An hour with Os Guinness

from woodruff auditorium at the university of kansas kbr presents an hour with arthur guinness i'm kate mcintyre arthur guinness is an author lecturer and co founder of the trinity for a leadership academy committed to bridging the gap between academic knowledge and popular now it's his top the world safer diversity explores how to foster friess speech and a free exchange of ideas in a diverse society after guinness is appearances part of the two thousand six two thousand seven difficult dialogues at the commons knowledge faith and we've been it's a joint venture and he's called benefit humanity and the biodiversity institute and now here in yemen and his solos thank you so much for the photographs or use a man must have a some anti glamour where is the quotation was from about a couple weeks ago sherri of the power

of the internet had it quite extraordinary it's a real pleasure to be good i'm a dying man but i must say i've never come to lawrence graduates of this great university without realizing what great people you have here and it's a real pleasure to be back as an amazing women they like minden the family background like hours i get a lot of jokes about family product one of my favorite jokes is this is purely fiction it's a story of a recent growing convention where the heads of the well growers got together for this business not to if they had a drink and the waiter came around and asked them what they wanted and all the bush ordered about was the peak ozone of his signature drink which is a dreadful coors light and so when ronald reagan ran around the whole roland came to the chairman again to simulate a cult and they are selective and surprises so why don't you get your family drink

civil union on drinking will be a soulful i would not you know it too that anyone is not about and we have had eight hundred years of conflict and oppression and cheers and division and violence over religion and one of the features of that is the document of the violent acts one of the stories that came up in the recent troubles was the story of a jewish businessman who was in belfast he's only got away from all the middle east and hassles and he was gonna relax in a pub and both us and inside indonesia bali that a pistol pushes back and the cold war is that you promised me to cast what we don't want is an end to have a big smile has said the voice but i you up wasn't you're a catholic

now the syllables of dark irish one always allowances dealt with these centuries of tears and thank god today is edging towards the side of the angels but think of the end of the last century the last century was the most murderous century in all human history with a hundred million kill them all and another hundred million killed on the political oppression and approaching another hundred million in sectarian violence in the century when i wouldn't want you know bosnia kosovo sierra leone is to a lot of course towards the middle east people were using words like primitive primordial atavistic to get down to word them to describe the heart of human hatred and how this could happen

a witch's brew of hatreds a humanitarian nightmare would senator one hundred m to describe his hand on monday only term that milton uses for satan's high capital and of course if you want to the end of the century something you began to emerge rescinded just recently for instance the public from us illegally the muslim world is raging earlier was the danish cartoons and that was the lowest rating i first noticed it because it goes back to the power of the internet when jerry falwell may grow dreadlocks about and that image and a week later the war arrives in lahore now he wasn't sneaky but what you can see is in the age of the internet we're seeing the emerging you call a global commons i call it a global public square and if you look around the world today you can see certain things very resonant with us to that the secular opposition theory at ending secularism secularism is a

philosophy those who believe there's no god god's supernatural and song that's legitimate and their right to believe that that's not what i'm talking about secularization theory is seriously flawed clearly religion is furiously alive in many many parts of the world today including many parts of the long will the second thing you can say is that the real question which sounds abstract but it's absolutely urgent is becoming more solar time how do we live with it does differences especially when you remember that the deepest differences are often religious differences or ideological differences many of which are absolute so what divides us often is what people than what unites us the third this is the one i hinted at that we're seeing the emergence now about global public square there's always been a discussion of a

public square in this country in the bible bitch doesn't live in the public space in which we discuss the common affairs we have as humans living together are public squares popping full year the senate and house of representatives so the house of commons will the house of lords that's the formal public square which we debate our differences and the political affairs but we also have the informal public square and it includes newspapers and neighbors tokyo coffee and now of course it includes the web log but clearly the new additions since the rise of the internet means as never before which really have a global public square and even the people i'm speaking to other people consciously in other parts of the world we know to date other people in other parts of the world maybe of ignoring them who knows what i will say tonight that someone might take exception to and b rating somewhere tomorrow we're in a world where we have to remember we are speaking andrea listening to other speaking all around the

world we can see that this question of how we live together were these deep differences especially religious and ideological as one of the world's great questions as abstract and there was a environmental crisis or nuclear proliferation or whatever is bird flu but in fact is clearly one of the key is he is that affects the future of humanity seductive barely mention my own faith position as the secret i am a follower of jesus but i'm not speaking particularly on that tonight that knowledge all i wanna take this topic how we live with our deepest differences above all how do we forged in this country a civil public square because one of the ironies of today's very simple this country as a nation by intentional by ideas and for two hundred years americans grapple with things that a quintessentially latino much of the rest of them were living in pre

modern somewhat traditional societies didn't really care for rollie things that america boast about their cheek cells but the odd thing is now in a global era many of these issues and questions are now troubling the whole world takes a integration in europe and suddenly people are looking to this country and say well now we realize you're on to something but at the very moment when more people are looking to america for some of these deep martin this is the irony is that the american public is not doing too well itself and particularly of the civility and we have had extremism without the rise of the culture was the last thirty or forty years and we need to think very seriously in this country how we re forged a civil public square so yes i am a follower of jesus i'm a christian but on the modeling for the christian faith to my the modeling something that is it was put as the cobbles

a common vision for the common good let me begin by talking as europeans you or american as to why this is important there are certain things about the american experiment george washington called the great experiment that are essentially open ended but will never ever be finished as this is now enabling like that i know one conservative senator in washington saying you know america was blessed by god i'm destined for greatness there was nothing open in about a little a member liberal congressman saying forty of the great experiments ridiculous experiment has succeeded they're cuing up around the block to get an honestly this is a sense of success of success talking about open ended this is ridiculous knowledge or the framers understood that america will always be open ended in the way americans answer this question of how we live about the

differences it's going to be very critical to the american future there's three reasons for the open and that's why it's simply freedom for all the trumpeting of freedom today freedom never ever is by itself it always requires justice and it always requires order of the various reasons you can see a startling freedom never lost forever sometimes it runs into license and undermines itself sometimes free people are so powerful and the privileged but a wannabe secure our and in the earth with security in the last word being secure they lose their freedom or they can defend their freedom in ways that undermine freedom and you can see that freedom never lasts and suddenly american freedom is something dynamic and wonderful but elusive and has to be gotten and cultivated very carefully and this is your living without the differences is critical to it a second reason

america's open and that is what you might call a democratic way general campbell if you read the framers was a gamble at the heart of this whole country was a tension between the fact that constitutionally there's no limit to what anyone can leave priya conference oppose the constitution i love unintelligible you remain culturally the result is that you get as some police encouraged to flourish which would bring the whole thing down for example the christian reconstruction this or some of them muslim so like to change america from the constitution took an effort if ever they were to win the debate they would bring the whole thing down one person one vote one time as a fundamentalist how did the framers see that tension balanced cup constant usually relevant culturally a very

definite they balanced it by police in tough robust civil debates as jefferson says chances greatly shopper well actually an old irish maxim but he believed very strongly that in the interplay of tough robust democratic debate the best the most human the most travelers just believes what brazil and then the country with right but if they don't or if we have such a choking off of the public square but many the best police can't really be heard political correctness one of the america's in trouble a third reason is obviously for the open ended this is the fact that america has a uniquely open character because of immigration many european nations it's often put you know they go back and they traveled to the list of antiquity and they are what they are what the ensemble not this country cause it welcomes people from the outside and is not quite true that this is a nation of immigrants and small a nation of settlers who've welcomed immigrants but you can see there's

an openness here but of course if there's a failure of citizenship education then the character this country could easily change for a while and in many ways that's happened in the last monday of the ideas including education about how we discuss the deepest differences so this issue goes to the core of the united states when i'm just talking about debating university campuses with talk about to students at the very heart of the american republic and increasingly an issue that's important for the world second life let's ask why the framers sold their solution as what medicine call the true remedy that true remedy celebrity diversity religion and public life so you didn't spill what he called tony so

he called it what do the systems i call on the settlements to come out of europe about trump's statements on there are three main ones the french english and american the french is the other extreme from the american auto mecca cost of the conditions of the french revolution you had a very corrupt church with a very corrupt state actually colluding with each other leading to oppression and the cry of the radicals the joke about was we want a spinal asking with the guts of the last greatest now you see what that meant in france than vincent in a nine and still love today if you're in favor of faith your reaction and if you're in favor of a secular and you can see the whole french way of watering church and state and song just establishing a totally strictly right down to the penny of headscarves of muslim immigrants that are rather

strict secular as in the middle not a state judge but even the presbyterians was a result half reformed and there's nothing nasty like bottle of the day steve of volunteers massacre and then like that but it was a state church and over the centuries it has withered away but there's been no known since anti clerical errors and today and if you know the church of england is kind of like a national utility as its but senate but if it does the hatching matching and dispatching the citizens of one day i was baptized in the meringue them and burying them and you know it's nice that this religious utility that sometimes his beautiful like the gulf it was front of this cathedral that is largely innocuous in many ways except on occasions like when princess di dies and so but you can see england as almost a secular of france but without any of that higher reaction an anti clerical as a new move to america very

very different as alexis de tocqueville says as he comes in at thirty one and sons the spirit of religion and the spirit lent to go on opposite directions in america the hand in hand why as he puts it religion has flourished here not despite this establishment but because of it so that it's voluntary and entrepreneurial and you can see that this underlies much of the greatness of america prisons makes it very clear that freedom of conscience as the framers put it is the first liberty now i know in our society today with many people religious liberty is that it is a religious no not friends for many people today frieden the speeches number one north of france if you think freedom of assembly is important as you wanna get together with people with only one to speak about things that matter are

fundamentally to you so freedom of assembly as susan requires freedom of speech freedom of speech that susan because logically freedom of conscience what is it you want to speak about they believe is true and justin vital those things that you buy according to the dictates of your conscience and the fragrance all but religious liberty is the first liberty and the tissues in free speech and is using freedom of assembly and so on but if it comes down that which is the primary but this program is not in medicine but it also affects things socially and he'll say why is america so vital in this they will free market capitalist but in fact the first amendment i call it pre market capitalism it came in decades before market capitalism but i did the same thing the acropolis in the

market of demobilization and deregulation is this establishment the problem for creating a level playing field in the economy is making or giving everyone equal rights of freedom of conscience but you can see this led to an explosion of social entrepreneur real vitality and the first amendment and the genius of the way it would hit things was behind many of the reform movements of the nineteenth century simply an abolition much of the educational movements the growth of all a boost to colleges across the country and maybe the charitable movements they were all rooted in this entrepreneurial vitality that actually grew out of the church state relationship that was the brilliance of the first amendment but the third thing that's part of this charade really is more strongly still in iran have to come from all parts of the world to appreciate this and many of you only know the american situation not so well you don't know it but what the first

amendment does is allow for a social bomb money which is not unique a rare i put it like this the first amendment allows two things to come together which really come together strong religious convictions and strong political stability that's easy to say but look elsewhere to see the contrast western europe and told the arrival of state the muslim immigrants with exceptions like the tragedy of all still western europe in the last fifty years has been remarkably civil about religion but you know western europe is a big deal there is not a religion to me and so if you take just a scandinavian well the scandinavian settle in this country well the upper midwest places like wisconsin minnesotans on church dying in

minnesota or is still well above the american average american average summer in the forties minnesotans in the seventies seventies story three percent but honestly doesn't go to church as malcolm is something that the country as a whole fights and you can see that you are by and large has been very very simple because there's you know the middle east you have the opposite problem passion a religious convictions even within the same religion freezing out in baghdad the sun in the shia or civility no liberty no life now i'm not saying it's been perfect yet we think of the no nothing we think of nativism there'd be egregious violations but that said this country compared with most countries has a remarkable record amygdala say bluntly america got religious liberty right before about race right and

madison was many ways was correct this is the most nearly perfect situation in history so far because liberty for all with an incredible degree of diversity but onto a third major point is going to win out there today what's happened well various factories afloat for american the last fifty years some little longer and as they've converged they throw in the all settlements in ways of understanding into the mix and now we have the culture was the first factor is the most unusual and in many ways it positive and exploding pluralism by contrast with europe america was remarkably diverse in the eighteenth century say the middle colonies like pennsylvania school also set up a rule protestant and

then the diversity begin christine with oli catholics who came in and then judeo christian with significant numbers of jews coming in and you can say in the early nineteenth century the golem in america religion is like mormonism and saw all religions were very loosely biblical knowledge and it'll be able to lose the small bee in the sense of the book of mormon or whatever it is is a throwback to the bhagavad gita is no back to the koran doesn't go back to it goes back to the bible is not the book on the census christian couples say but it traces its ancestry to the bible and wrote up till nineteen fifty nine that was largely a picture in this country since then there's been a huge step forward first the growth all of secular people in this country something like two percent and fifty nine when up to scholars argue nine ten maybe eleven percent by the end of nineteen sixty nine one of the biggest expansions in the twentieth century and very significant because

it's the educated classes and of course all the influx of all the world's religions or put a stick in an up to the vietnam war and more recently many many muslims other converts in american jails or wasn't coming in from muslim countries and i've got examples of all worlds religion someone america california for instance i spoke with ninety religions in one high school i went into a school prayer going to be exporting pluralism has thrown those issues into the next the second change since the first amendment is an expanding statism america's never had church and state there was always churches many many many of them and states now fifteen oh another church and state in the early days it was the second in a signature it's a synagogue a lot of up there was close and powerful in people's lives as uncle sam was a long way away and

there's nothing on april fifteenth franzen's until nineteen thirteen but now calls uncle sam is clemson strategy people's lives and things like tax day come around and many people's faith community maybe geographically close to them was often weakened ineffective on the level of the joining of golf club or whatever there's been a whole turning round of that relationship now is the fed change those the most important and israeli bedeviled the other two an emerging separation is so but frey most separated church and state republican congresswoman has said that was a lie and the christian right in plain that's a myth ahh good role and foolish the framers separated church and state the phrase is not in

the constitution and the prince of olives and nobody that it not only that in the early days nobody jobs that it was fairly positive it's a couple he says even among his fellow catholics well it's people or back in europe would believe an establishment every single catholic eleven america was in favor of church of the separation of church and state and so it has fully positive there is nothing wrong with the separation of church and state it is part of the genius of this country what went wrong is called strict separation or separation has them now but grew up in the nineteen forties broke out in the constitution along the edison case in nineteen forty seven and it has a very different understanding but religion is in public private and the public square is in violently second

of course is not just isn't true jefferson is the hero the separation as grisly road to the danbury baptist sunday april first at no two about the wall of supper racial but how did jefferson understand the wolf that was a friday he wrote that letter good fight on sunday he went to it was the largest church service in america under the roof of the capital and there wasn't a single sunday when jefferson was in washington when he did not attend church under the roof of the capital and again and again he invited christian groups into the executive branch building there was johnson's famous wall of separation was not the strict separation making religion and violent the private and the public sphere in violently secular that's secular if you know jefferson's university virginia my son is now law school he has these famous serpentine woolson away jefferson's wall of separation was about us wobble is that it

was actually a very very different thing than people are saying today that what the string changes together particularly bedeviled by the last one and you have the culture wars a list on both falsely to the options we have today or i should say you have today but these options are actually very close to some of the options we have on the global public square symbolically been through not giving you my opinion i'm not that meyer this country but i'm not american and european happy to live here and work here so that's just one person's view as an outsider but let me i give them anyway you have to make up your own mind the culture wars is of such a stage now with the traditionalists in battle with the progressives that neither side puts the other side they're talking about the other side to their own size

and the very powerfully led by political leaders they're very powerfully funded by all sorts of people and that very powerfully organized by a good many activists some on top of them you have all sorts of people are making a vast amounts of money writing books and someone to their inside about the awful people on the other side you could take it sounds i want to get out of bookstores and sealed and the religion wars other holy war front of a culture war at their roots it's not really a battle between say fundamentalists and second solo that's day at their root what matters for america it's a battle about how we live with our differences and the views of religion an ideology in public life and so that's the state and we've got to get this right for the reasons i said earlier you don't have to agree with me but i would argue that the road two positions currently which a dominance and their extreme and that both

dangerous for the republic of sussex training is what's called the sacred public square there's no established church in this country but clearly in the nineteenth century and for many people today there is one face they would like to see a privilege they like the christian faith some was unused until i would like to see is a privilege you can see the same notions such as school prayer in a society as diverse as ours it is neither just no free nor american in the sense of american first principles to have any religion preferred and privileged at the expense of others i think they're a very serious problems in the religious right got to babysit i'm a christian but i disagree radically with my fellow believers in religious right one of the main problems they have is they have no public philosophy

they have no vision of a common good so every suggestion and so on that they make sounds like a coalition on everyone else in position on every house and sell and my argument to them would be that they are creating the very thing they fear if you look at europe there is a direct relationship between today's secularity and yesterday's prostate churches christian church in europe will pay for a long time for the corruptions of the past didn't happen here is a cinnamon this country had a hospitable to all things there was no hostility against an hour but you could say since the rise of the culture wars and since the rise of the religious right there's a discernible american rising opponents of the european hostility to religion and the religious right is producing the very a rejection is working against

and at the end of this administration that reaction is becoming vehement and vicious sometimes against all christians sometimes against the fundamentalists but they're producing the very rejection the fear i think they are an extreme the other extreme this was called the naked public square and i give public square as a mixture of people of us to feel a separation isn't mentioned some of whom also have a second arrest for loss of a big use the separation is constitutional theory and who often rely on the use of public life like john rules of this theory of justice but the net effect is when i said religion isn't violently private public squares and violently secular now there's all sorts of things you can say about that but in society as diverse as ours when most people the bedroom was a still religious as even less just the most workable on

the christian right direction for the added fact that often secularism is smuggled in through the back on becomes the newly privilege have preferred face a in the public schools so i think we're a place for learning to say if you look at the culture wars and you see the positions they're taking in the long run and also in their own interest well of a sudden onset in the interest of republicans what's the alternative there's a third position and one declared has no national leadership and almost no major funding at the moment among many political organization it's what's called a civil public square and despite the civil public square is where people are free to insert any gauge public life on the basis of their faith which is after all how they understand themselves in the world on the basis that faith but and here's the big but within the framework of the greed

rights responsibilities and respect for those of other faiths so the phrase is a right for a christian is a right for an atheist and right for you and write from muslim right from oman right for a scientologist or whatever and the right for what is right and the responsibility for both and that's the principle of it but then that has to be told in terms of how we engage each other civilly peacefully prisons in the public square we've all got a persuade motto it's in the public square it's important to say it's unwise to be discussing the routes above face with a say i don't i do in the public square in washington that's where the christian faith is true i believe it is in the private sphere i had many many conversations in the public square mile an

argument with an atheist i would've office is true you know well it's true the world before long will be going for each other's struggle as the demands and when this divisiveness and violence it's wiser to leave questions of the adjudication of the roots of our differences for conversations in the private sphere and that's a very important conversation but in the public square when discussing the implications so you're proposing this synod proposing that and she's proposing the other their implications so we're coming from different positions but those implications had enormous significance for our common affairs and that we can discuss the roots of the differences about the consequences and implications so we have to work out and that has to be taught from primary school level right up to the way politicians thought so that over the course of a generation civility is built back in in a strong way now i'm going to shop audience i mentioned an interview immediately got

questions about a highly skeptical that i just mentioned the two most common ones a lot of people think that the search for civility is the search for a lowest common denominator ecumenical unity now if we understand what we are today in the kmart in quotation dr barry and i don't believe that there is any fundamental you have a table old of us cements some religious belief differences the dalai lama's talked a lot recently about creating out in a consciousness of peace within the world on a course that renunciation we're seeing it secularists or say the monell says jews christians and muslims would disagree i challenge is that what divides us is actually deeper than what divides the united states but we still create a framework

within which we can negotiate those differences my own picture that is the queen's the rules of boxing the moccasin queens pre lent his name to boxing sayed owner the romans than boxing is a brutal and they still have the editorial games of the final brittle in my view they ban boxing but boxing was brutal colorado than apple fights london flights that went on from the rounds and people that are not a surprise when his friends came along said let's make this poetry and they put it in a ring and a referee with enrolls so the boxes touch gloves at the beginning and they don't punch about all the disqualified there are roles but they still find but its metaphorical compared with fighting in the middle east all of them more than a way that's a picture of democratic stability civility is not being so nice to each other and talk a lot about each other wheels finally how did johnny agree on everything

we have fundamental differences but are incredibly important and they need to be debated and civility is now because tea party etiquette for japanese tea ceremony niceness now it's understanding the rules of engagement within which you have tough democratic debate that is robust and hardheaded but you're still citizens discussing a common future so it's it's peaceful rather new to its persuasive wrong to us the awareness understanding is one that a lot of fundamentalist the civility as a form of tolerance is very very dangerous and it'll allow all sorts of nasty things to be tolerated i put that that reflect has the right to believe and if it does not mean that anything anyone believes is right at the first of the sentences freedom of conscience and wonderful the right to believe in

effect that is freedom of conscience and christians need to recognize god himself allows people reject him totally rather than in roger williams town raiding their conscience freedom of conscience means the right to believe in a thing but it does not mean that interview on believes is right it means that when we disagree we do so peacefully and persuasively and so on and we have responsibility some theories that other people have it about that song is we may consider exceedingly level headed richard dawkins considers those was for christians exceedingly level headed it never would've opened his opening chapter of his new book the god delusion is not exactly high civility this is well christians are raging today like muslims they could just on page or two and stubble from his book but you know he's welcome to believe that someone as he debates as we're allowed to get our answers to and so we should just one last point of finishing

what would it take now it will say it's impossible culture was a bit so entrenched in no way around this i think it will take some very simple things for us leadership one of the tragedies of american today with the culture war that is a leader of the high national level who has the guts and the courage to stand above it and say a pox on both your houses he has a way that's in the best interests of all americans and surely in the line with our friends we do not have such a leader the motto great nations in prices is this probably those who addressed the crisis and that's one of america's greatest challenges today the second thing that is needed is vision so many people are just decrying the extremism decrying the darkness decrying the religious right of a secular left or whatever but not putting in its place a vision for a

civil public square but it's doable i tried to do it very briefly tonight we gotta do much more among package which leads to the third point it's gonna be applied above all to the trouble spots and without any doubt the two main trouble spots a political debate i will say it all over again in the coming election and in a presidential run and in public education and we need material and people who will go right down to the primary level with things to teach young kids right up through school and universities of the world will have the university the base or having political debates or whatever it is we can have debates over civil and tough and robust or once not just thinking everything i said now begins to apply to the global public square and here you get a slightly different i said the options were sacred naked and several when you moved to the global public square

the way they're being framed a slightly different but again nothing here to extreme center of the week level one extreme is what is called progressive universal as those who believe that there's one way which is the way for everybody in the world and its right we should kill us everyone to come our way and that would include the old fashioned cummins that included to do with the muslims sadly that includes some christians are included many democrats would take democracy around the world at the point of a gun and it includes some other cultural some innocence on lots of people the one way is the only way the way for everybody so as them now clearly in a well those divorces hours that first position simply needs to one thing conflict conflict the other extreme looks much much more appealing multiculturalism was the

goal is different ideas who we to judge people come from different cultures different perspectives religions ideologies who already has the job so let's all right will accept them all and each do i'll run things a teenager say what that sounds very appealing in fact it is just as dangerous in one sense it will mean many people turning a blind eye to evil we're seeing one of the greatest human rights crisis of all time for the internet sex trafficking returned a blind eye to return the blind it genocide because that's the rwanda where settling their differences do we turn a blind eye to a gentle female mutilation circumcision because that's the cultural values or do we care enough to quote intervene in various ways we got inside cafe that we do but a radical multi cultural relativism leaves of the first position towards conflict the second one

two of complacency and it will save a midas touch and just shrugging their shoulders of some of the monumental evils of our world the third position is what's called equivalent of civil public square a chartered pluralism was pluralism on the basis of freedom of conscience there's bound to be incredible diversity but it should be within the charter compact an agreement of how vain we handle those deep differences we don't have to blow each other of the water the fosse style bosnia style baghdad style so here's the american experiment the most nearly perfect solution so far out medicines true remedy but today not doing so well and you're citizens to rise up and say what sort of a world view on a pass on to the next generation he seemed

like this you can see religion is a highly controversial as you a religion is not a private issue it's a public is soon to wellness two and today it's a nationalistic about her was we cannot take it anymore and the framers realize they had to handle it and of course the challenges for this generation the frame was set up this incredible great experiment which is achieved all sorts of things and many many spheres but in the areas where the cultural touches today america's and growing really deep trouble and i just finished will forte from the great frontrunner mike says thankfully central's the very end of his life not in a market in america but in writing towards the end of his life he just a lot of friend with a revolution as a novel the hardest part to invent is the end it's a great experiment and this

generation has a crucial decisions in its hands as to the condition and character of the great experiment for the next generation think hard and think well and get it right and make sure whether it's a kansas is discussing these things to be honest some of the mill interchange i read from some staff last year duke kansas or america civil society is tough robust debating but within a framework of a common appreciation for the rights and respect of others thank you two questions one where is the line between vigorous

debate and on civility to what is the difference between legislation which is the result of debate and courtship it off where do you draw the line of condoms is often be human beings we draw the line on decisions of like a jet with its vapor trail the line comes after the jet not before that yet now that's not a get out as you can see when people go to fall in to take an example from the christian side of the toughest ethical jesus of nazareth this follows is this coastal other enemies does the religious right now that sentiment just really as direct mail just take a ten page study of every word in the direct mail on the line in green red and asked what those words appeal to and nothing but luck they

demonize and the us some christian anti christian clearly has no civility that it's the truth without now we'll go overboard sometimes but cannot example identified that it would feel this we both came over from england in europe by march you can have a knockdown drag out audience among candidates often i've been great friends mr crossley on a knockdown drag out of human sources what you're really disrespected me your culture's become so therapeutic people feel disrespected and called into question and also things and so you can have a tough debate now is gonna be with grayson company's various things but we should show some even i'm out to lunch by all means it with me you know i walk to and feel threatened if you argue with me and so you can see the loss of cultural things that surround this is a deal in the culture war ii isn't just people do not citizens are and a lot of media people i was in the bbc once peter jennings was a friend

before and now you have ninety seconds to do it as you you'd prefer jerry falwell and al sharpton the moderates would you know just the bias of the media you want to really get hammered each other uncle about like you know twenty seconds you don't care about anything substantive songs it's coca television and the cooperative is a behind you and so and is he the lot of factors which are undermining stability isn't just ill will or bad intentions like that we need to examine them all was that poor undermining the american public at the end of the log so there's no line we draw woman becomes unstable but we gotta watch ourselves from since one thing is to know your own self it is someone who's so peaceable it sellout truth at any cost oh you're so ornery you know you're so you're fighting the truth but really does pay more in control in a lot of all

watch yourself and we all have a bias in a carat total on the bias in our culture was the same question one in the way of what is a different sort of disconnect of what is the difference between legislation restores old debate and corey how all legislation assumes morality the idea of legislation without a moral assumptions is a myth there's no fully neutral legislation that said it is a mistake to legislate pleasurable pop before you persuade it so let me get you to a great examples of good and bad of christian attempts to change culture one is the one i mentioned abolition that's reckoned to be the greatest reform a human history that led by bas the face with a mobile force but the one of the worst is prohibition not i'm a little biased to me from very famous

prohibition is not christian hansen but equally importantly they didn't persuade the culture they just possible medical center and lead the mourning it was overturned if you want a successful legislation still is something that truly is right but also where you persuaded hearts and minds before you pass the law and then there's no feeling of coercion this particular question from the audience what is religion i guess you have your longtime high as a catholic o'leary is the voice of a spiritual dimension i don't think i know how to reserve religious difference for private square the innocent so i'm saying i mean my

gut and not a catholic a protestant other than in my views of any different from you as a catholic the point about what is religion you know that the latin root of the world religions to do with finding something that gives you a sense of meaning and belonging in this world is binding address for id it'll it's the whole of life that this huge arguments in social sciences asked whether religion should be defined substantively in terms what it is that people believe or functionally and turns out looks now like winning go into lowe's religion and i would say faith will do as i do secularism as a faith will do to its naturalistic robin transcendent supernatural but it does the same things the religion i would also say it doesn't go quite as well but that's in a part of the discussion so that that's religion meaning that the question of the private sphere i'm not saying you are strict religion to the private sphere model that's what

i'm saying is the second was the separation as fallacy as the john rolls foul say john rawls says in effect that the deepest thing on faith for those are the stability of our faith which defines how we see ourselves our identity how we see really life he says we must keep it outside to go through faith as you enter the public square so we enter did you did in the naked public square as a kind of constitutional quarantine shot and saw it it is fundamentally demeaning and dehumanizing i'm not saying that what i said was there's a time and a place for all our differences to be discussed the public square is where we discuss the common policies of our common life it's not the place that's best to discuss why i'm a christian white he's a jew why she is an atheist or whatever that's a very important discussion that's not the best done in the public square just a time

a place on and invite your family over us question in our family are some things over the kitchen table will go hammer and tongs that if that topic came into our how much it will some time in the summer that have on thomas' fashioned kitchen table we have all this amid dr barry was there for the first time on a house in the leading role without being dishonest about it just some things we discussed very openly as a family nobles bought some things were a little more circumspect equal if i went out on capitol hill i have a different sense of programmers to there's a time and a place for each day and i'm saying the public square takes a the abortion debate maryland ten years ago and their loans discuss for two weeks abortion it was said to be the ugliest debate most violent divisive debate in maryland since the civil war why they went cameron thomas' didn't discuss the implications for policy they discussed your humanist and you're a fundamentalist and they just went at each other in terms of their faith the public square is in the plays to

say your humanist oh you're a fundamentalist your dirty scientologist when you're a rational what about now and we like to say about privacy as much wiser to do that not reds to write the whole of life is informed by a faith but there's a time and a place to discuss the roots novel a time let's say you're at your questions to join a severe recession book signing a trio of you want to join me in saying many thanks to the crosby's this fee fi fi fi in a flex your father and co founder of the trinity for him recorded october third two thousand six at woodruff auditorium at the university of kansas it was a presentation of caves hall center for the humanities and the biodiversity institute reporting assistance was provided by katie media services i'm kate mcintyre keep your presence of the production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas

what do you know at ninety pierre brisson vice president walter mondale and his unsuccessful run against president ronald reagan mondale is often credited with reinventing the office of the vice president thinks he gives all the credit to president jimmy carter he was in the white house wanted to make the boys are variations and we call it we inject finally fall the holy kbr presents former vice president walter mondale monday night at eight o'clock on kansas public radio