Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Orlan Johnson
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000258B
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00:05 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:07 Before the break with guest Orlan Johnson, 00:09 we were again reminiscing about Europe and the Huganas 00:15 and it all derive from our recent 00:19 Great Controversy bus tour of Europe. 00:22 Now you were along, this was-- 00:25 you've been to Europe before. 00:26 You studied at Collonges in France. 00:29 I did. 00:30 I spend my first year of college in Collonges, 00:33 and which was a little bit unusual 00:34 because most students go in their junior year 00:36 but I've taken a few years of French in high school 00:39 and decided if I didn't go next year, 00:40 I probably never will. 00:42 You probably found all the friends around Europe, 00:43 and that was almost like the Collonges experience, 00:44 so the new built experience. 00:45 It was a little bit different, 00:47 I was explaining to people on the bus back in 1980-1981. 00:51 We actually used to just hitchhike everywhere we went. 00:54 That seems worst. Yeah. 00:55 We used to just, you know, they call it fair to stop 00:58 and you would just go out and you-- 01:00 and we traveled all over Europe. 01:02 Your own children, would you recommend them to do that? 01:04 Oh, absolutely not, and I've teased my mother 01:06 couple of times saying that 01:08 when they send me to Europe that year, 01:09 and I thought it was one of the most 01:11 irresponsible things 01:12 they've ever done as being parents but... 01:14 My sister went to New Walden 01:16 and I used to tell my parents the same thing. 01:20 But that was the standard pattern for students then, 01:23 but I think that gave you a wonderful background... 01:26 Oh, absolutely. 01:27 Not just the knowledge of Europe 01:28 but of Adventism and... 01:30 That was quite powerful 01:32 and to be there nestled on the silhouette of mountains 01:35 and that's why when we were driving 01:36 around the Great Controversy Tour, 01:38 I would always look up at the mountains 01:40 and it reminded of Collonges 01:41 because I lived in la-Rouge zone 01:43 in the boy's dormitory 01:44 and right behind you just saw these 01:46 great silhouette of mountains behind us 01:48 and you were just kind of in this little valley 01:50 and you could actually see the Jet d'Eau of Geneva 01:52 from the dormitory I was in, quite a place.. 01:54 Mountain is the wrong term, 01:55 it's really a vertical cliff face. 01:57 It really is. 01:58 A solid rock face and you probably know the height 02:01 but I would say it's at least 3,000 vertical feet of stone. 02:05 Well, you know, it was unbelievable 02:08 as there were lot of students, 02:09 they used to climb the face of that mountain 02:11 while we were there, some to their parallel. 02:13 I made a resolution I'm never going to send my son there 02:15 because they were saying that no students that have fallen 02:20 but I think but young people now and then fall off. 02:25 I know my son, he would want to stand on the edge 02:28 with this toes curled over and then brag to someone else 02:31 that he could jump off the tower. 02:34 No, but there was a nice little winding road 02:36 you could take a safe route up there as well, 02:38 so we did that quite a bit, 02:39 but there were some that actually 02:40 they scaled the face of the mountain 02:42 it went straight up, so it was really incredible. 02:46 The school area is really throwing several generations 02:50 of Adventists ministers and missionaries. 02:53 Absolutely. 02:54 I know that French missionaries in particular 02:56 have gone through many parts of Africa 02:59 and the Middle East said it, you know, 03:05 I'm sure that gave you a sense of 03:07 as a Seventh-day Adventist 03:08 that we have a mission and a goal to reach out 03:10 and to do something in the world realm. 03:11 It was probably one of the first times 03:13 I had been in an institution where I was around 03:16 so many international individuals. 03:17 I mean we had probably every imaginable language 03:21 spoken there on campus. 03:22 Actually Dr. Ganune and I actually met there. 03:26 Now he is an associate of Dr. John Graz 03:28 in the General Conference Religious Liberty Department. 03:29 Absolutely. 03:31 And when I came to the NAD, I actually had not seen him, 03:34 since I was at Collonges 30 years before 03:37 and I can still remember meeting with a lot of friends 03:40 from Africa, my roommate who is from Cameroon, 03:45 which is very interesting 03:46 we're in the Great Controversy tour, 03:47 I was talking to Dr. Warri 03:49 and he actually knew this individual 03:50 who I haven't seen in years and told me where he was, 03:52 I'm looking to reach out to him as well 03:54 but Collonges was just an exciting experience. 03:56 We had probably about 20 Americans 03:58 over there to time I was there and still keeping contact 04:01 with a lot of those individuals today, 04:03 so it was a great experience. 04:04 So you got locked in early on the church infrastructure. 04:07 Now your mother has been a church school teacher for 04:11 and principal for many years. 04:12 Absolutely. 04:14 But you-- something didn't take early on, 04:16 you didn't become a school teacher. 04:18 You didn't become a minister. 04:19 You didn't become a missionary. 04:21 What did you become? 04:22 I actually probably became what most people way back 04:26 in the day thought Adventist should never become 04:28 and I was an attorney. 04:29 Yeah. 04:31 And I've practiced law for about 25 years 04:33 and actually my father and I used to always think 04:36 my mother worked for the church, 04:37 I would say for almost 40 years, 04:39 teacher, principal, superintend of schools, 04:42 risk management, 04:43 I mean I was probably seen 04:45 every aspect of the church growing up possible, 04:47 but thought I would never find myself 04:49 anywhere near her position for the church. 04:50 When you say thought, you were determined that you wouldn't? 04:53 Well, I, you know, sometimes you try never to say never, 04:56 but in my mind it was not on the bucket list, 04:58 I'd put it that way. 04:59 You know, we haven't rehearsed this. 05:01 I'm sure our viewers know it's not rehearsed, 05:03 but I didn't know, 05:05 but in some ways I can sense echoes of myself. 05:08 My father was a church leader in the temperance department 05:12 and as a kid I used to trail along with him 05:15 and you know, I somehow get into debates 05:18 with different church leaders and evangelists 05:20 and they invariably tapped me on the head. 05:22 You gonna be a pastor like your father. 05:24 And I had nothing against being a pastor 05:26 but I didn't want to be a clone of my father. 05:28 You want to be yourself. Right. Right. 05:30 So he used to say there was so anything but anything but. 05:33 So I was sort of you know like-- 05:38 I was running away from it. 05:39 And it's only a incredible chain of circumstances 05:42 that brought me really back to where my father 05:44 would have loved me at the beginning. 05:46 Well, you know, and I think that's real good point 05:48 because sometimes you think that you know 05:50 where you're gonna end up 05:52 and through very unusual stream of events 05:55 you find out that the Lord is actually preparing you 05:57 for something completely different 05:59 and in my mind the uniqueness at the time, 06:02 I didn't have any family members 06:03 that were lawyers, and I had a lot of cousins 06:06 and family members that were in the field of medicine. 06:08 So I actually was kind of branching out on my own 06:11 and it was a great opportunity to kind of like 06:14 carve a new niche in our family per se 06:17 and it was, you know, 06:19 one of the most exciting things. 06:20 Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. 06:22 Lawyers know all about prerequisites. 06:23 That's right, that's right. 06:24 I mean today, you know, there are few other 06:27 family members that are lawyers. 06:29 My daughter is thinking about going to law school 06:31 although I've tried to talk her out of it, 06:33 but that's probably where she is going to end up, 06:35 but I think it's been exciting opportunity 06:38 but the opportunity to be here with NAD 06:40 is exciting as well and I think... 06:42 Well, of course with religious liberty 06:44 legal background is more than passing significance. 06:48 It helps. 06:49 We're dealing a lot with the law. 06:50 It helps and it allows you to get through 06:53 what I would call the type of thinking that 06:56 you can probably use to be helpful 06:58 in this particular area, the logic, 07:01 the understanding precedent, the ability to kind of look 07:06 its statues on the four corners and do interpretations 07:09 and so it can be helpful to the church as well. 07:10 Now before your pre-law studies 07:12 did you focused in on history? 07:14 You know, not really. 07:15 I know, history is one of the not prerequisites 07:17 but it's pretty much a usual base for lawyering. 07:21 I actually ended up 07:22 being an economics major and it's a real... 07:24 That's not the usual combination. 07:26 No, but my combination ended up that way 07:28 because after my first year at Collonges 07:31 and I transferred to Andrews University 07:33 and I was wondering 07:34 what degree can I finish in three years from now, 07:36 and economics actually kind of fit the bill 07:38 and l liked the idea. 07:40 We took a few classes and that's how I became 07:42 an econ major with the French minor 07:44 and that's how it all came together 07:46 and from there I found myself in law school. 07:48 It's interesting events that I toyed with not the-- 07:50 I never thought I would take economics per se 07:53 but in college I particularly took cost accounting 07:56 and macro economics, micro economics 07:58 that had nothing to do with my study 08:00 but I was interested in it too. 08:01 Oh, it's good stuff. 08:02 And it really helped you to kind of have a better idea of 08:04 kind of how the world works 08:06 from a macro and micro standpoint, 08:07 I've enjoyed it. 08:08 And we don't have a lot of time 08:09 but if you could tell it quickly, 08:11 there is a very interesting story 08:13 not too many years ago 08:15 in the aftermath of the international 08:18 and US economic collapse, 08:20 one of the newses story was the Madoff scandal. 08:24 Yeah. Yeah. 08:26 Lot of money went vest on that, 08:27 but you helped pull some of it back, didn't you? 08:28 Well, you know, I was really blessed. 08:30 I had an opportunity to be appointed by President Obama 08:33 to be the chairman of 08:34 the Securities Investor Protection Corporation 08:36 which took the lead on all of the issues 08:38 that are related to failed brokerage firms 08:40 and when I came on board in 2009, 08:43 one of the big issues was the Bernie Madoff scandal 08:45 and part of the work we were doing was going out 08:48 and trying to see we could recover funds and... 08:50 And billions have gone missing. 08:51 Billions have gone missing. 08:53 Probably out of pocket maybe in an area of 08:55 $25 billion for individuals 08:57 and we were very, very fortunate, 09:00 we worked very hard and we were looking for 09:03 a lot of ways to really get funds back 09:05 and we found one individual that we pursued heavily 09:08 and we were fortunate that eventually 09:11 they decided to come to an agreement to give back funds 09:14 and we got back $7.3 billion from one individual. 09:19 Maybe I've to tell you a story of a little firm. 09:21 But there was a woman that her husband had died. 09:23 Her husband had died. 09:25 But she was in possession of all of this money, 09:27 not really ill-gotten from her perspective 09:29 but it was money 09:31 that the people have been defrauded off. 09:33 Yeah. 09:34 And you spoke to her and initially she resisted, 09:36 then she called you up and said that 09:38 she's sort of a social prior in her circle 09:40 and she decided to give it back. 09:41 And that's what had happened, 09:43 you know, the interesting thing about Madoff, 09:45 he ended up taking only money from close friends. 09:47 And so, all of a sudden she was in a situation 09:51 where people in her synagogue and people in her neighborhood, 09:54 they had all been harm 09:55 so you couldn't really move around as freely 09:59 and she decided, you know, what? 10:01 I'm little too old for this, you know, 10:02 and plus I've other-- 10:04 Yeah. It must be nice. 10:05 Yeah, I mean and to have the ability to give back 10:09 $7.3 billion out of your bank account is something that 10:14 I could not even conceptualize to be honest 10:17 and to see it happen 10:18 and to make those funds available to the Madoff victims 10:21 was a tremendous victory for all. 10:23 And let's, isn't the largest ever recovery that you've made 10:26 Largest single US asset forfeiture 10:29 in the United States history, which is really incredible. 10:31 So you've got a real notch in your legal belt 10:34 and the memory they have put on the wall. 10:36 Well, it was probably some of the most exciting time 10:38 that I've had 10:40 and the opportunity to really be able to kind of focus on 10:43 how you can get involved in something that can help people. 10:46 What I've really found that was 10:48 when you go out and try to do the work of the Lord 10:50 and hopefully put it in His hands. 10:52 I try to find out how can I be useful 10:54 but then you find out you know what, 10:56 I just got to put these in the hands of the Lord, 10:58 because through God anything can happen. 11:00 The Madoff situation was something 11:02 that worked very, very well for us, 11:04 but at the end of the day 11:05 it's really about helping people 11:07 and it's the same thing with religious liberty, 11:08 go out, help others. 11:09 Do what you can. 11:11 Don't alleviate yourself, 11:12 just alleviate God wherever you can. 11:16 When I was kid, I was taken by many fairytales 11:19 and I remember there is a story of a pencil upper tower 11:23 and I think a hair was used as a bit of rescue mechanism. 11:26 You know, towers can feature in a lot of stories, 11:29 there is a sign of strength 11:32 that is we heard on this program, 11:34 there's a true story of a Mary Durand, Marie Durand, 11:39 who for 38 years not 20 some years, 38 years 11:45 was kept in the Tower of Constance 11:47 because of her faith, because of her family 11:50 holding the same faith 11:52 and yet that woman there all those years 11:55 living as a prisoner under not just restriction 11:58 but demeaning circumstances 12:00 living in a communal prison in an enclosed tower 12:03 with guards watching every minute of the day, 12:05 could scratch into the stone and work 12:08 that I saw clearly as I looked at it recently. 12:12 Resist. 12:13 Resist those that would change your faith. 12:16 Resist those that would intimidate you 12:19 into living differently. 12:20 Resist as the Bible says, resist the devil 12:24 and he will flee from you. 12:27 There's a great challenge from those people of faith 12:29 of previous years. 12:33 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2014-12-17