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Speaking Well of God
Presentation 2: Speaking for God to the World
[Edited transcript. This article preserves aspects of a spoken delivery]
Good afternoon everyone. I’m just so delighted to see so many of you who came out this afternoon to share together in our meeting today. There is a public relations rule that says something like this, “If you have something controversial to say you should wear a very conservative kind of suit.” If you have nothing to say, you should simply wear a very casual kind of dress. You will notice I have only taken my jacket off [from a very conservative suit]. Now you have to work out what I might be saying.
Hard facts
We’re going to continue speaking well of God I hope. I want to begin with some very hard statements of fact about our world today, because we are going to look at the subject of speaking for God to the world.
Half of the world, that’s over 3 billion people, live on less than $2 a day. Think of trying to live like that. Try to think how you would live on that. Almost one billion people today cannot read or write. One hundred and twelve million children have no education at all. Eleven million children die every year from preventable illnesses. And in the area of religious freedom, a hundred million Christians died for their faith in the last century. Do we have something to say to the world? We have so much to say! And we have so much to give to the world. From the year 2000 to the year 2008 it was my privilege to be your representative to the United Nations. While I was there I had many opportunities to speak for the church and for the God that we believe in. This afternoon I’d like to share with you some of those experiences, some of those stories.
Seeing the light
Let us begin, though, in scripture, in John chapter 12. And we already saw in John 14 Jesus’ answer to Philip where He says, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” And in John 12:44 He says, “When a man believes in me he doesn’t believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. When he looks at me he sees the one who sent me.” Jesus is already saying before John 14 the same thing, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the one who sent me.” And then in verse 46 He says, “I have come into the world as a light so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” This morning we talked quite a bit about walking in the light. Now if you have the light do you want to do something with that light, do you want to share that light? Have you ever walked through the forest without a light? It’s a dangerous thing to be doing. I was walking through the forest with a friend of mine, and he had a light. He was walking along seeing where he was going. I was walking behind him but even though he had the light in front of him I couldn’t see where I was walking. He looked behind and said, “Are you okay?” I said, “No, I can’t see what I’m doing at all.” And he said, “Well, why don’t you walk in front of me and I’ll hold the light so that I can see where I’m going, and you can see where you’re going too.”
Isn’t that what we are doing? Isn’t that what we should do? Let’s help people see the light. For if they see the light they can see the way ahead of them too as well as us. Jesus says in the rest of that chapter some other important words. Let’s just read verse 49. “For I did not speak of my own accord but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that His command leads to eternal life, so whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.” So you could say that Jesus was the ambassador for God because He says what God wants Him to say. And of course, Jesus is God anyway so He is going to be saying what God says.
Where are we?
In the work that I was able to do at the United Nations, speaking for what we believe in, it was a real privilege to be able to share at the highest level with these government people and the United Nations staff what we think about God. I remember soon after I got there I spoke to one of the ambassadors from one of the countries at the United Nations. He knew Adventists well from his country. When he met me he said, “Oh finally, I find an Adventist here!” He told me: “Where have you been? You need to be here. We need your standards, we need your values, we need your principles. Why do you keep yourself so well hidden away?” Maybe that’s just our mentality— we think that we’re just a small group and we should stay just kind of quiet and hidden away. But this gentleman, he was pointing at me like this, with his finger, “You should be here. You have this message about health. You have a message about education. You do so much good in the world. Why are you not here doing this at the United Nations?” You know, we need to be involved with society. Not to be compromising, I’m not saying that, but to be talking with people at the highest possible level. I could tell you so many conversations that I’ve had with people at the United Nations and around the world about things which as a church we would gladly pay for!
Trinidad
Let me start with one that just comes to mind as I speak. In 2004 I was in the country of Trinidad and Tobago. Not too many miles away—at least it’s not so far from Brazil, in the Caribbean. We were having a meeting on religious freedom. We had the opportunity to go and visit the Prime Minister of the country by the name of Patrick Manning. We were there in the morning sitting around the table with the Prime Minister. This was meant to be just a meeting for ten minutes to just become acquainted with each other. We all introduced ourselves—said who we were and what we did.
This was right at the very beginning of 2004. Do you remember what happened right at the end of 2003? The tsunami, do you remember? After we had a brief conversation, the Prime Minister spoke up and he said, “I have a question for you. What was God’s role in the tsunami?”
So we all looked at each other and they all pointed at me to answer! How would you have answered that question? Think about it. I started talking a little bit about the great controversy, the situation we are in. And I said, “Mr. Prime Minister, this may take a little time.” He said, “That’s okay.” I started giving him some texts from scripture. He’s a Christian and he said, “Yes, but what about this text?” So he started giving me some texts. We talked—for maybe half an hour already. Then it came to my mind, what an incredible privilege! I’m giving a Bible study to the Prime Minister of Trinidad!
After perhaps forty-five minutes he looked at his watch and he said, “This is more interesting than anything I’ve done for a long time. But I have to go and attend to some state business, so we’ll have to stop now, but thank you so much.” Then I said to him, I said, “Before you leave, Mr. Prime Minister, I have a little gift for you.” I don’t know why I had taken this little book by Graham Maxwell along with me, it’s called Can God be Trusted? I said to him, “I didn’t know we were going to have this conversation, Mr. Prime Minister, but I’m so glad we did and now I have the opportunity of giving you this book. I hope you will enjoy it.” He laughed and he said, “Thank you so much and I will certainly read it.” He came to our religious liberty meetings a few days later and gave a wonderful presentation on religious freedom. Do you think it’s important to be talking to these people?
Philippines
We were visiting the country of the Philippines—we were in Manila the capital. We had the opportunity of speaking with the President of the country. Her name is Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and she’s still the President. A very petite lady. She came into the room and she said, “Please sit down. I have a story to tell you. You’re Adventists here. When I was nine years old my brother who was fourteen years old at the time, had an accident—he fell from a ladder. We took him to the hospital, the government hospital. But because we didn’t have money they wouldn’t treat him. So we took him to the Adventist hospital. The Adventist doctors and nurses took him in to treat him. And they also looked after me as well, because I was there. My brother, they treated him so well that he didn’t have any problems after that.” Then she said, “I will never forget what your church did for my family. If you have any need of anything just come and ask me.” [You know, those doctors and nurses didn’t know this nine year old little girl was going to grow to become the President of the country]. She went on to have a long conversation with all of us about religion, about the country, the state and her own life.
Let me tell you a little bit about what happens at the United Nations. We have been very much involved in the Human Rights Commission that is now the Human Rights Council. We are particularly interested, of course, in religious liberty. And not just for us, for everybody, for everybody should have the freedom to choose their own beliefs.
Azerbaijan
There was one time when I was there that I heard of problems in Azerbaijan. Everybody knows where Azerbaijan is, right? It’s one of the countries in Central Asia. In the second largest city called Ganja the government had closed the Adventist church. So I went to speak to the Ambassador. I said, “Mr. Ambassador, do you have a few minutes? I would like to talk with you.” He asked me who I was and what I wanted, so I explained. He said, “Let’s go out.” We went to the lounge and had a very good conversation. I said to him, “You know, the government has closed the Adventist church in Ganja.” He says, “Oh I’m from Ganja, I know your church.” In the back of my head, I’m praying to the Lord and saying, “Thank you, please tell me to say the right things. He asked, “Why have they have closed the Adventist church?” “Because they don’t have registration,” I replied. “Well, they should go and get registration then,” he said.
“But that’s the problem, the government won’t give them the registration,” I explained. So he said, “Oh I see. So it’s closed because you don’t have registration and because it’s not registered then it’s closed. Yeah, yeah, I see your problem.” In the end I just said, “Mr. Ambassador, I leave it in your hands.” I don’t how it worked, I don’t know what happened, I don’t even know if it had anything to do with me. But I know that one week later we had registration for the church... These are important things and not just for us as Adventists. If I asked you, you’d say, “Yes, we want you to work for Adventists at the United Nations.” But what about working for other people?
Islam and Morocco
We made a presentation in Geneva on behalf of people who convert from Islam to another religion. (Often this is from Islam to Christianity). As you know, in some countries this is forbidden, while in other places these people are killed by the family. In some cases, this is done by the State—it is a penalty imposed by the State. So we were making a protest against the death penalty for conversion. This can be a dangerous thing to be doing because there are extremists who do not appreciate what you’re saying. The other thing was that in our statement we did not use Christian sources, we used Islamic sources—for the only way you can convince Muslims is to use Islamic sources.
When we had finished making our statement the Ambassador of Morocco asked for the right of reply. Now exercising the right of reply usually means that someone is mad with you and they want to come back at you. So when he got up I thought, “Oh no, we’re in trouble now!” But what happened was he got up and said, “We would like to thank the previous speaker for making it clear that the death penalty for conversion is not part of Islam.” This is somebody from an Islamic country saying, “We agree with you.” Then he went on to explain that all the countries who did impose the death penalty for conversion were not practicing true Islam. What do you think about that man? He was very brave because he made himself a target. For he supported the concept that everybody has the right to choose their own beliefs. But he would not have done what he did unless we’d said what we did first. Do you think it was important, do you think it was useful for us to be there to say that? I believe that we should be there in all these situations speaking out for what is right and what is true.
Turkmenistan
Let me share another example. This is in another country you’ve never heard of. This is Turkmenistan, another country in Central Asia, used to be part of the USSR. In that country we had one church in the capital city called Ashgabad. Now in 1999 the government bulldozed—knocked down—the church. We protested. The government never did reply. In fact, there was never anybody from Turkmenistan who came to the United Nations. So that makes it very difficult. We wrote letters, hundreds, thousands of them, to the embassy in Washington, and to the government in Ashgabad .We presented the case to the United Nations and also to the various other organizations, there’s one in Austria (OSCE). We still never heard anything.
But then there began to be a little change. The pastor of the Adventist church that had been knocked down was allowed to come to the United States as a guest of the United States State Department. Eventually the Adventist Church got registration in Turkmenistan. I have seen the certificate, and it has an interesting number on it. The number is 0001. We have the first registration of the church in Turkmenistan. Now that doesn’t mean to say that the persecution has gone away or that we have a new church yet. But it does mean that we have begun a process, and that the government knows something more about Adventists and our stand on religious freedom.
China
Are you tired of the stories yet? You want some more? There was the time when I first I spoke to the Chinese Ambassador. I said, “Mr. Ambassador, I’m very pleased to meet you. I represent the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.”
“Oh, the Adventists, ah yes, the Adventist Church. Yes, we are very suspicious about your Church.”
“Why are you suspicious about us?” I asked.
“Well, we are very suspicious about any group that says one thing and does another. We know that you really believe in religious freedom, but you don’t criticize our country very much,” he replied.
I said, “That’s not a problem, Mr. Ambassador, we can criticize you much more!”
“That won’t be necessary,” he responded. “But you still say one thing and do another.”
Then I wondered what should I say back to this? I think God put these words in my mouth.
I said to him, “Saying one thing and doing another—the Chinese government would never do that, would they?” Then there was a very, very long, quiet moment. But after a long while, he just laughed: “Ha, ha, ha. OK, we understand each other.” And he walked off. I had many conversations with the Ambassador after that too.
The death of the Pope
Some stories are more confidential… You remember when the Pope died, the previous Pope. I went over to speak to the representative of the Vatican, a man I had met before. I just said him, “On behalf of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, I would like to express our condolences on the death of the Pope.” He was very gracious and thanked me very kindly for this, it’s just a protocol.
So then I wrote an email back to the General Conference leadership just to let them know what I had done. I didn’t hear anything—I heard nothing back. When I got back to the General Conference, I was walking through the building and I met one of the Vice Presidents. And I said, “I never got a response about the death of the Pope, and the condolences.”
He said, “Well, let me tell you something. You did exactly the right thing. But none of us was going to write and tell you.” And then he said, “Let me tell you a story. When the Pope died the President of the United States ordered all the flags on the Federal Buildings to fly at half-mast. So there was a discussion at the General Conference what we should do with the flags in front of the building. Some people said, ‘We should fly them half mast, as a sign of respect, as the President said.’ Others said, ‘No we should leave them flying right at the top just to prove we’re not Catholics.’ So there was a big argument in the building. Do you know what happened? They took all the flags down.” You know, maybe we need to grow up a little bit in our international approach to things.
Religious Freedom expert
Let’s turn to a few more serious ones. We have done, as I say, much representational work, particularly in religious freedom. And there’s a UN official who’s not paid by the United Nations but who is an independent expert on religious freedom. Currently, it is a lady from Pakistan called Asma Jahangir. She is the special rapporteur for Freedom of Religion or Belief.
We have worked together with this lady and we have provided her with a lot of information. Every time I went to a country I would send her a report about what I found for religious freedom. She was willing to go on TV and explain to the world how much she appreciated what we do for religious freedom. When somebody like that, an expert from the United Nations, speaks about what we do it is far more important than us talking about ourselves.
North Korea
Okay, I do not want to wear out the patience of the saints, but just a few more. The medical center at Loma Linda in California has a heart specialist team. The government of North Korea was interested in them coming to their country. So I was involved in trying to make arrangements with the Ambassador and the staff at the UN in New York, for the North Koreans. We had a meeting with the lady heading up the heart team, Joan Coggin together with the various diplomats in New York from North Korea.
It was fascinating for me to see how they were operating. They wanted the heart team to come in and do heart surgery for all their military people. But the Loma Linda team wanted to work on children because they would have a greater success. They said—the North Koreans said, “Why do you care about the children?”
I knew we would have to give some answers from a Christian perspective to that so they would understand. And then they said, “You must not do any evangelism!”
To which we replied, “Well, we understand your request and we will respect what you say.” I wondered about that because I wanted to hold the door open. And so I thought, how can I speak to these diplomats at the United Nations so that they will understand what we want to do?
“Yes, we understand what you say, but we reserve the right of reply,” I responded.
Because that’s what they want at the United Nations, the right to reply.
So they said to me, “What do you mean by the right of reply?”
I explained: “The right to reply to a question. For example, if they ask, ‘Why did you come here?’ we want to be able to explain why.” And they said, “Okay, well we will have to consult about this.” They went off into the corner and argued for ten minutes. When they came back they said in a reluctant way, “Okay!” They were not happy but they had to say, “Okay.”
Romania
Oh, I have so many things. Let’s just go to one or two more—there’s just too many things to talk about! I remember when we were in Romania, visiting the President of the country, that he looked all worried about what was going on—he wasn’t paying attention to what we wanted to talk to him about.
So after the meeting I said, “Mr. President, you seem to be a bit distracted.”
“Yes, yes, there’s something happening in Parliament,” he replied. “The Church, the Orthodox Church, wants to be identified as the National Church of Romania. But we want to keep it so that every church is recognized. He sighed.
“But the Orthodox Church,” he said to me, “have told us that if we don’t recognize them they will go on strike!” He says, “What do you do with a church that wants to go on strike?”
(If the Adventist Church went on strike here in Brazil, what would happen? I don’t know!) So it was in Romania—but it gave us an opportunity to talk more about religious freedom, and I encouraged him in terms of giving everyone freedom of belief.
Switzerland
Alright, this one, in Switzerland. We were there for a meeting with all the leaders, the CEO’s of the different churches. Not like the Archbishop, but the people who do the work. The representative the Church of England was there, the General Secretary. We were there together for three days. He said to me at the end of those three days, he says, “You know, I had an idea about what Adventists were like. Before, I had an impression of what they were like; what I thought they were. Now I have completely changed my mind.”
I said to him, “I hope for the better!”
“Yes, absolutely!” He replied. “I had a wrong impression of what you Adventists were like. Now I know what you are truly like.”
Is that important, to be able to talk to people at that level? Yes, of course, and I think all you of would say, “We need to be doing that.”
Being known for—what?
Okay, last thought. What would you want to be known for at the United Nations? When you say the word ‘Adventist’ to Ambassador there what would you want that Ambassador to be thinking about?
I asked an ambassador that question once. I said, “When you think of Adventists, what do you think of?”
“Yeah, Adventists—decaffeinated coffee and soy burgers,” he replied.
To which I said, “Okay, but, I want to be known for something more than decaf and soy burgers.”
While I was there, tried to get people to think of two main things that we stand for that they would understand. When they asked me, “Why do you do this?” I said, “Because of God.” And they said, “But why?” I said, “We believe in religious freedom because we believe in a God of freedom. We believe in health and education because we believe in hope in the future.” I believe we started to have some success. They began to associate the name Adventist with freedom and hope, because we believe in a God of freedom and a God of hope.
Mexico
One more story? In Chiapas, in Mexico, a group of Adventists were chased out of their town because they would not help pay for and support a “party,” a festival, where they drank alcohol.
When they came back all their houses had been destroyed. A newspaper reported interviewed one of the Adventist members.
The reporter asked, “So what will you do now?”
“I don’t have a house, but I trust in God,” the man replied.
I told that story to the Ambassador of Mexico. I said, “This is happening in your country. This is an outrage for your government. And you need to work for religious freedom in your country.”
And that issue is still continuing; we don’t have a result yet. But we do have contacts in the Mexican government and we hope and we pray that these kinds of things, even though we know they will happen, and even more until the end of time, will give us an opportunity to witness to the God of freedom and the God of hope. May God bless you as you speak well for God in whatever you do. Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, as we close the meeting now, we’ve thought about many of the things that happen in this very human world. You must look down on this evil world and it must break your heart. We pray that we will go on speaking about you, the God of freedom, the God of hope. As we look forward to an eternity together with you, may we be at peace with you, may we experience that oneness with you, may we experience that friendship with you. And may we not keep this to ourselves but let us share it with everyone we can. In the name of Jesus who reveals God to us, Amen.
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