Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is a program
bringing you up-to-date news,
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views, and discussion on
religious liberty events.
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And of course, many events
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that bear on
religious and civil liberties.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
Editor of Liberty Magazine.
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And my guest on the
program is Scott Christiansen,
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an author and a world
traveler and many other things,
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a man of many parts. Thank you.
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But my way of introducing you--
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well I'll-- I'll
mention right upfront,
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there's a book you've written
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on global system collapse. Yeah.
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But, you know,
when I study history
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and the cataclysms of the past,
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it seems like one of them
was a horde of avenging angels
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that came down from
the plains of Mongolia
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led by Genghis Khan, right?
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As well, you know, the Chinese
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who were attacked by
the hordes of Mongolians,
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I don't think they
would use the term, angels.
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No, well, I used with
a... No, I understood--
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But, you know, that was pretty
much the scorched death policy
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that they sweep
into areas like locust,
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just destroy the
civilization that existed.
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You know, it
was the Mongolians--
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probably it's not
where you wanted to go
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with this program. But
just as they destroy...
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You can take it
anyway you want. Okay.
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I will steer it if
it's totally wrong.
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The reason that the
Mongolians were so fearsome is
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because of--not because
they weren't great warriors,
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they were, but was
because of their horses.
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Each warrior had at least five,
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but as many as eight horses.
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He would switch
mounts during the day,
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so that the horses
didn't get tired out.
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He would drink the
blood and milk of the horse.
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Sort of self-sufficiently.
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He would kill, they butcher
a horse if they needed to.
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And the
Mongolians were very good
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at riding their horses
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and absorbing the
impact with their knees
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and shooting a
bow. They were deadly.
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And it was--it was the
super weapon of their time.
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It was, and you know what?
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They outmaneuvered the
existing military policy
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of the time, that's what it was.
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They overran everyone and--and
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today you can see a
monument to their efficiency
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and that is the
Great Wall in China.
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The Great Wall in
China was not built
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to keep out the Mongolians.
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It was built to
keep out their horses.
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Because without the horses
the Mongolians were nothing.
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Yeah, I learned something
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because I've
wondered about that wall.
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Just like
Hadrian's Wall in England
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and I could never imagine that
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it would literally
keep an army at bay.
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But if it was the horses,
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yes, it would be
a great impediment.
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Pretty much like
a moat for horses.
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The Chinese could
handle Mongolians on foot.
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It was the horses
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that allowed the
Mongolians to overrun china.
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Yeah, that's the reason
that we bring up Mongolian.
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Part of your
interesting history is that
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you were working
with an organization
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called
Adventist Disaster Relief.
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What's the A for.
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Adventist
Development, Development.
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Sorry, Development Relief.
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Agency. Agency, agency.
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Yep, yeah and you
were based in Mongolia.
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I was the
Founding Country Director.
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I was the first into Mongolia.
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No, I didn't pick that up. Okay.
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Now Mongolia was closed
for a longtime to communism
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and it's only in recent years
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the people on the
west have been there
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and discovered it.
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I have a--a work
associate was there recently
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and I got the
impression-- Distinct impression
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that Mongolia are
still extremely tough living.
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It's not in the
modern world by any means.
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It's coming along.
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Mostly because of the
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huge mineral resources
that have been discovered there.
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It's the frontier, isn't it?
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Yes, it's very
much the frontier.
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It's very much the western,
wild western environment
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if I can use that,
even though it's Far East.
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But it is-- it is quite a place.
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And you know when we--
when we first moved there,
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they had--not too
long before we moved there,
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the Soviet Union had collapsed.
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And of course
Mongolia was a client
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state of the Soviet Union
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and they were
hermetically sealed
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from the rest
of the world. Yeah.
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They didn't know
about the outside.
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And trying to run
an organization, ADRA,
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but that was a very tough
dealing with the government,
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but also looking at
the government's attitude
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towards the
religion-- Well that's where --
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you, you're ahead
of me. Oh, I am sorry.
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No, that's what--that's
what I want to find out.
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This was a closed system, not
known for plurality of faith,
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how did you find
their attitude toward as--
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As it's slowly opening.
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How was their
attitude toward religion?
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Do they indeed in
their own system have much,
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what you call,
Religious Liberty.
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Well-- How do you
characterize this?
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We're going back,
now first I must say.
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That when we went to Mongolia,
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I and my family,
my kids were young,
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they're not so young now.
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In fact I had only
2 kids at that time.
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Now I have 4. But this was 1994.
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So it's going
back a number of years.
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And you know the
Mongolians were communist
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and quite ruthless.
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But one of the things that
the communists did early on
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and we're talking
about 1920 around there.
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One of the things
that communist did early on
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was kill off almost
all of the Buddhist priests
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there--that were in Mongolia.
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Equivalent in
other communist country,
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they decapitate
the church structure.
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And--and this
was their attitude.
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They saved a couple monasteries.
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They had a couple
communist priests,
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you know, for show.
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But the attitude
towards the government
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during
communism towards religion
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was that religion was--was toxic
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and was
absolutely not allowed for.
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So you saw signs that
they had been fairly successful
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and that religion
was not very vibrant
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even in those
post communist years.
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Well, you know it's interesting
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because there was just
great release of emotion
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when the communists
fell and the Mongolians said,
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well, you know, we're gonna
get on with whatever is next.
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You know, we got freedoms now.
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And if you ask
the average Mongolian,
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you know, what is your belief?
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And they would
say, well, I'm Buddhist.
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But they had no
idea what that meant.
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You know it was
like-- It was like the U.S.
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Yeah, it was a social thing.
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But now-- You're right though.
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You know in the
global war on terror
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where we're
dealing with Islamic world,
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that is often deeply
committed to the Islamic tenets.
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You know they see
the Christian west
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and they think
we're all Christians.
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We're normally all Christians.
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But I'm told
millions of westerners
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that have little real idea
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of what it means
to be a Christian--
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But most of the
people in the country
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who are very much
of a harden mindset,
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religion is bad.
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It maybe that their
economic structure change
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from socialism to
free market you know.
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But they didn't
change their attitude
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towards religion and
for that very reason,
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the people that came into
the early Adventist church
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and Adventist
Frontier missions by the way,
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some very brave people entered,
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Brad and Cathy
Jolly entered Mongolia
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right after it fell.
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And lived through
times on the breadlines
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and they're really
very, very different--
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very brave
people, wonderful people.
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Yeah, it's worth mentioning this
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because these are the
real frontline missionaries
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around the world. Absolutely.
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And you were in the
position to observe,
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but with ADRA, which is run
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by the
Seventh-day Adventist church
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but using government moneys
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and through government agencies.
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The rules of
engagement are pretty strict.
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You're not
there as a missionary.
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You cannot.
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You would be
ejected pretty quickly
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if you acted that way.
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I would, ADRA would have
been thrown out of the country
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had I been a missionary.
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It does not mean
that I did not have
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my sympathies with AFM.
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And that doesn't mean that
I did not greatly encourage
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the new church members.
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But you know there
were new church members.
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But there wasn't one of them
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that was over 19
years of age. Hmm.
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Because they had an open mind.
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Their minds were not
yet formed in cement.
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Older people absolutely
would not accept Christianity.
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You know, interestingly enough,
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of course, I was with ADRA
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and trying to
build an organization
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and trying to
provide social services
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to tremendous need,
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none of my
employees were older than 19.
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That was the--is it just
that they were the most open,
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or was the population
in general quite young?
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Well, the population there--
It was a very young country.
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But there were a lot
of people in the country
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that had professional degrees
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and had worked under communism.
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But for that very
reason I wouldn't hire them,
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because their idea was that work
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consisted of just a few hours
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of nominal labor each day. Yeah.
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And they-- That's true
and under communism people
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did exactly what
was required out of them
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and nothing more.
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And in Mongolia it
was very, very little.
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You had to hire people
that had no real skills
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but also hadn't been
yet poisoned by the system
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that was previously
in place. Interesting.
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So difficult spot
for religious freedom
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and for religious plurality,
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but I get the
impression from you and others
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that there's
great potential in this.
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It's improving there,
it's not getting worse.
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They're not tightening down any.
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You know, it
has opened up. Yeah.
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Now in the early days when we
would go to church on Sabbath,
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you know there
would be six or seven
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or sometimes a dozen or
two dozen as time went on,
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young people in the
church, very young people,
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some of whom came and went.
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And some of whom
stayed as regular members
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and they were the
foundation of the church.
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But probably, once
every month or two months,
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we'd have to
move some place new.
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Because the people that
were renting the building to us
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caught on the fact that
this was a Christian group
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and didn't want have
anything to do with us
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and threw us out. We
were a homeless church.
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Interesting. In the early days.
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That was their government codes
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or policies or regulations
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that would
inhibit a church forming
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and worshiping in a spot. No.
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That was just local prejudice.
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That was-- Well that was
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75 years of the
established tradition
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that churches were bad.
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That was-- That
was hardened fast.
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Now today--today
it's very different.
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Today there's well over
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a thousand
members in the church.
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There are local Mongolian
missionaries that are working.
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Some of whom I
went to church with,
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you know, back in the day.
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But the interesting
thing about Mongolia
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and other countries is
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the situation
could revert instantly.
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The opening that
we have is unsure.
00:10:21.11\00:10:24.36
But we just need
to take advantage
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when we can, you
can't know tomorrow.
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You can't know tomorrow.
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But I was going
to throw in before
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like on meeting in
homes and in formal places.
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Obviously, hard there,
but people don't realize
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even in the United States
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we run the risk
of local prejudice.
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We have an article
coming up in Liberty Magazine,
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I think it's a story
that comes from San Juan
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Capistrano in California.
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People were having Bible studies
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and midweek prayer
meetings in their home
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and the neighbors objected
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and the codes
restricted gatherings like that
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and they were fined and
then it was stopped. Wow!
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Might not have happened
in another neighborhood,
00:11:03.39\00:11:05.35
might not happened there again,
00:11:05.36\00:11:06.65
but we need to realize that
00:11:06.66\00:11:08.28
these things can happen here
00:11:08.29\00:11:09.75
and especially if there
was a continuing social frown
00:11:09.76\00:11:14.47
on a certain type
of religious activity.
00:11:14.48\00:11:16.31
There's mechanisms in
place even in the west,
00:11:16.32\00:11:18.46
even in the United
States that could restrict it.
00:11:18.47\00:11:20.72
But, you know, we often
hear about Mongolia place.
00:11:20.73\00:11:23.38
But it can happen here. Yeah.
00:11:23.39\00:11:25.48
And as you say, it
could get worse there,
00:11:25.49\00:11:27.49
it could get worse here.
00:11:27.50\00:11:28.79
The world is dynamic
and your book system global
00:11:28.80\00:11:31.60
on global system collapse...
00:11:31.61\00:11:33.16
Planet in distress. Yeah.
00:11:33.17\00:11:34.43
Well, describing it
rather than naming it.
00:11:34.44\00:11:36.81
Okay, all right,
and I beg your pardon.
00:11:36.82\00:11:38.51
Well-- An
author, you know, he is--
00:11:38.52\00:11:40.50
Yeah, but the good point is
00:11:40.51\00:11:41.85
you're talking about the systems
00:11:41.86\00:11:42.94
that are collapsing, that
creates a dynamic situation
00:11:42.95\00:11:47.06
that could
actually adversely effect
00:11:47.07\00:11:48.85
very easily and quickly
civil and religious liberties.
00:11:48.86\00:11:52.56
Yes. It's quite true.
00:11:52.57\00:11:54.90
And the reason for
that is because we've--
00:11:54.91\00:11:58.02
as we have discussed
on our previous program,
00:11:58.03\00:12:01.06
we've reached a point
where on a global basis
00:12:01.07\00:12:04.58
we are now-- We are no longer in
00:12:04.59\00:12:06.39
an environment of
expanding resources.
00:12:06.40\00:12:08.52
Which is for
anyone who's alive today
00:12:08.53\00:12:10.56
that's all they've known.
00:12:10.57\00:12:12.30
Whether they're wealthy or poor,
00:12:12.31\00:12:14.21
expanding resources
is all they've known,
00:12:14.22\00:12:16.11
but now we've
reached the tipping point,
00:12:16.12\00:12:19.31
we're over the
hump, sort to speak,
00:12:19.32\00:12:20.70
we're on the downhill side
and we're in an environment
00:12:20.71\00:12:23.30
of contracting
resources and resource scarcity.
00:12:23.31\00:12:25.75
Now did you see
those signs of that
00:12:25.76\00:12:27.71
resource scarcity in Mongolia?
00:12:27.72\00:12:30.05
I, well, yes and no.
00:12:30.06\00:12:33.92
I definitely saw
signs of global change.
00:12:33.93\00:12:37.99
And I definitely saw
signs of system change
00:12:38.00\00:12:40.10
when it was pointed out to me.
00:12:40.11\00:12:42.20
What I did see, of
course, the Soviet Union
00:12:42.21\00:12:45.94
directly subsidized 80%
of the Mongolian economy
00:12:45.95\00:12:49.61
and when they went
away, everything collapsed.
00:12:49.62\00:12:52.34
Yes, there's a
short term collapse,
00:12:52.35\00:12:54.07
it might be from other causes.
00:12:54.08\00:12:55.70
Now, let's take a
break, we'll be back
00:12:55.71\00:12:57.53
to discuss further with
author Scott Chrisitansen.
00:12:57.54\00:13:01.26
Mongolia, his experience there,
00:13:01.27\00:13:02.98
and so maybe some things
we can extrapolate from that.
00:13:02.99\00:13:05.36
Stay with us.
00:13:05.37\00:13:06.45