Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), John Nay
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000300A
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00:22 Welcome to 'The Liberty Insider.'
00:24 This is the program bringing you news, views, 00:27 analysis and up-to-date information 00:28 on religious liberty developments 00:30 in the United States often but also around the world. 00:34 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine 00:37 and my guest on the program is Ambassador John Nay, 00:42 retired from-- Foreign Service. 00:45 Foreign Service, 'cause I nearly said 00:46 civil service again. 00:48 But a great experience 00:50 in that area and a great career. 00:53 And I want to ask you a leading question. 00:54 Sure. 00:56 First of all-- well, I'll ask it generally 00:57 and then we'll start off in a particular way. 00:59 I want to pick your brains a bit 01:01 how Adventist and other Christians 01:04 and other people of other faiths, 01:05 how can a person of faith move into working 01:10 and representing a country, in this case the United States. 01:13 How do you see that dynamic and may be explain a little bit 01:16 of how you-- How you got into it? 01:18 Well, I think that it's important 01:21 that Christians be involved in government. 01:24 Our government represents everybody 01:28 within the United States, and a very large portion 01:31 of the population are active Christians, 01:33 and if Christians abdicate from involvement in government, 01:39 it simply means 01:40 that their voice won't be heard, 01:43 their beliefs will be less represented. 01:46 That is true. 01:47 So I think it's important to participate. 01:49 I think it's important that Christians vote. 01:52 As for myself I started college thinking 01:55 that I would perhaps become a lawyer. 01:58 I always had a long term interest in history 02:01 and political science in that area. 02:03 What were you studying in college? 02:04 Well, I went through various majors. 02:07 At on point-- I know the feel. 02:08 I thought may be I would be a doctor 02:11 and I nearly finished with the minor in biology also 02:15 and I took general accounting and all of that. 02:17 But it really wasn't my interest 02:18 as much as history and international affairs. 02:21 After my junior year, actually what happened 02:24 is that I wound up going to Japan 02:27 and spending a year there as student missionary 02:30 teaching English and Bible 02:31 in Adventist English language school. 02:35 And that was with the encouragement 02:39 of the number of my friends who had gone 02:41 and thought it was a great experience. 02:45 I went and as it happened the girl who became my wife 02:50 later spent the same year in Bangladesh as a nurse. 02:55 She was a nursing student. Did you know her then? 02:57 Yes, yes and we had dated so. 03:01 And we wrote occasionally while I was in Japan 03:04 and she was in Bangladesh. 03:06 To get to the hospital where she worked 03:08 you had to-- you could only get there by boat. 03:12 I had a much more comfortable experience I think in Japan. 03:16 I came back and was thinking as a senior 03:20 that perhaps I would become a history teacher 03:24 or again law school was a possibility. 03:29 In the Andrews University placement office, 03:32 where they helped people look at careers after graduation, 03:36 I happened to see a pamphlet about the Foreign Service test. 03:40 I signed up and in December of my senior year 03:43 took the Foreign Service test 03:45 which you could request a Sunday administration. 03:49 I went down to South Bend, Indiana 03:51 about 30 miles away, took it. 03:53 Passed it, was invited to an oral test 03:57 which was the next step. 03:59 Went down to Chicago for that, passed it 04:02 and you know then it was sort of things 04:06 kept moving forward. 04:07 I started grad school and-- 04:09 It's an interesting progress and even as you were saying 04:11 and of course that was one aspect of government. 04:14 I always wonder as I get-- since 9/11 particularly, 04:17 I go into the airports and this big ads and it says, 04:20 "There's a career waiting for you 04:22 in the clandestine services, which you're not in. 04:24 Right. 04:26 But I see there that there's-- 04:27 it's just you apply and there's a track. 04:29 You don't really-- at least I've in the past, 04:32 never really thought of people entering that way. 04:34 It's just-- Yes. 04:35 Decide, take a test and you sort of move into it 04:37 as a calculated career. 04:39 They did a background security investigation 04:42 and you get a medical exam to make sure 04:45 that you're able to serve in any country 04:50 and regardless of the situation. 04:52 And about 14 months after I took the exam 04:56 I was invited to-- 04:59 asked if I was ready to join the Foreign Service and I did. 05:02 You know, it's interesting that my time abroad 05:06 really was very helpful 05:08 and you know many Mormons wind up 05:13 joining the Foreign Service 05:14 or other agencies in US government. 05:18 Precisely because they have so much-- 05:21 they have experience abroad. 05:22 They've learned a foreign language. 05:24 Learning a foreign language I think is very useful, 05:27 no matter what job you go into. 05:30 But that's briefly my story 05:32 of how I came into the Foreign Service. 05:34 Well, I've managed to learn American, speak American. 05:36 Yes. Yes. Australia-- 05:38 But I was gonna make a comment 05:40 when you were passing through your early experiences. 05:43 Going to Japan must have given you 05:46 a real sense of the cultural differences. 05:49 Japan has a great culture, 05:51 but very distinct ways of doing things. 05:54 It was very different, but at the same time 05:56 I spent a lot of time visiting areas in Japan 06:00 that were historical. 06:03 I would go over to Kyoto up to Tokyo. 06:07 I spent most of my spare money 06:09 and there wasn't a lot of it but-- 06:11 And out in Japan it doesn't go very far. 06:14 And I lost weight because I was saving every, 06:18 every yen that I had for travel 06:22 rather than spending it on food or cameras and so on. 06:25 I was able to climb Mount Fuji and you know, 06:28 go as far as south as Okinawa and so on. 06:32 It was a great experience 06:33 and I even went over and visited Korea. 06:36 Went up to the demilitarized zone. 06:39 So it fed my interest in travel and other cultures 06:43 and so you know, what can I say but eventually 06:47 then it gave me the opportunity to travel further. 06:50 You really didn't-- 06:52 you mentioned Sunday versus Saturday, 06:57 you didn't find a direct conflict 06:58 between Sabbath keeping and-- 07:01 No, although you do have to realize 07:04 that you are available and need to be available 07:07 to help any day of the week in some ways. 07:12 Now I was-- when I came in I was a counselor officer 07:15 and that has the aspect of both doing visa work. 07:20 Issuing visas to foreigners who want to either visit 07:23 or immigrate to the US. 07:25 And also providing American citizen services 07:28 and Americans at times-- Get into trouble often. 07:32 Seem adapted getting into trouble. 07:36 And they will get into trouble on weekends. 07:40 And frankly you visit Americans in jail. 07:43 When they're arrested you try to help them. 07:45 When they're injured or killed in car accidents 07:48 you sometimes have to communicate to their families. 07:50 I would think those sort of duties are-- 07:53 I felt quite-- 07:55 Charitable assistance. 07:56 I felt quite comfortable 07:58 that I needed to be there to try to help. 08:01 When you have to notify a family that, 08:04 you know, the father has died of a heart attack 08:05 or the daughter has been killed in a car accident. 08:09 It's a tough thing to have to do. 08:11 Did you-- have you ever-- was this a regular occurrence? 08:15 You know several thousand Americans 08:17 die abroad every year. 08:18 Many of them, I mean, some of them are retirees 08:21 and they've retired abroad. 08:23 Traffic accidents claim more Americans abroad 08:26 than probably anything else. 08:29 My wife has an interjection on that. 08:31 When I'd gone back to Australia after I was married 08:35 and my wife was working 08:36 at Rockwell Collins an American company, 08:39 aerospace company in Melbourne and two of the engineers 08:43 came from the US, flew out for to consult there. 08:46 Picked up a rental car, came to the headquarters, 08:49 connected and then they got off in the cab. 08:52 Side road, it's a main highway, looked the wrong way. 08:55 Drove out and killed instantly. 08:56 Yes, you know, it happens sadly. 08:59 You know, there was-- that's the real risk of travel 09:01 I mean, immediate risk. 09:03 Just a different way of doing things can be fatal. 09:07 The state department does everything 09:08 it can to try to make available information to people 09:11 about the risks in a given country, 09:14 whether its traffic or-- we generally recommend 09:18 that young people not travel alone. 09:21 But it's good advice even in the US. 09:23 Yes, yes, that's true. 09:25 We had a very sad case where a young man 09:27 traveling alone in India was robbed and murdered 09:30 and but through the embassy's help, 09:34 through the experience 09:37 of a really experienced local employee 09:39 that we had at our embassy there. 09:41 She was able to work with the police 09:43 and keep pushing, pushing and they kept investigating 09:46 and they finally were able to crack the case. 09:49 But it wouldn't have happened without the US embassy 09:51 working with the police and keeping 09:56 a certain amount of attention on the case. 09:59 But then you have to tell the parents 10:01 and that's very tough. 10:05 It's worth asking the question, but I doubt it happened. 10:08 did, were any of these calls for assistance 10:10 of a religious nature, were there religious complications? 10:15 I didn't wind up with any in that case. 10:18 But we have had cases 10:19 where there were religious issues 10:23 or where a missionary wound up involved in something that-- 10:28 wound up either being in an accident or a problem-- 10:30 Misunderstood, is religion became an issue? 10:33 You know, there was a very sad case 10:35 just a couple of years ago where an Adventist doctor 10:38 disappeared in Ukraine and could not be located. 10:43 We also had a case where an Adventist pastor in Togo 10:49 was arrested and held without trial for two years. 10:51 I had a few programs on that. That was a big issue. 10:55 I wound up in contact with the US embassy there 10:59 because the deputy chief of mission 11:00 was a friend of mine. 11:02 So I was-- because it was an Adventist 11:04 and because I was interested in the case, 11:07 I was just trying to find out a little more about it 11:09 and he was very clear 11:11 that they were definitely talking 11:12 to the government about it 11:14 and trying to persuade the government. 11:17 But again, you have to do so tactfully 11:20 because it's-- we're not-- the person in fact, 11:23 who was arrested was not a US citizen and so-- 11:25 Well, he was from the Cape Verde Islands. 11:30 I never quite understood why his own government 11:34 wasn't obviously more aggressive. 11:37 They might have done something that they didn't appear to be-- 11:39 Well, they may not have had an embassy there either 11:41 it's a very tiny country. 11:42 They had an embassy in Washington. 11:44 I spoke to the ambassadors. 11:47 But in any case we-- US embassies abroad 11:51 follow religious liberty cases. 11:52 Yeah, that was good to know 11:54 that the US was involved in that case. 11:58 Because there was a justice issue 11:59 and we should be concerned about religion and justice. 12:04 And every year, every US embassy writes 12:07 an international religious freedom report as you know. 12:10 We use that. 12:12 And describing the issues 12:14 related to religious freedom in a given country 12:17 and those are publicly available. 12:18 And they would lean pretty heavily 12:19 on the US representatives and the embassies 12:22 and diplomatic stuff, I'm sure. 12:24 Well, the embassy drafts the report 12:27 and then sends it to Washington. 12:30 They're edited to make sure 12:31 they're conformed to the right format 12:33 and everything and then they're published. 12:35 But it is the embassy that drafts it 12:37 because it's the embassy that knows the local situation. 12:40 Now we use that report 12:41 and our own church draws up a similar report each year. 12:46 And I'm not sure who draws from 12:48 you know, there's a little cross-fertilization. 12:50 But these are very useful outlines 12:54 and especially comparing from one either the other 12:56 you can see what's shifting. 12:57 Yes. 12:59 Because things are dynamic. 13:00 You know, amazing as it seems the country 13:02 that can have a hard line on religion in general 13:05 or may be against a certain minority may change, 13:08 and curiously they can shift, sometimes ease up on this group 13:12 and then clamp down on another one. 13:14 I've written several and edited several during my career, 13:18 depending both when I was working in Africa 13:20 and then in the Suriname and so on. 13:24 But yes, you speak about countries that maybe 13:26 will have general religious freedom in one aspect. 13:31 Singapore is an example 13:33 where they have religious freedom in general, 13:37 but Jehovah's Witnesses' wind up being prohibited. 13:40 It's a very bureaucratic state 13:41 and religion can run fell off the bureaucracy. 13:44 Let's take a break. We'll be back shortly. 13:46 Stay with us and come back for this discussion 13:49 with Ambassador John Nay. |
Revised 2015-09-10