Easy Chair Series

Zambia

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 84-91

Genre:

Track:

Dictation Name: EC392

Year: 1986

This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 392, August the 13th, 1997.

At this time Douglas Murray, Andrew Sandlin and I are going to discuss the Zambian conference. Before I turn it over to Andrew who was there and will report on it, I would like to say that those of you who contributed to the Zambian conference in the way of financial support have received a tape and on that tape Andrew Sandlin, Brian Abshire, Wayne Johnson and...

[Sandlin] I think it was only those three, Rush.

[Rushdoony] Those three, yes... all spoke at some length about the meeting.

Now Andrew is not going to do more than occasionally duplicate what was said in that tape, but he is going to try to give you an overall perspective. What happened, why it was important, what the country is like.

But before we do listen to Andrew, I would like to say a little bit about Africa and why it is important.

Peter Hammond is working full time, of course, in Africa. He will be speaking in early October at the conference in Sacramento where Andrew and I will also speak. Aaron {?} works in French speaking Africa as Peter does in English speaking Africa.

Why is Africa so important? Well, the world is concentrating on Africa to a startling degree. The United Nations, the various major powers are all interfering in Africa. As Andrew can tell you, that country, Zambia, was gutted by the Marxists during the time they were in control. Slavery has returned to Africa and only lately after almost, well, more than 30 years of it have the media paid any attention to it and much of that is due to the unrelenting insistence of Peter Hammond.

There is an interesting article about that slavery in the American Spectator, February 1997 or pages 52 and 53. And speaks of two reporters from the Baltimore Sun with a crew from Dateline NBC who went with Christian Solidarity International into the Sudan. They bought two slaves in southern Sudan who had been seized in a raid. But they not only bought them, they brought them back and NBC Dateline did feature the entire matter.

Farrakhan had denied that there was slavery. He refused to speak to the men from NBC or anyone else. Finally with some reluctance, they did get a comment from Jesse Jackson that, indeed, there is a serious slavery issue in Sudan and Mauritania.

Well, that was, as the article says, a grudging comment. But there is slavery there. The world is intent on keeping secret. There are problems with Africa as to its future. So far farming efforts on a major scale have not been successful. The heat and the soil means that very quickly soils can be exhausted. However, the natural resources of Africa, apart from that, mineral and other resources, are enormous and oil resources as well. So the world is abnormally interested in Africa.

It has been said that in our time about 300 Christians are martyred every day, but about 600 are converted every day. The interesting thing is that a fair percentage of both, a fairly high percentage of both, the converts and of victims are in Africa.

Well, Andrew, tell us all you can in the span of time we have and Douglas and I will interrupt when we want to hear a little more about a particular point.

[Sandlin] Good. And both of you I invite to stop me as I go along if you need any clarification.

Just a quick background on the country. Zambia was a British colony formerly northern Rhodesia. As the British Empire incrementally decreased, Zambia, too, gained its independence, I think 1962, 1963.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Sandlin] Something like that. Zambia at the time was one of the wealthiest countries in Africa, exporting a great deal of copper and, in fact, probably one of the leading exporters of copper per capita in the world.

Not long after the independence, however, a nationalistic leader was elected, Kenneth Kaunda and been trained in Marxist and Marxist leaning institutions in France. And... and started implementing those policies and including basically a terrorist police state and exporting revolution and just drove the country financially into the ground.

Brian Abshire pointed out—he was one of our team—when he would talk to some of the Zambians there and he would comment on the ... the state of the roads. They would say, “Well, you ought to have seen them seven years ago before the election.”

But he would say, “And how long since they have been repaired before then?”

He says, oh, again and again, when he would ask about repairs people would say, “Oh, last time that was ... that was really repaired was 1963,” in other words when the ... when the British were... were still there.

But thank the Lord in spite of that and all of that sort of Socialism and Kaunda’s regime... And I want to mention something about him. Zambia basically was a launching pad for Marxist revolution in the entire continent. In fact, probably what happened in South Africa could have not have happened, at least as quickly as it did and to the extent at which it did were it not for the haven for revolutionaries and others. In fact, a lot of people don’t know this, but there were essentially prison camps and torture centers in Zambia where other revolutionaries or true genuine freedom fighters would be captured and... and brought there and tortured. Just... it was just a terrible, terrible place. But because of increasing pressure there were free elections there in 1991 and, thank the Lord, a ... a democracy was placed into office with an explicitly Christian president and vice president.

One thing I want to mention before that, speaking of Kaunda, who really was the Mao Tse Tung of ... of Africa.... I picked up when I was in Zambia, an interesting book, The End of the Kaunda Era by John M. Mwanakatwe. I am probably mispronouncing that. But this is just so remarkable. I was telling Rush this a couple of, oh, weeks ago, I guess it was.

Speaking of Kaunda’s background, listen to this about his father. His father’s name was David. David Kaunda was the first pioneer missionary in Chief Nakula’s area for the Church of Scotland. Not much has been written in missionary diaries about his missionary activities over a period of eight years before the first white missionary arrived there in 1913. Macpherson has stated that the missionary work of David Kaunda in {?} from the station he established at {?} was courageous work of great significance, fully worthy to be listed among the pioneering undertakings of the Church in central Africa.

Then he goes on. By the way, David Kaunda was known among the people as the tireless traveler. Speaking of this: He was ordained in 1929. His son Kenneth Kaunda comes a family with a strong Christian background. Because his father was a minister of religion, there was much hymn signing and prayers in the family.

So this man was not only a Marxist, but he was an apostate. He knew the truth. He was trained in a Christian family and that makes it doubly damning. But the good news, as I said, is that Frederick Chiluba and General Meanda, the vice president were elected in the MND in 19... 1991, in free elections, the first free elections in Zambia for a number of years. And interestingly enough, when the western press said, “You know, what is going to be the constitution of your country?” They first of all held up the Bible and said, “This fundamentally will be our constitution.”

And Zambia is an officially Christian nation. In fact, it is basically the only officially Christian nation on the earth. It doesn’t mean people are forced to be Christians. It is recognized as an officially Christian nation with freedom of worship. But at any rate—and I will move on quickly—we were invited by some of the leading citizens of Zambia to come there to hold a conference, because they are interested in this... reestablishing Christian civilization. I will say that Zambia, although it has made great strides, is still a very poor country, because of what happened these 27 years of... of Socialism.

Another real problem in Zambia, despite the poverty is HIV and AIDS, not principally because of homosexual activity, although there is some, but because of the tainted blood supply as that is an epidemic problem in Africa. In fact, there are no official figures, but the unofficial figures from the CDC in Atlanta are roughly 65 percent of the population is infected with HIV, which, of course, doesn’t necessarily mean that they will get AIDS, but, still, that is a significant number.

We saw virtually no old people there. Hardly any people even in their 50s.

[Rushdoony] That is true in most of Africa.

[Sandlin] Yes, because of the ...

[Rushdoony] Yes, it is true in Zaire, I have been told. Hard to find anyone over 45.

[Sandlin] It is... that... that... that is really tragic, because it is a real work of reconstruction that needs to be done, a lot of the clothing, for instance, there is almost all second hand. In fact, there is a big market for second hand clothing. The taxis there are ... are just cars, you know, 20 years old that don’t have the... the little things that roll down the... the handles for rolling down the windows, you know, and that sort of thing. We... we were right downtown in a... in what was probably the nicest hotel in the country, but by our standards, of course, it was not... it would be like a medium level moderate hotel.

But at any rate we... we held the conference there. It was very well attended. For Zambia, I mean, the... the attendance was about 160 or so for right downtown Lusaka it was outstanding. A number of politicians attended, a number of pastors.

The... the... the Christian, I guess, the denomination that has the greatest influence there probably among evangelical... what we would call Bible believing people, is the Pentecostals. They are not in many cases like the ... what we would call the wild eye TV sort of charismatics in this country. They have a very simple faith, but it is a very genuine faith. They do love God. They do love his law. Interestingly enough, they are not basically Dispensational at all. They believe in the full authority of the Word of God. They don’t know the Word of God, perhaps, as much as they should and that is one reason that we went, to help to teach them. But there is a real genuine heartfelt Christianity, the desire for charity, for witnessing, for standing for the truth that is there. I wish we could bring some of them back here, as a matter of fact, to help our own country.

But there was a lot of preconference preparation. Brian Abshire and one of his deacons Dave Warren went over and did a great deal of work with the press, radio, TV, hand bills. We were on a number of radio stations and television and so forth and that really helped contribute to the success of the conference.

Several of us met with a number of the politicians there. I will mention some interesting ... a couple of interesting stories there. We met with the deputy minster of, I believe it was a deputy minister of finance, Rush, Denny Poulet, a fine, godly Pentecostal man and he was happy we were in the country. We talked about a number of things and he said he would have to excuse himself. He wouldn’t be able to attend the conference, because one of his friends who was scheduled to preach a revival meeting in a... in a neighboring city couldn’t come and he was going to step in and preach at the revival meeting.

Wayne and I were talking about would to God we had some politicians in this country that couldn’t attend meetings because they had to preach in ... in revival meetings.

Which reminds me. We ... we met the vice president in the VIP lounge in the airport, a fine, godly man, General Meanda, because there was some problem getting signals crossed and in planning, he wasn’t able to come to the conference to open the conference, although he was supposed to. He invited us to come again and we said, “Well, we would love for you to open the conference with a speech.”

He says, “If I come, I won’t deliver a speech. I will preach. That is what I like to do.”

So the fine articulate man. In fact, we were... Peter Hammond was acquainting him, reacquainting him with what is going on in the Sudan and he expressed his outrage, of course. And we don’t have time to go into that. But the Christians there want to help their brothers and sisters that are suffering. So in ... in the Sudan.

I told him, the vice president pointed out that the press really gives us... gives their country short shrift here in the... in the... in the US. And we said, “Well, we are trying to counteract that.” Of course the press in the West... well, first they tried to ignore Zambia, because it is a small third world country and, second of all, they don't want to mention much at all about a country that is an explicitly Christian country. And they will do anything they can, of course, to destroy the president. They have been trying to do that in the western press.

Well, Rush, you were mentioning {?} stories about Kenneth Kaunda, the previous dictator who was here in the US courting our politicians and representatives.

[Rushdoony] Oh, yes, lecturing in Washington, DC. Yes.

[Sandlin] And, by the way, there is good evidence also that the word on the streets when we were there was that he was traveling to other African countries to round up a sort of a... not a militia force. What do you call people that you hire for...

[Murray] Mercenaries.

[Sandlin] A mercenary force to come back and by force take over the country.

But actually the... the ... the... the Christian government there is... is quite strong. They have instituted free market reforms, but it is not easy, because you have got a population there, to a large extent that are accustomed to ... to Socialism. And one thing that we tried to do at the conference, especially Monty Wilson who spoke and Wayne Johnson was to point out that the... the necessity of just simple, basic Christian economics including hard work.

Personal responsibility.

[Murray] What are... what other natural resources do they have to raise money besides copper?

[Sandlin] There is some ... that is a good question. There are some very fertile farming areas in ... let me see {?} north ... so it would have been the northeastern part of the country. In fact, if any of you wants to invest in Zambia, we talked with some of the representatives about that. Land is free. They will put you on the fast track. If you want to come there, just pay the money to clear the land and hire people you can have, within reason, as much land as you want.

They grow a lot of maize, corn and soybeans and that sort of thing. So there certainly is fertile land there.

One problem is it does have to be cleared and it takes heavy equipment to do that and they don’t have as much heavy equipment, obviously, as we do in the US, but copper is really ... they have a whole area there called the copper belt. It is one of their major exports, but if you... some of you may know that the... the market for copper in the US has not been the... I mean in the world has not been the greatest the last, oh, 15, 20 years.

[Murray] It is ... it is not ever going to be, because of fiber optics.

[Sandlin] Fiber optics.

[Murray] Fiber optics are replacing wires.

[Sandlin] One thing that has helped, though, is... is... there is a slight,... or more than a slight, there is a significant spark of... of... of... of free market desire and... and enterprise and all that sort of thing in textiles and so forth.

[Murray] How do they ship their goods out of the country? I mean, how would they export?

[Sandlin] I think probably for the most part over land. I don’t... I think that their main trading partners are there in Africa. Now this is one point that is a very negative thing that I... that I think I forgot to mention on the other tape. And, Rush, this is something you will find very significant.

Strangely, one country that is very interested in Zambia is the People’s Republic of China. They have representatives want to come there to visit and interested in establishing trade and that sort of thing and, of course, the Zambians there are very wary of that. But, they are still at a very young stage of ruling, sometimes they don’t know how to deal with these situations. So that is something that we really need to... really need to pray a great deal about.

America... Wayne Johnson talked to one of his friends beforehand, I think in the... in the state department. And America is not terribly interested in Zambia, of course. But certainly could be interested if the free market reforms work out well as it appears as though that... as though they will. Zambia could be real haven.

Rush, go ahead.

[Rushdoony] Well, east Africa was centuries ago an area of Chinese interest and expansion. A little before, let’s say a generation before Columbus, the Chinese admiral Cheng Ho, not the Chinese form of the name, but the name as it was put down by westerners, was a remarkable man. He built up a naval fleet at the behest of a sympathetic emperor, took over Ceylon and portions of southern India and established bases in east Africa. And they have actually found evidences of the Chinese occupation which was for trading purposes.

Well, the history of the world would have been very much different if Cheng Ho’s work had been carried on. But the next emperor was not interested. The world outside of China didn't count for him so that the Chinese domination of east Africa and southeast Asia ended with the death of Cheng Ho.

Well, in the post World War II era, the Chinese Marxists in the 60s as the colonies became independent, began to settle Chinese into some parts of east Africa where a rice culture could be perpetuated.

I have heard nothing about what has happened to those settlements, but China very definitely wants to expand into Africa. It feels it has a lot of people that it can just ship over there at will.

Now I think it is very significant that they are showing their interest in Zambia and I am sure other countries in central, south and eastern Africa.

[Sandlin] It is very interesting, Rush. I had no idea about that background. That really does lend some explanation to why they are making overtures to... to Zambia. The... the economy there is, after all these years, is a free market economy. In fact, I won’t read from it, but brought with me a book that I picked up in the university library there Democracy in Zambia: Key Speeches of President Chiluba. A number of them are... are ... are basically speeches pointing out the need for free markets and so forth and, well, I will just read it quickly. He says in one of his speeches in 1992, “Africa’s lag visa vie the rest of the world economically is astronomical. We need good governance.” But then he points out the fact that we really need to step up the economy and, yes, Rush, go ahead and have a look at that.

But from a... of course, free market economy alone is not going to do anything if you don’t have a... a society based on God’s law. And that is exactly what Zambia is working on. They have, thank the Lord, criminalized abortion. And also homosexuality. Excuse me, pornography. And ... and they are really working toward implementing a biblical moral code there. It is not easily done, because the country is making a transition. There are still state schools there, though people are free to start Christian schools.

In fact, we talked to the deputy minister of ... of education about a number of things. We asked him what is a good investment opportunity in Zambia? He said, please send someone over to invest in a Christian university. Can you imagine someone in our department of education making such a statement?

I said, “If we were to provide you... We in America have all sorts of Christian curricula for Christian schools. Would you be willing to examine it?”

He said, “Please send me some.”

Of course, eventually we... we need to get the government out of the education business, but until they can make that transition, they are very open to these sorts of things and this man that we talked to, this deputy minister was also a fine, a fine Christian man.

I want to mention, too, Rush, that in talking with him, we found out that militarily Zambia is very vulnerable. Constantly we heard, “Well, Zambia does not want war. We are a peace ... a peace keeping people.”

In fact, we found out that their military force, Douglas, you will be interested in this, is down to like about 15,000. It was 21,000 a few years ago. It is interesting. Wayne Johnson pointed out to the deputy minister, “You don’t understand if your free market reforms are successful. You guys are going to be very vulnerable to your socialistic neighbors. You are going to see Zambia is a great place to attack for economic advantage.”

And he admitted that is something that they really needed to address.

Their military... their military force, no doubt, is ... is good, but they just are not as strong as they need to be. So that is something else we need to ... need to pray about.

We visited the university of Zambia. It really... the... the library, Rush, is just staggeringly bad after all of these years. I mean, the top of the line most modern books they have are like... Encyclopedia Britannica from 1963. I mean, it is just like someone is... in fact, it ... no doubt someone from other English speaking countries have taken their old, old, you know, reference books and just shipped them over there.

I talked to one of the fellows in charge there at not the library. This was a book store. And I said, “If we sent you books,” and, of course, I was thinking, Rush, mainly about your books and other good reformed and Reconstructionist books. Would you sell them? He said, “Please send them. Of course we will sell them. We will put them in the library.”

And of course that... we ... we have ... we have decided to do that. We are... we are doing that. But so Zambia certainly has a long way to go. We... we spoke at the conference. We were able to lay a foundation. Since the conference was only three days long, we weren’t able to get into a whole lot of applications, but we did deal with substantive topics. All of the Bible is for all of life, the role of the clergy, ministers in... in reformation, the necessity for free market reform and hard work. Peter Hammond delivered an outstanding message on the Christian heritage... our Christian heritage and so forth.

But certainly it is ... it is a situation we must need to pray about and perhaps we could talk about it a little more. Perhaps, Rush, you would like to... to finish this side of the tape.

[Rushdoony] Please turn your tape over at this time and we shall continue. Thank you.

[Sandlin] I will mention a couple of interesting stories. Some of you may be interested and I don’t believe I mentioned this on the earlier tape, about the food in Zambia. Of course, we ate what we would be by their standards very succulent food. They use maize or corn in the lot. They made like a sort of a corn bread style dish that we ate and they had quite a bit of beef there and chicken made in various ways. Very little fish. It s a land locked country. I think I mentioned that. There is not a lot of fish in... in Zambia at all, very dry climate, remarkably dry, probably even dryer than here in northern California, Rush. Almost like Arizona, just very, very dry.

Of course, we were down town, but from the air I... I really didn’t see much livestock. I don’t know exactly where it was, but there... no doubt there is some. But at any rate the... none of us really got sick. Monty Wilson... I take that back. Monty Wilson got sick in South Africa, not in Zambia, by drinking the water. We were in South Africa one night and thank the Lord we didn’t have a car. I don’t know how many of you know that car jacking is a horrendous problem in South Africa. It is not a problem in Zambia, not much of a problem in Zambia, but the food was quite good and the... I thought I wouldn’t be eating much there, because we have to be careful in those countries about what you eat, but I found out that I gained a pound or two when I came back. So I... we ate pretty well, most of us and that was fine.

But I... I have got to juxtapose that with another tragic story and something that... perhaps it was the most tragic story of the entire ... of the entire trip. There was a ... a dear woman, I would say, probably, Rush, in her 40s. Came up to one of our board members, one of our speakers there, Wayne Johnson, after one of his talks and introduced herself and ... and he said, “What do you do?”

And she said, “Well, I am... I am a minister in our village.”

And he said... she was Pentecostal, of course. And he let her know in a kindly, gentle way, you know, that may not be the best thing. It is not a good idea. The Bible doesn’t permit women to be ministers. And are there some men in the village? The men should be taking the lead.

And she says, “Mr. Johnson, you don’t understand. There are no men in our village. They have all been decimated by disease.”

And it tends to attack men much more than women, by the way, the disease.

“No men in our village. There are nothing but widows and children in our village.”

And, of course, his interest was piqued and he said, “Well, ma’am, tell me more about this.”

She said, “Well, basically what I have done in our village, because it is so poor, is I have... I have had to start basically an orphanage in my own house. My husband died and I see these little... they are little orphaned children in the street, literally in the street starving.” And she said, “I can’t... Mr. Johnson, I... I don’t have anything, but I can’t let them starve.”

So she... she... she has... she has taken, I think it is 15 to 17, something like that, into her house. She and every morning she gets up and bakes pies, takes them down to the market and sells them so she can get enough, you know, good food so that she can take back and provide for these children.

And she started a Christian school in her house. She is the only... in fact, she had to ... she had to finance a curriculum, a 900 dollar curriculum. She is using A C E, which, as you know, is a Christian curriculum. And she says, “I don’t know. I don’t have the money for it, but this is the... somebody has got to do it.” She says, “There is no minister in the village.” She says, “I have to minister. I mean there was nobody there to preach. So I have to preach the Word of God.”

And, of course, we thought of the stories in the Word of God when there weren’t men and women had to take up the job, even though it is never ideal, the job of... of preaching the Word. And so thank God Wayne was able to say, “You know what? I will... I will take care of... of providing for the Christian curriculum for your students there and we will do what we can to help you,” and put her into contact with Monty Wilson and his ministry of global impact of... of getting some support for this woman.

Just a heart wrenching story. And that can be duplicated in so many cases. The... the population of men has just been decimated by Socialism, first, of course, and also by disease.

And.... but because of that and you women will find this interesting. There is a very strong women’s movement in Zambia, but it is not a sort of egalitarian secularist women’s movement. It is imperfect, far from perfect, but it is a push to get women involved in politics. But it is not the wild eyed fanatical thing. It is just there are so many women there and there is so much work that needs to be done. In fact, the women there are in the forefront of the anti abortion crusade, the anti pornography crusade. In fact, I met one of the women and ... and talked to her, a fine Christian woman. Not one of these loud mouth, you know, Kate Michaelman sort of people like we would have women in this country. Not at all.

So if you are going to have a women’s movement, the women of Zambia is much better than anywhere... just about anywhere else in the world. But at any rate, those are some of the ... some of the thoughts that I have after coming back. As I said, the meeting was well attended. We were able to influence a number of people.

I want to mention... I didn’t write this down, but we ... you... you will find this interesting. There are a couple of young, very sharp looking young men came into the conference and as they would come in we would greet them. Hello. Where are you from? Most of them said, “Oh, we are from the Pentecostal church.” And we would say, “Very good, Lord bless you.” And they would come in.

A couple of young sharp fellows came in and looked a little different. I shook their hand. I said... I said, “Where are you from?” They said, “Oh, we are from the reformed church.”

And my eyes jumped that big...

[Rushdoony] From the what?

[Sandlin] From the reformed Church.

[Rushdoony] Oh.

[Sandlin] We are reformed. And so I grabbed them real quickly, Rush, and I pulled them over to the side and I started in ...in... asking them questions, you know, querying them. They said there is a very small reformed seminary here, 20 or 30 is all. And we study the works of Calvin and others. We don’t have much, but we know the reformed faith is true.

And my... I was just almost crying to see the ... how that the reformed faith itself, too, had found a... found a foothold there even in Zambia. After all of these years of Socialism, amid all of the Pentecostalism, that there is a reformed testimony there.

So I have ... I... I didn't do this too many other people there, but I went over to some of the books we sent. These fellows were very sharp, as reformed people usually are, got a big stack of your books, Rush, and marched over quietly and said, “You take these. You take these back to the seminary and you read these books and study these books,” and gave them the names of other authors like Dabney and Van Til, you know, and a few various other... Calvin and... and various others.

[Rushdoony] Did you get their address?

[Sandlin] Oh, absolutely. And don’t worry. We have got...

[Rushdoony] We will send... let’s send them a stack of books.

[Sandlin] We are. And I... I think I have already alerted the office to that, Rush. But... so there is... there is a ... a reformed testimony there and... but... but the churches overall are working well, working well together, that its eh Bible believing churches. There, of course, are some liberal churches, but I didn’t get the sense that there were too many liberal churches there.

I was able to start there a reformation society. And what was remarkable about it there were, oh, maybe about, let’s see, 25 or 30 people interested in starting a society in Lusaka. Here I was there sitting with all of these dear black Zambian people and they said, “How do you start one of these?”

And so I started talking about 10 or 15 minutes and one of the most amazing and gratifying things happened. After a while I wasn’t talking anymore. They were saying, “Now, I know when we can get together. We can get together on the 13th and you can come. And when are the trains running from down here to Lusaka?”

And they were making all of these great plans. And I think so and so is the minister.

A fine fellow called George whose name I can’t remember just sent me a letter last week, by the way. They have had their first meeting and are making wonderful plans about influencing Zambia for the sake of Christianity.

[Rushdoony] Put that letter in the report.

[Sandlin] I will. It is a... it is a fascinating letter. And it was just filled with gratitude.

But what is so remarkable about all of this, Rush, is that I saw there among those people not an attitude, well, you have to do everything for us, which happens so many times, but an attitude of, well, if you can get us the ball, we can get the ball rolling. We can go with it.

And, in fact, he said in the letter, George did, they have elected like four men, all preachers to be leaders, one president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, secretary one, treasurer, something like that. And I said, “Now what is you main goal going to be? Now there are all sorts of things you can attack here from a biblical standpoint.”

They said, “We have got to get the churches interested in a full comprehensive biblical faith.”

And I said, “I agree. Let’s work on that.”

They made plans to do that. And that is where the real change is going to come. Even though Zambia does have a Christian government, civil government, as you know that is not where the change basically comes. It comes from people at the grass roots level, Christians, families, churches, independent churches, churches that are willing to take a stand for the faith. And that is... it is... it is... it is already started there, but we... we really need to pray for them in ... our brothers and sisters there in Zambia.

Are there any questions or anything else maybe that we need to discuss about that specifically?

[Rushdoony] What was the climate like?

[Sandlin] There we go. I hadn't written that down, Rush. We were there, of course, in the winter.

[Rushdoony] You might say their seasons are the reverse of ours.

[Sandlin] Yes, just the reverse of ours. We went in... in July, or in June, rather. Their winter was ... was very... it was just beautiful. It was like a... oh, probably 70, 75 degrees, sunny every day, low humidity, just... we spent a lot of time outside, just beautiful.

The oddity though, is the Zambians, because it is so hot in the summer they were wearing their winter coats and still worrying about how cold that it was.

I have to give you an... another amusing story. The pastor, one of the pastors had invited us, who helped with the conference, Zambia Christian action was John Geary. Most of you know the Malaria is a real problem in Zambia as in most other sub Saharan, many of them sub Saharan African countries. And it is ... and it is carried almost exclusively by mosquito, particular types of mosquitoes.

Well, the first night it was so warm inside the hotel we were having a strategy meeting about 10 or 15 of us. And I said, “It is so warm in here. Let’s sort of retire outside by the pool where it is nice and cool.”

Well, I wasn’t thinking about the possible problem with ... with the mosquitoes.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Sandlin] So we all marched out there and there was a nice table we were sitting by the pool and I got to thinking there was a light there and that attracts bugs. And I said, “You know, this may not have been a good idea, because of malaria.”

And Peter Hammond, you know, so positive, you know, said, “Oh, I don’t think there is really a malaria problem down here.”

And if there is John... John Geary and John looked at him without cracking a smile and said, “Oh, many, many people die from malaria. It is a very serious problem.” And he says, “Usually when you are by lights and by large bodies of water. That is when...”

And we were just sitting there right by the pool.

About this time Wayne Johnson who is very amusing thought he would be funny and started sort of slapping himself as though.. as though there were mosquitoes around and after a while all of us were scratching and itching and wanting to go inside, even though we actually didn’t see a mosquito. It was the psychological side of it, you know, that was interesting.

But the fact that we were there in winter did decrease the chances. You know, they are much more prevalent in ... in summer.

We did visit... as I said, we visited the university, the book store there, which was not terribly well stocked. And the Christian books there were of a very... what shall is say? A very evangelical, very light, insubstantial fluff and that is why I asked one of the ... one of the fellow s there running the store, “If we sent you books, would you sell them?”

He said, “Oh, please send us books and we certainly will sell them.”

And, of course, we have... we have decided to do that.

[Murray] What is their medical situation as far as medical facilities and...

[Sandlin] Not... not very good. I did some reading on that before I... before I left. It is, of course, better in the ... in then urban areas. They do have some ... some hospitals, but compared to our situation it is more like we would call like... almost like these emergicare clinics.

[Murray] Yeah.

[Sandlin] That sort of thing. But there is a problem out in the... out in the bush. And, I mean, out... Zambia is actually... you know, you hear about the African bush. When you get out of the city you certainly see it. I mean, the... just ... people live basically in huts in very simple, simple brick houses if they do live in houses. Just a... it is... it is ... Zambia, at this point, is a ... is a typical third world country.

[Murray] Is there much sign of foreign investment? I mean, any companies, household names that...?

[Sandlin] There is some. Yeah, I think... I think I saw ... well I think Colgate may do some in there and not a great deal. We stopped in the investment center, by the way, the Zambian investment center and talked with him. And that is when they told us we desperately want investment from the rest.... There has just not been a lot of incentive, because of... as you mention the... the copper situation is not, as you well know, the greatest. But they have got a nice investment portfolio.

Other people asked me before I went. They said, “Will you check on the investment?” They want investment desperately. I think largely in the form of agricultural, because they can... and I think a great deal could be done there, because they can grow a lot if they can... if somebody has the money to spend clearing the land. A lot of the land is... is forested, good ... good fertile soil.

[Rushdoony] Is it by irrigation or rain fall?

[Sandlin] I think a little of both, Rush. Up in the north so that... see, Zambia is... well, like here the winter season is the wet season. So... but... but I think it is a little of both. Up there in the... in the fertile north...northeastern part of the... northeastern part of the country.

But that is an area for concern. But I think both in... in textiles and in agriculture and in a couple of others, there is real room for... there is real room for... for investment from the West. And I would urge those Christians who... who do have the money to invest that it is a... it is a place to put your money, because it is... there is a good sound, sincere Christian government there, good people. It is not a Utopia. There are no Utopias on earth, but it is not Dystopia either. It is a... it is a ... it is a good, sound, Christian economy... or country with the... the makings of a good free market economy. And the Church there for the most part is ... is strong in spite of all the years of persecution. It is amazing how Christianity by the grace of God can... can survive such even under such persecution.

As I said, it is a simple form of Christianity, but nonetheless, it is very genuine. And the people there are very hungry from the truth. I told them one of my talks I gave was ... and, Rush, you... you will of all people, Rush, you will appreciate this. I pointed out the church’s survival and it is good to have a Christian civil government, but this will not last if you don’t have sound Christian schools. That is the future. That is the hope.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Sandlin] They just drank that in. They said, “We want to have that.”

I talked with one minister who says, “Can you help me at all? We want more than anything desperately to start a Christian school. We don’t feel we have people qualified.”

I said, “People qualified or not, it is better to have unqualified so-called unqualified Christian teachers than pagans teaching your children any time, because God will bless and he will provide qualification.”

So that is... that is something that... another matter that we need to pray about. But thank God there is a hunger for Christian schools and for... and for a genuine full orbed Christianity in the country of Zambia.

[Murray] Do they have very many people who could administer an A C E type of curriculum?

[Sandlin] I think so. That one is a pretty basic one. And that is one reason I think why A C E is there. In fact, I think they are about... I talked with... no, I shouldn’t say that. I had email from a fellow who said, “We have got about 40 A C E teachers there, Zambian teachers.” So that is a good start. Much more needs to be done, but it is a very good start. I ... I wish that I could ... I could demonstrate and convey to you the vitality of the people there who ins spite of their poverty, they aren’t glum, you know. The attitude in the US, you know, of... if everybody doesn’t have a new car every year or something they are glum and that was not their attitude at all. They were very grateful people.

Just... we would offer like biscuits, well, you know what, cookies we would say at the...at the tea time, tea and biscuits. They would be so grateful and... and... and happy and we are not looking for handouts, for the most part. There were a couple as you would have here in the US. For the most part there are people that just wanted to... wanted our... our... our help, our spiritual help, our theological help, not as much our financial help.

Yeah, that is probably the best way I could answer that.

[Murray] They fear ... I mean, do they have... give off any sense of fear of foreign intrusion? I mean, not just military, strategic, but influence?

[Sandlin] Well, that is interesting. I ... I was going to... here is part of the problem economically. South Africa has a subsidized market... or textile, or subsidized clothing... I believe it is clothing industry and they are really bombarding the Zambian market, able to sell these things at lower than market value. And, of course, they don’t want to... you know, because they are free market, they don’t want to put up trade barrier, but it is a real problem. I mean, the... the South Africans would like to destroy Zambia now that, you know, economically. It is very sad, but... but it is true.

They were very open to us. When we talked to the vice president he thanked us profusely. He said we could get such a bad name in the press, in the western press. Please help us. In fact, we almost tried to get away from him because the plane was leaving and he wanted to keep talking to us. He took all of our cards. He sent me email, by the way, the other day, Rush, a couple of weeks ago, I guess it was now, General Meandes, a good man, a great patriot, a fine Christian man. And he... and he said when we were talking to him, “Our country, you know, God will bless us for our obedience and that is what we are trying to do, trying to be obedient people.”

They are not as concerned, I think, with military... I think they should be slightly more concerned with military invasion than other types of invasion. One thing that they are concerned about is... is our... America is exporting filthy pornography and dirty movies in there.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Sandlin] It is a severe problem, because obviously there are sinners in Zambia like everybody else and they get some cable stations there and it is a very severe problem.

[Rushdoony] What many people do not realize is that there are literally hundreds of production companies in Hollywood that are doing nothing but producing porno films for export all over the world. And as a result, we have an image that is unspeakable in a good deal of the world, because this is hard core stuff that you will never see in the United States.

[Sandlin] Yes. It is ... it is very sad.

Speaking of that, though, I will say this. All the time I was there I just noticed something after three or four days. I was ... I guess I must have been up on the balcony there or maybe I was in the hotel or something and I looked once and did a double take and I noticed that there was a woman that wasn’t quite modestly dressed and I said, “It is amazing. This is the first one I have seen.”

What is remarkable in Zambia, largely because of the British influence, but also the Christian influence, the women all dress modestly. The men , the boys going to school and even the men on the streets they either wear ties and shirts or varied, you know, dress shirts, old dress shirts, but dress shirts, very modestly dressed.

Like the... the only immodestly dressed people there that I saw were the stewardesses from the South African airlines, the people from France were there. You know, in other words, westerners for the most part that were there. It was remarkable.

When riding in the cabs we would hear Christian music playing in the cabs. We went down to the little gift shop in the.... in the... in the hotel and Christian music was playing in the gift shop. Now what hotel in the United States would Christian music be playing in the gift shop?

But it wasn’t like it was something artificial, something, well, the westerners are here. Let’s put on these... it was a very natural thing.

We ate lunch there. Wayne Johnson and I were eating lunch one day and, Rush, and we looked over at a fine group of businessmen. It must have been about... well, they looked to be businessmen with suits on and so forth. Must have been about 15 or 20 of them and right, 15 or 20 Zambian business men offering grace, praying before their meal, right before it came.

So there were encouraging signs of a real genuine Christian faith there. And the president is not shy, especially is the vice president not shy.

Rush, you pointed out that talk that he gave at the {?} conference on, you know, population a few years ago. You may want to mention that.

[Rushdoony] He gave the most forthright Christian statement imaginable. He came out against abortion, against Feminism, against unbelief. And the western press refused to carry a word of his speech which was the most startling at the Cairo conference.

[Sandlin] And that... that there is, in fact, a genuine Christianity there. And I want to say in my part of closing and Rush or Douglas may want to say something else. I was talking with Peter Hammond and also I believe with one of the other members and pointed out we can’t assume that the United States will be the area of great reformation any time soon. We pray it will be and we are working for that. It could very well be that Africa will be the place, because so many of them, Rush, have suffered such under the Utopian tyrannies of western, you know, so-called western secular democracy. And they... they know what hey have gone through. And, as you said, there are... there are huge numbers being converted every day in the Sudan, Zambia, and elsewhere. So this could be the area of... of revival and I am glad that Chalcedon is highlighting the work there, because it is a genuine work that we need to highlight and pray for.

[Rushdoony] Yes. The western world is hostile to us. But apart from the western world, we are being gladly received.

[Sandlin] This is amazing, Rush. We ... everywhere Peter Hammond.... virtually everywhere he goes in Africa, except places like northern Sudan that are Islamic, the books he takes, he takes a number of Chalcedon books in. They are just avidly read. There is a hunger for them.

[Rushdoony] Same is true in French speaking Africa.

[Sandlin] Yes.

[Rushdoony] Aaron {?} finds receptivity there.

[Sandlin] Yes, it is... it is... and that is why I think that we need to continue to publicize the work of Peter Hammond.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Sandlin] ... that he is doing there. And by... and I will... I do need to close with this, but his... Peter Hammond is a genuine fearless Christian man.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Sandlin] Who could be, along with Aaron, the next David Livingstone of Africa, a fearless man. And I could tell some... a number of stories, but I am hoping that when he is here in October. I don’t want to say too much about it. Maybe we can get him for an Easy Chair. At any rate, this man deserves our support and he is a thorough Christian Reconstructionist, a godly man and one that we need to promote.

[Rushdoony] Douglas, any question or comment by way of conclusion?

[Murray] Well, they certainly deserve our support. I think they will wind up teaching us.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Could very well happen.

Well, thank you all for listening. I hope you understand a little more of what we are trying to do and what Chalcedon represents. We are, as we always have been a shoe string outfit in our operation. But we have a world wide impact. It is not surprising that in far away places like Africa we are well known and respected and yet in parts of Europe we are damned by the Church as the Church resolution you brought.

[Sandlin] Yes.

[Rushdoony] ...indicates.

Well, God is using us and God is blessing us and may God bless you as you help further his work through us or others. Thank you and good night.