Speaker 1: if you know a veteran suffering from PTSD, call Camp

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Speaker 1: Hope at eight seven seven seven one seven PTSD and

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Speaker 1: a combat veteran will answer the phone to provide free counseling.