Lioness Women: Rooted in Christ

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (00:00)
Hey friends, welcome to the show, Lioness Women Rooted in Christ. I'm your host, Jen Porter, leadership and career coach for ambitious and heart-centered women who want to put God at the center of everything that we do. If you're a woman of faith, you're in the right place. And even if you're not, I invite you to stay because what what we share here is rooted in wisdom, hope, courage, and peace. And who couldn't use more of

All of that. This is a place where we deepen our understanding of who we are and who God created us to be, so we can do the work we were made for, no longer held captive by the expectations of the world. We're here to live boldly, lead courageously, and become women who are deeply rooted in Christ. If you'd like to learn more about my coaching work, The Lionesque Community, or get a copy of my recently released book.

Lioness Stories to Awaken Your Roar Within. You can find it all at jenportercoach.com. Today's guest is Ed Brown, Secretary General of Stefanus Alliance International, a Norwegian human rights organization working around the world to protect freedom of religion or belief for all people, and to strengthen the church in places where following Christ can become, can come at an extraordinary cost.

Ed's work has taken him into conversations across an unusually wide spectrum, from grassroots religious leaders living in communities marked by persecution and conflict, to parliamentarians, diplomats, and senior political leaders shaping policy at the highest levels. Over the course of his career, he has served as a pastor, human rights advocate, teacher, facilitator, and international leader.

He has worked with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, led the Norwegian Secretariat of the International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religion or Belief, and spent years traveling across Europe, Africa, and Asia, including an earlier chapter of his life serving as what he calls a football or soccer missionary. His expertise spans human rights, religious freedom, minority rights, religious nationalism.

identity politics and the complex ways religion, culture, governance, and power intersect around the world. But what I find especially compelling about Ed is that his work is not simply academic or political. He has spent years close to people whose faith carries real risk. And that has shaped how he understands courage, suffering, the church, and what it means for us to truly belong

To one body in Christ. Unless you think he spends all of his time contemplating global human rights issues, and is also a seriously accomplished disc offer, carrying a

Ed Brown (03:03)
Yeah.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (03:04)
PDGA rating of 940. And welcome to Lioness Woman Rooted in Christ.

Ed Brown (03:11)
Thanks, Jen. I'm really happy to be here.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (03:14)
You know, I you're the first man that we've had on the podcast. And I'm honored to have you here. You know, we had that conversation with via Herafoss, and it was such an important conversation, and the work that you all are doing is so essential. And I felt like we just got started and there was more to share and more to dive into. So that's why I invited you to come on and share more as an extension of.

what Via has already shared with us. So thank you for making time and and for what you do. Let's just start with how how in the world did you end up an American in leading an a Norwegian organization focused on human rights? How did that all start?

Ed Brown (03:56)
Sort of if you go back, it started with as they say in the Princess Bride, to love or to love, true love. I was I met a Norwegian girl in college studying in the United States up in the Pacific Northwest, Washington State, Pacific Lutheran University, for any of those who might know where that is. and we fell in love, we got married, lived in the States for a few years, and then moved to Norway. We'd always agreed we would try to live here. And for me, that journey brought me to a

part of the world where I was able to blossom. My background growing up in a military family traveling around the world meant that I was adaptable. working as a soccer or football missionary meant that I traveled the world and met actually the underground church in China in what used to be called Czechoslovakia. So that coming here, learning the Norwegian language, getting involved in the local church here, and then I found out about this organization, things sort of fell together. And I applied for the job at a time when I didn't

really want to get a job to begin with. I was just finishing up my term as an interim pastor, as you mentioned, and my father was sick with cancer, and I wanted to go in the States and be with him for a while. So I I had no practice applying for jobs in Norwegian. So I applied for this job here in this organization as a youth coordinator. My first task was to travel around and inspire youth. And I developed a concept we called Secret Service, where we pretend we're an underground church.

It was really exciting. And I still have kids today, well, they're adults now, fifteen years later, that say, I remember when you came to my youth group, and that was such a powerful thing. But drawing on my background from traveling and visiting persecuted Christians, this felt like a home. And I sort of just fell into it.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (05:33)
And t tell me about your recent trip. You said you just got back from South Korea.

Ed Brown (05:39)
Correct. So I've I've I've been to North Korea twice, but I'd never been to South Korea. And if I wouldn't recommend going to North Korea, South Korea is a lovely country, but North Korea is a black hole. when I went to North Korea, you know, I traveled in with our project partner who was a very special man, and I was told, Here is your guide. I didn't ask for a guide, I didn't want a guide, but I was given a guide. And he walked with me, he went through all of my luggage.

I did not bring my cell phone, I did not bring a laptop. We had cameras to take pictures, and he went through every single picture, documented it, and they documented on the way out all the pictures. And while we were there, he told me where I could go, who I could talk with, who I could not talk with. And I'm used to I'm a fairly pale looking person, one of the countries I travel to, which means I'm a little bit exotic. and people often want to make eye contact and wave, but not in North Korea. They would avert their eyes because they're afraid that the guide.

Would notice it and they would be called in and perhaps put in prison because of that. So that's North Korea in a nutshell. And so when I went to visit South Korea, it was to visit our project partners who work in North Korea and who work with helping refugees get out of North Korea. And you know, let me say I'm very honored that I'm the first male to be allowed to speak to you. But for me, most of a lot of the work that we do in the world is in places in the world where

If without women the church wouldn't exist. The church is made up of courageous women for multiple multitude of reasons. And in North Korea, one of the reasons is North Korea, back before the Korean War, Pyongyang, the capital, was called the Jerusalem of South or of East Asia because there were so many Christians there. But when Kim Il-sung took over power, he divided the country into three layers. The those who were loyal, he he deemed them loyal, and he

Let them live around the capital, those who were wavering in their loyalty, and those who he deemed as as hostile to the regime. And that included Christians. And so they were pastors and leaders were killed. many were exiled so to the equivalent of Siberia, the northern part of North Korea. That's where I visited, where it's a mountainous region, and they're all required to to till the soil and grow crops, but it's very difficult to grow crops.

And then they're supposed give all the all the crops into the government and they get little bits and pieces back. So average size of children is about three to six inches shorter than children in South Korea because of malnutrition. It's it's it's horrible. And so the people who people try to escape, and it's mostly women who escape. because men, when they go to their job, they have to check in on their

They say they volunteer, but they're required to come in an hour early, and they have to recite this booklet that the great leader Kim Il-sung wrote called Ju Che, and they have to memorize it like a Bible. children in school have to recite an an oath. So, like we say, the Pledge of Allegiance, they would say, you great leader, come into my heart and live with me for always. And the great leader they're talking about is Kim Il-sung, who is dead, but he was

voted eternal president after his death. So they're in essence praying to this godlike figure. And so men go to work and they have to study this Bible-like thing called Ju Che and they're being kept tabs on. Whereas the women who are tending the home, they can sneak away and they're not watched as as as much. Now they have to bribe their ways out and they go out of into China mostly to find work and to provide for their families. But while they're in the China, they'll be

met by two types of people. One are human smugglers and they want to use these women. They'll sell them often to Chinese men. Because of the one child policy, we haven't too many men in the population and not enough women. And so Chinese men will buy North Korean wives for themselves. But the other group that will take them in are Christians, churches. And in that meeting many of them say, We've never heard of this. The word for God in heaven is forbidden. We can't use it. And now we've learned of

A God who came down to us and wants to have a relationship with us. And many of them become Christians. Some of them stay in China. some flee out and end up in South Korea. And that's those are the ones that I met last week. And many say, This is such powerful, such a powerful message. I want to take it with me back. And they go back into into North Korea. So one of the women I met, she spent a year studying the Bible and she read through the Bible more than one hundred times in the course of the year.

And she memorized over a thousand verses because she knew if she had a real Bible with her when she traveled across and she was caught, that could mean a death sentence or put into a labor camp where she would never get out. And so the Bible she had was the Bible she memorized so that she could share that with people, never in larger groups than two or three at a time, so that she could share verses who they could memorize and they could share them. So the Bible that's being spread is not a written Bible, it's a Bible that they have in their hearts.

And so the church is being led by these women who meet together in caves or in fields or in the forest or sometimes in homes, and that's where the church is. It's still alive, where two or more, seldom more, are gathered in Christ's name, and it's all led by women, courageous women.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (10:53)
Yeah. When these women flee, what is their expectation about what's gonna happen? Is it they is it that they know they're never gonna see their family again or it's unlikely that they would be able to return?

Ed Brown (11:07)
It's it's a mixture. They they're not sure. So again, some of them may flee because they're hoping they can get across the border. North North Korea is a is a a it's not just a bandit state, but it's it's a black market state. People cannot survive unless they are able to bribe and buy things on the black market that are smuggled over the border from China. and so the hope is that someone in the family can go across.

Get some sort of work and either bring it back themselves or there are smugglers that go back and forth. Again, any sort of clandestine situation like this, you have guards that are standing border. When I was there myself, I looked literally about 500 yards across the river, and you can see small booths lining every, you know, hundred feet, hundred yards or so with guards standing there, but they can be bribed. And so if you are able to get enough money, you can bribe them and goods go back and forth. So the hope is that you can come across.

And then go back to your family. if they escape and they get all the way out because they're they're feeling threatened for some reason. Many of them that I met with saying, I haven't seen my mother or my father or my sister or my brother, and some of them even children, the women who get married, forcibly married to these Chinese men, many times they have to leave their children there. And they're have to f maybe they can re be reunited with them, maybe, maybe not. They don't know. It's it's

It's just a horrible, horrible situation. And there are multitude of reasons why they cross, but the major one is they don't have any food in their stomach whatsoever.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (12:29)
It's say more about the courage that you see in these women. Wha where does that courage come from?

Ed Brown (12:36)
Well, originally it's just the courage to stay alive that all human beings have imbued in them that God's given to us. like I said, there's no there I I met for the first time a woman who was a third generation Christian. I've met a number of North Koreans and all of them have been converts. But she was a third generation. Her grandfather was a Christian he during before the Korean War and he was sent to that Siberia like place, beaten severely, put in concentration camps, but he

He had a daughter, and the daughter had another daughter, and that's the woman that I met. So she had a different motivation. but the others, they're just wanted to survive. And then when they again, it's it's incredible how many of them meet God and a way of being that isn't based on bowing down and worshiping a human being, but it's it's based on love and forgiveness and mercy. And

One of the struggles for North Koreans that the one of the churches that we work with says is often North Koreans that come out and go directly to South Korea struggle tremendously because they're brought up in a society where you have to lie, you have to cheat, you have to smuggle, you have to

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (13:43)
Hmm.

Ed Brown (13:44)
be deceitful with everybody. You have to watch what you say to your own family members. Children in school are asked by their teachers, do your parents t you have to tell us if your parents do strange things. For instance,

Do they at the dinner table sometimes put their heads down and are quiet for a little while? You must tell us if that happens. do they have a hidden book somewhere that they read from? Please tell us what if that happens. So you're brought up to to snitch on everybody around you, and then they come to South Korea and you know they do those same behaviors and they end up in trouble. Whereas those who come through the church that we help support, they bring them, they teach them Christian values about.

not lying and about not stealing and about loving and about sharing. And through that sort of process, they're able to integrate better. In fact, the South Korean authorities went to our church and said, What are you doing? Because the people you bring through integrate so much better that they're able to see this. So motivations

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (14:40)
Yeah.

Ed Brown (14:41)
can be varied. The basic one is I'm hungry, my family's hungry and I want to provide for

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (14:46)
What I'm noticing is that we're all the same. The

Ed Brown (14:50)
We are.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (14:50)
circumstances may be very different, but we all operate in in our own cultures based on survival. And what I'm noticing is that those survival mechanisms and you know sinful behaviors aren't necessarily malicious. Some of that is born from the environment that we have grew grown up in.

And we're we're just all trying to survive. And that doesn't make it right, but we all have to be transformed, right, by the renewing of our mind and the molding of our hearts to become more like Christ. And so I'm just noticing how we're all the same across the world. And so, and that's one of the themes that you talk about is this oneness and this.

You know, we are one body. And when when one part of the body in a healthy body, when one part of the body is hurting, then we should recognize it if we're healthy and and attuned to it and try to h help get that part of the body to a better place, you know, move toward healing. Can you talk about that and what you see in the work?

Ed Brown (16:01)
Yeah. So often a Bible verse that I use is in First Corinthians chapter twelve. And and many of your listeners, watchers are very familiar with the text, and what they often remember is that the first part of chapter twelve talks about we're all part of the same body, some of us are eyes and some are ears and some are hands, and the hand can't say to the eyes that I am more important or less important. And and that's the first part. But then near the end, Paul writes.

That when one part of the body suffers, all the other parts of the body suffer with it. And when one part is honored, all the others rejoice. And often I preach sermons on this where I ask the question, but in my body, I know that functions. If I stub my toe, my body's mobilized. Shockwaves go up to my brain, my brain says, Hey, you need help? get some help, do something, whatever you need. because my body is functioning the way it should. Signals are being sent the way they should be sent.

My body mobilizes, it gets going. But does the body of Christ function that way? and one book that I met read that made a huge impact on me is is by Philip Yancey called Where is God When It Hurts? And in it he describes a doctor, Dr. Paul Brand, who specialized in leprosy and he went to lead a clinic in India. And when he went to the clinic and he was inspecting the buildings, he took a

bunch of keys with him, unlock doors, open up to look around and see what was around. And he got to one door and he tried to open it, stuck the key in, and he couldn't turn the key. It was stuck. And a little boy was there, ten, eleven, twelve years old. And the boy said, Let me try Sahib. And the doctor says, Okay, go ahead. And he sticks the key in, he turns it, and it opens up and he says, Here you go. And the doctor said to him, Let me see your hand. And he shows his hand and it's dripping, dripping blood. He cut himself to the bone.

By turning the key. For Dr. Brand, the problem wasn't that he wasn't strong enough. It's that for any normal person, if you press yourself enough against a key or a screwdriver or anything, sensors say this is hurting you. Stop. Because if you don't, you'll hurt yourself more. And that

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (18:10)
Yeah.

Ed Brown (18:10)
little boy didn't feel it because one type of leprosy is you lose sensation in your fingers, your hands, your noses. And you've seen pictures of lepers who have no ears, no noses, their fingers are gone, their toes are gone.

Because of that exact reason, their body doesn't function the way it should. So the question is: we as the body of Christ, do we pick up signals when other parts of the world are suffering? That's one of the tasks that we as Stefanus Alliance are, in a sense, artificial nerves sent to share what's going on with our brothers and sisters in Christ. If I could ask your listeners, how many of you knew that the church in North Korea is

A church of no more than two or three people at a time. Now we know there are still hundreds and thousands there, but they're no more than two or three at a time. How many knew that until I told you that? And does that hurt? Do you actually relax to it? When I tell you about a brother in Nigeria who's been attacked with a machete because of his faith, or the church that I visited there where the bloodstain on the church wall was from children who had had their throats cut. do we know about that? And

If we do, what do we do about it? Are we not sensitive? So my question was always to the body of Christ, are we a healthy church? Are we a healthy body?

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (19:23)
Mm.

Ed Brown (19:24)
When we do we number one, hear the signals, and number two, do we respond appropriately the way a body should? Sorry, that's a little bit too much preachy, but that's the essence

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (19:32)
Yeah.

Ed Brown (19:33)
of what we're all about.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (19:34)
Well, I think the answer is no. There's unhealth in in the body of Christ in the church. it makes me think of what you're describing. you know, you know, do we lean toward helping? Do we lean toward fixing the the the problem, the brokenness? And it makes me think of the cliff analogy that you use and how you describe the the various levels of work.

That you do, can you talk about that analogy?

Ed Brown (19:59)
Yeah, yeah, I would love to. Because you know, it's easy to get mixed up and what can I do? Is there anything I can do? And so I often try to distill it down to three or four areas where we can get involved. And I just had this meeting with my staff today. We're going through a new strategy process, so I just described it them as well. So imagine a cliff, okay? Here's a cliff. Use your fantasy, your imagination. And people are milling around at the top of the cliff and some fall.

What's our immediate reaction? Our immediate reaction is to help the people at the bottom of the cliff. Now that could be literally an earthquake has happened, a war has broken out. In our case, maybe there's been an attack on Christians in Joseph colony in Lahore in Pakistan. Maybe someone's been accused of blasphemy. It's the immediate help that helps a few people at the bottom of the cliff. It could also be spiritual because we are not just preoccupied with the body. That's very, very important, and we want to take care of the needs of the body.

it's not just about mental health. We have trauma healing that we do for especially women who have been trafficked, for instance, during the Islamic State in Iraq. but also spiritual health. So one of the projects we do is in Iran, where the church is growing. literally, thousands of people are coming to faith. Now, to be honest, statistically, more people are just turning away from Shia Islam and becoming nothing. Nuns, N-O-N-E-S, not nuns with a habit on their head, but N-O-N-E-S.

They just don't want to have anything to do with religion. But a significant number are becoming Christians, but there are no theological seminaries, there are no Bible schools. How do you train up? How do you disciple these people if you don't have a training program? So one of the things we come alongside of a local group, they're based in London, they're expats from Iran, and they provide both online training but also clandestine training in theology, where people go through and actually receive a degree in theology and they become church, underground church leaders.

That's working at the bottom of the cliff, helping individuals, helping churches to continue to grow. But what about the top of the cliff? You've got people up here still, the local communities. So we can also engage with them. So one of the projects that we've had in the past is working in Iraq, working with a church run organization that said, Hey, we don't need more pastors or priests. We've got enough. We've we've been Christians for 2,000 years. Actually, you Protestants out in the West, you're our little brothers and sisters.

We know what it is to be a church in our context. And Stefanus Alliance, we work with all different religious Christian denominations. Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and I hope that doesn't offend too many of you, but we believe the body of Christ is much bigger than our differences. And so they say we know what it is to do church, but what we need is to build to build social cohesion, peaceful co coexistence with our neighbors. Can you help our business people, the ones who had a business before the Islamic came state came?

Can you help them restart their businesses? Give us loans so we can give to them so they can start their car wash, just the mundane thing, or a cell phone reparation kiosk. and they can hire not only Christians, but also Shia and Sunni and Kakis and Zoroastrians, and we can then rehumanize with each other. We can look each other in our the eyes, we can work together, and we can then not become enemies. We can then

Push down the tensions that are there, and we won't have another threat when that happens again in the future. But also, if you're at the top of the cliff, you have the people milling about at the edge. We can help build their robustness, their resilience. But back here, there's a king. And again, metaphorically speaking, the king might be a local police chief, it could be a mayor, it could be a governor, it could be a president, it could be an international institution, the United States government. I often interact with the State Department.

or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here in Norway, or Parliament, or the UN or the EU or the African Union or other bodies that actually have real power to help put up fences, to help stop people from falling off the cliff. So when I was in Iraq two years ago, actually last year I was just there, I took a couple of bishops from Norway and from England and we met with local religious leaders, we met with local youth leaders

And we met with the president's office and we met with the minister of religion and we met with the religion, the minister of education, and we shared with them how living in a pluralistic society, you have to take care of your minorities. And if we can reach them, we can put up help put up fences that will prevent people from falling. the bottom

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (24:21)
Yeah.

Ed Brown (24:21)
of the cliff is really, really it's it's gratifying. You help that one family, you help that one child, that one woman, that one man. but it doesn't prevent people from falling.

Working with the kings, we can prevent people from falling, but that's long-term work. You build relationships over a long period of time, and then suddenly that king is gone and a new king comes, and it's three steps forward and four steps back, and it's it's it's tremendously frustrating. But when it works, when it comes through, you can prevent thousands from falling off the cliff. And Stefanus Alliance is at all three of those levels. And for me as a leader, I'm trying to think how do we meet all those needs? How do we

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (24:59)
So

Ed Brown (25:00)
raise funds to meet all those needs because there are different tactics to raise those type of funds. But how

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (25:04)
Yeah.

Ed Brown (25:04)
do we help those people stop them from falling? And the ones who have fallen, how do we bind up their wounds and take care of them?

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (25:11)
Wow, wow. what are some of a so you've been doing this work for a couple of decades, is that right?

Ed Brown (25:17)
Yeah, since two thousand and one.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (25:20)
So what are you seeing now? You know, 2026, you've seen an evolution. You've seen some progress, I'm assuming. What are you seeing now in this time that might be unique?

Ed Brown (25:32)
Well before I answer the unique question, let me let me start off by saying I I have a philosophy, and and the philosophy is that we have to be we have to be aware of what type of battle we're fighting. it's easy to get into the mentality that we are in a winnable game of sorts. That and I hear people who come into this especially please excuse me,

Politicians and diplomats who have been given a portfolio and they're saying we gotta handle this. And they come in and they come to people like me, experts, and they say, We're gonna fix this. And I think, no, another one of those guys. Because they're thinking, how can how can it benefit them in their in their politics or in their dipl diplomatic life or whatever? Can we get some sort of quick win that can benefit them? For me, this is a this is an infinite game. And if you've ever read Simon Cynic.

Who has the famous book Start With Why? He also has a book called The Infinite Game. So I give a plug to Simon Sinek. It's excellent, really good stuff. He says that a finite game is a game that has rules that everyone agrees on. You have some way of adjudicating a referee or a some sort of umpire or something. And you have the the people who are playing it, you know who they are. They often have different colored jerseys, and you know when you've won or lost.

But the game of life isn't like that. The game of creating peace isn't like that. The creative the game of creating a better situation for people around the world isn't a game you can win. It's a game you have to continue to be relevant for and try to, in the context, make it better than it was yesterday, knowing that it could

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (27:07)
Mm.

Ed Brown (27:07)
go backward as well, and then you keep keep plugging along. So for me, it's an infinite game, which means that things go forward and they go backwards. And we've seen

Positive signs and we've seen negative signs. So what is unique about the situation in the world right now is for me it's it's a conglomeration of several things. We've seen, if you take, I like to look at the larger arc of of time, not the biggest one from recorded history, but but if you look at the last hundred years or so, last hundred to two hundred years, most of that time prior to the Second World War, wars were the norm in the world.

Nation states were fighting against each other. And if you go back a little bit further, Europe after the Reformation was filled with war based on religion. Christians were killing each other. Catholics were killing Baptists and Lutherans were killing the Catholics and you know they were all fighting against each other, killing each other. That was the norm. Now you can say what you want about the European Union, you can say about what you want about the United Nations, and those bodies, large bodies,

Bureaucracies they they need revamping. But how many world wars have we had since the 1940s? We haven't had any. And in fact,

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (28:21)
Yeah.

Ed Brown (28:21)
all the documentation we have indicate that we've saw we've seen an increase in democracies from the 1940s. We've seen an increase in peaceful coexistence. We didn't see it the end of wars. Wars still occurred, but by and large, wars during that time period from the 1940s up until the early 2000s.

were mostly civil wars fought between ethnic groups within a country. Very few wars were across borders. Very few. Some, but not that many. But way fewer than the previous 100 to 200 years. So we'd seen a progression, we've seen things getting better. A respect for people of different religions, many parts of the world. In the last decade and a half or so, unfortunately we've seen a backsliding in democracy. We've seen a back

sliding in good governance and a backsliding in in rule of law in many places in the world. I probably don't have time to go into all the different reasons for that, but but let's just say that has been happening and that contributes to tension, and tension leads to groups looking for a scapegoat. And often it's the minorities who are looked at as the scapegoat. So

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (29:31)
So

Ed Brown (29:32)
what we've seen is a move back to

What I'm afraid can become a pre Second World War situation where what did Hitler claim? He claimed it was the Jews, one group that was causing all their problems. And we see that sort of pointing fingers against Christians, against Yazidis, against some Muslim groups, Sunni in this group, Shi in that place, where religious groups are looked at as the problem if they're the minority. And that's because and again this again I'm getting too much.

Maybe a little bit too much. You stop me if it's too much, but from a sociological perspective, not from a Christian theological perspective, but from a sociological

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (30:08)
Sure.

Ed Brown (30:09)
perspective, you can think of religion as three dimensions. We're typically used to one dimension, which is the faith dimension. We say that religion is about faith. If you believe this, then you're that. If you believe this, you're that. but for many people in the world, faith might play a lesser role and practice.

So if have orthodoxy, the right faith, you have orthopraxy, the right practice, what you do is more important than what you believe. And you will do the rituals that are connected to that religion, but you don't necessarily believe all the tenets of that religion. And the third aspect, and this is the one that I think causes the most harm, is religion is an identity. So you might not believe, you might not even practice, but you are, because you're born into that community. And then it becomes a political element.

And so if people convert, that threatens the social political stability. And therefore, the attack on the minorities isn't necessarily because of their belief, although that might be used later as a justification, but it has to do with they represent a threat to our population. You see what I'm getting at here? And so

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (31:13)
Hmm. Yeah.

Ed Brown (31:15)
we need to put on different lenses when we analyze what's happening in the world and not just think it's a matter of faith. they're doing it because they believe this or we believe that.

That might come into play, and often those three things interact with one another. As a Christian, I believe what I believe, I practice my faith and I identify with it. So I have all three of them, but sometimes one gets inflated over the other. And so that's where Christian or religious nationalisms come in, which I've seen in India, with Hinduism, with Buddhism, in Myanmar, with Christianity in Russia, for instance. It's it's a big issue where you allow one religion to nominate, which squeezes out all the others, and they become a threat to us.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (31:53)
Hmm.

Wow.

I'm thinking now about people, you know, when we learn about these things, it's it's uncomfortable, right? I mean, yeah,

Ed Brown (32:02)
I hope so.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (32:04)
we we don't we we don't want people to suffer. We don't want there to be conflict and pain and and all the atrocities that are happening to peop to people around the world because of their faith or belief. And so it it sort of causes us to turn inward and wonder, you know.

Where am I in this story? What might God be asking of me? And what do you find? How should we respond, you know, as the body, when we see that this other part of us is hurting?

Ed Brown (32:32)
Yeah. How should we respond?

I would love to give you one simple phrase and say this is the way to respond, but I can't. Because while my analogy works to some extent, it's not as simple as that. When my big toe gets stubbed, it's all contained here. I have the ability to do something with it right now. Both in terms of the stubbing of the toe, but also in removing that big stone that's always been in my way and taking care of it. As a single Christian here in Norway or a

Christian living in the United States, if I know about a neighbor who's suffering, I can do something about their suffering. I could even, if it's a structural issue, I could try to address, I could become involved in politics, or I could talk with people in the neighborhood to try to help out to to make sure it doesn't happen anymore. But it's much more difficult when it's on the global stage. It becomes too much. so and I know this might sound banal, but

When I meet our brothers and sisters around the world, one of the things they often say to me, number one, thank you for coming, thank you for seeing us. They recognize they feel alone, and that they we visit them, that we share with them, that we have a magazine that we send out, we have a newsletter, we have a prayer letter, that others around the world know about their situation. That is gives them hope. And then always, almost always,

When I leave, they say, please remember to pray for us. And so prayer plays a huge role for those suffering. So if

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (34:05)
Mm-hmm.

Ed Brown (34:05)
nothing else, if nothing else, we have a prayer letter we send out, a newsletter as well. And I think in the show notes you'll put our webpage on there. Go in, sign up for our newsletter. If you don't do anything else, put it on your refrigerator door once a week or whenever you have your prayer time, once a day, whenever you do with your family. Remember

The Christians in North Korea, remember the Christians in Nigeria, remember the Christians in Turkmenistan. Pray for them. That's the least you can do.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (34:32)
Mm.

Ed Brown (34:33)
Secondly, then organizations like ours, and there there are a number of them. We we are unique in the sense that we are a Christian organization. We help Christians, but we also stand up for the rights of others. So if Muslims are being persecuted, and they are, in Xinjiang province in China, the Uyghurs are being women are being forcefully sterilized.

By the by the hundreds. I can't stand by and not say something about that. Because when our brothers and sisters are being persecuted, often their neighbors are being persecuted. We need to stand up for them as well. So we as a Christian organization also stand up for the rights of others. We don't whereas we would be involved in the spiritual development of our brothers and sisters, we wouldn't do that for a Muslim or for a Baha'i or for others, but we would stand up for their right to be who they are and stand up for a

change of the system so everyone has the right to share their faith. And we think that the Christianity can flourish when they have that. So get involved with an organization like ours. We you called us Stephen

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (35:31)
Sure.

Ed Brown (35:31)
Asliance International based in Norway and we are, but we've we've now also registered ourselves in the United States. So we have an

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (35:37)
Mm-hmm.

Ed Brown (35:37)
actually a presence there. So get involved. Find out talk reach out to us, write to me. you can put my email address in there. And if you don't want to

Work with us because you want you have some other organization. There are open doors, voice of the martyrs, international Christian concern, there are friends, there are others, mostly just focused on Christians. God bless you. Reach out to them and find out ways in which you can you can share with them and and they can also do work around the world. But get involved by finding out more first and then seeing how God will lead you in prayer to support

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (36:08)
Yeah.

Ed Brown (36:09)
something.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (36:10)
Well, that's the thing too, is we have to be led by the spirit to know what our role to play is, other than it other otherwise it becomes about us in a in a way that is more about the ego, perhaps,

Ed Brown (36:23)
Mm-hmm.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (36:23)
than it is about really being called and in what way you know, to use the body analogy again, like what what part of the body am I? And what is God asking me to do for the greater body?

You mentioned the newsletter. So that's if people go to stefanusalliance-usa.org they can find the newsletter and sign up for it there and they'll receive stories and updates and can pray that way.

Ed Brown (36:46)
Correct. So what you'll feel you'll s find our the the web page there and then there'll be a pop up at the bottom that says sign up for our newsletter and it should be right there at the bottom then or from the

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (36:53)
Okay, okay.

Ed Brown (36:55)
top. I don't know where it comes in. I'm not a tech person, but something pops up that says sign up for the newsletter.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (37:01)
Okay, easy. And then you've talked about coming to churches or even even home groups, you know, coming and speaking to maybe a larger group of people, because it's it is when we hear about these stories that we're compelled, you know, we you know, we gain understanding and then we can move into action and often things that are very easy for us to do because of the particularly the freedoms that we have and the way that in the ways that we're thriving.

Can you share how that would work? So let's say that a a church leader, even a small group leader, wants to invite your organization into their church or some other organization. How does that work?

Ed Brown (37:41)
Yeah. So again, we have no staff in the US right now. We're we try tend to be a very fiscally conservative organization. We don't want to take risks because we're working with donors' money. So when we decided that we wanted to expand to the US, it was because we felt God had given us some great work to do and we were doing good stuff in the world. And Norway is a small country, five and a half million people or so. and

Maybe there'll be Christians in the US who'd be interested also in coming alongside and and supporting this type of work. but we didn't want to extend ourselves and hurt the mothership. So at this point it's just me traveling, meeting. I'll be in the end of September, beginning of October. I will be going to play the world championships in frisbee golf in Peoria, Illinois, if anyone's interested. If

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (38:24)
Okay.

Ed Brown (38:25)
anyone plays Frisbee Golf. But then I'll also be making a trip to Dallas, Texas, and I'll be speaking.

At Dallas Baptist University. and it's this third year in a row where we're holding a conference together with some friends of mine who we we want to engage Christians to pray for Persecuted Church and for the Persecuted Church's neighbors, as I was just describing. So I'll be in the Dallas area in October. Maybe you have a youth group there, maybe you have a home group, maybe you have a church. Invite me. you want me to

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (38:51)
Okay.

Ed Brown (38:52)
come preach, or maybe you just want me to meet your pastor, or invite a group of pastors.

And I'm happy to come and share. Again,

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (38:58)
Yeah.

Ed Brown (38:58)
my goal is to to make you aware of what's going on, what's happening in

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (39:02)
Yeah.

Ed Brown (39:03)
the world. the I mentioned Secret Service. Maybe your youth group, you want to invigorate them. I I would come in and then I would meet the youth group and their regular meeting time, and it's a role play where some at I get a s I would give a signal and then some people in the youth group would stand up for pre pretending that they are policemen.

They'll arrest me, you know, arrest me, take me out of the room, and then everyone's told they have to leave. And then I put out the ictus sign. I don't know if you're familiar with the ictus, the early church. They didn't make a cross, they made a fish sign. and I'll put those out and then we'll follow the people will follow up and go down to a basement. And there I am waiting for them in a dark room with no chairs. And I'll say, This is what the church looks like in many parts of the world. The pastor has been arrested, the praise team is arrested, our Bibles are all gone, we have no instruments, and we're gonna have a worship service.

I'm not gonna lead it.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (39:53)
Mm-hmm.

Ed Brown (39:53)
I'll sort of guide us, but you guys have to do it. When it's time to pray, somebody has to pray. When it's time to sing, somebody has to start singing. When you're gonna read the Bible, it's what's written here. Somebody has to share what's written there. And I'd be happy to come and share that with your youth group. So I'll be in Dallas in last couple days in September, first to week in October. Happy to come. Or it's the corridor

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (40:15)
Okay.

Ed Brown (40:16)
from Dallas to Houston in October.

end of October, beginning of November, I'll be in Minnesota in the Mi Minneapolis St. Paul area. Again, I'm happy to come. I'll be preaching in a couple churches there. midweek Bible study. maybe you'd want to look at some of the verses about persecution. What does it mean?

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (40:34)
Uh-huh.

Ed Brown (40:34)
Well how does it exist today? Maybe you want a theological point of view or maybe you want to invite me like I was at a Tuesday pensioners group in Minnesota a few weeks, a few months ago.

and I was sharing just about some of the mechanisms involved with persecution, like this I talk about religion being faith, practice and identity, more from a political science or a global politics point of view. Maybe you'd like something more academic in that sense. I'm happy to do that. I lecture at universities, I meet with dignitaries, so anything from a more academic to a very spiritual

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (41:03)
Yeah.

Ed Brown (41:04)
sort of experience and anything in between, I'm happy to come and share.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (41:09)
And and I just so I'm clear, you've offered your email address to people if they're listening and they want to reach out to you directly.

Ed Brown (41:15)
I don't know but I don't know about the many tens of thousands you have if I'm gonna be inundated, but but yes, please reach out to me. But I'm happy to to communicate.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (41:22)
Okay, okay.

Yeah. How have you been changed over the last couple of decades in this work? What what have you noticed about yourself, whether it's your faith, your courage, your understanding of who God is?

Ed Brown (41:35)
Yeah.

A couple of things.

Number one.

We in the West celebrate Easter. Well, the church everywhere celebrates Easter. But oftentimes we skip over the whole passion. We want to get to the resurrection and the hallelujah part. And we want to rejoice and we want to. courage often is measured in terms of success, in terms of hallelujah, in terms of triumph. And of course, that is a significant part. Christ rose from the dead.

The persecuted church taught me is maybe we can take a little bit of time and sit with the pain. Both Fridays and Saturdays. Fridays, the crucifixion. Recognizing, as Philippians said, he some who was with God chose to humble himself and become like us. So the idea of the idea of we we tend to think that we need to progress in our in our careers upwards.

Christ's idea of progression was going down and becoming humbled, from God to being a human, born in blood and guck, raised in a family in in Israel, leaving the country as a refugee, fleeing because death squadrons were going to kill him, and then suffering on the cross a horrible, horrible death.

That's where the persecuted church says we can identify with the suffering Christ in our sufferings. Because too often they've been faced with, and I'm ashamed to say it, coming from the United States, a gospel that says faith is measured in the good things you get in your life. And if you don't get riches and honor and glory, you're not a faithful person. Your faith is weak. And that kind of theology, if you tell that to a suffering Christian who suffered all their lives, what does that say to them?

They grab a hold of the story of Christ who this is part of the plan. And Christ, we can go through our suffering because He walks with us in our suffering. And that's allowed me to say the small, tiny sufferings that I go through in a in a I'm a rich person living just because I live where I live and I was born where I was born. The small things I go through, Christ walks with me through those as well. And then on Saturday, when God is silent, God is dead, God is in hell.

God is in the realm of death. Where is he? Where is his voice? The disciples are scattered. They don't know. Even in the silence, he is still there. That's what the suffering churches taught me. That they look to those two aspects of faith. Not just the triumphant, everything is well again, but the broken and the silent. That also is where faith is. And that's okay.

And I can I don't have to despair that is something wrong with me, is something wrong with my faith. Everybody's gonna go through hurt. They're have dysfunctionality in their families, they're gonna have death in their families, they're gonna have divorces, they're gonna have things that they wanted that they didn't get. Every single person will go through that. And God goes with us through it. He doesn't necessarily take us out of it. God let your will be done. That phrase.

I learned more deeply through the persecuted church than I ever did in the Western church.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (44:54)
Mm.

Ed Brown (44:54)
That's been something that strengthened my faith. It's also made me more

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (44:57)
Wow.

Ed Brown (44:58)
humble. The last thing, if I can just share, humble

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (45:00)
Yeah.

Ed Brown (45:01)
in meeting Christians of different flavors. I grew up in a fairly Protestant part of the US. I didn't mix and mingle with many Catholics, and I'd never heard of an Orthodox. I had no idea what an Orthodox believer was.

Yet I've traveled to now to countries and met Orthodox believers who have a completely different worship form than I do. That for me it's it's a little bit weird. And I've seen a Christ-centeredness in their lives that's humbled me. Because I, in my Western way of thinking, wrapped up faith in the form. And that Christianity was more about form. And now I'm realizing form has nothing to do with it. It's what's at the center of your heart in your relationship with God. And whether you wave

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (45:43)
Mm.

Ed Brown (45:44)
your hands.

Or sit on your hands, whether you do incense, whether you chant, or whether you play music, or whether you don't play music, whether you're a thousand or more in the congregation together and you feel this awe, or whether you're only one or two people in a forest and you're afraid that someone's gonna come and kill you, it's the relationship you have with God and with Christ that matters, and not

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (46:04)
Mm-hmm.

Ed Brown (46:05)
the form of how you worship that matters. That's what they taught.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (46:13)
There's so much in our world that divides us that would seek to have us differentiate ourselves based on our differences. And you know, even thinking about the difference between men and women. And, you know, there can be divisiveness even in in the sexes.

And you said something to me in our first conversation that really stood out, and that was that we need one another. We need men and women in this work. Can you just, as we wrap up, talk about the importance of that?

Ed Brown (46:45)
Yeah. So again back to when you're afraid that you're gonna be put in prison. When you're afraid in prison that you're gonna be tortured again.

You hold on to your belief. And whether you're a man or a woman, you have to step up. And some fail. And we need to be willing to offer forgiveness and mercy and grace. I think the one of the examples I used when we chatted last was churches in Central Asia, where one way to try to break the church is to arrest the pastor, which is often a man.

But what does the church do? It looks to the next person, which is the wife, to lead the church. And

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (47:22)
Mm.

Ed Brown (47:22)
she has no formal training. And maybe the theology doesn't allow for her to be the leader, but because the husband is gone, she becomes the de facto leader. And she leads a church until he comes back and then he becomes the leader again. And again, I'm not going to discuss theology of women leading or men leading, but that's what happens. And if you if we only rely on one group, men or women.

To do the work of being the church, the body of Christ, we're impoverished. We need to recognize that everybody, man or woman, is created in the image of God and has a work to do, and we need to work together and value the work that we do together. And

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (48:04)
Mm-hmm.

Ed Brown (48:04)
statistically I know, I follow these things. Most of the work done in the church in the world is done by women.

If women didn't do the work, the church would not exist. And the women are the ones who are often sharing the gospel with their children. Men, I'm sorry to say, we tend to abandon a family. If times get rough, we leave. It's the women

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (48:24)
Mm.

Ed Brown (48:25)
who are taking care of the family. And that's the only church many people know, is their only family, their family. So we need all of them.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (48:30)
Yeah.

Ed Brown (48:31)
And when you talk about courageous women, I am convinced, and we as an organization have a focus on lifting up women because they are in a there are

vulnerable in ways that men are not vulnerable and we don't recognize it. And so we have one of the tasks we do is to recognize that and to make authority. So when I teach classes to diplomats who are preoccupied with women's rights, I will say if you're preoccupied with women's rights, you need to learn how women are persecuted different than men. Otherwise you won't see it. It'll be hidden.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (48:58)
Wow. Ed, thank you for sharing. I appreciate you taking time to share about Stefanus Alliance, your own story, some of your experiences. It really brings to light what's happening. You know, you talk about raising awareness, and that's where it all starts. you know, this idea of we are all one, we are one body, we are all made in the image of God, whether we know it or not. We are all made in the image of God. And

I want to invite our listeners to connect. Connect with Stefanus Alliance through the newsletter. Think about sharing this message with your church, with your home group, with your brothers and sisters in Christ. Those maybe that want to get more involved, want to want to express their faith in different ways and in meaningful ways, not just to their neighbors next door, but around the world. Because when any of us are hurting, we're all hurting.

So I'll include all the information about how to connect in the show notes and I encourage you to share this episode, share this, reflect on it, and pray you know what God may be asking of you in this time about how to get involved with the the global church. And thank you so much. Really appreciate your time. In the meantime.

Ed Brown (50:09)
Jen, this has been great. I really

appreciate it.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (50:11)
Say that again, I missed it.

Ed Brown (50:12)
I'm sorry, I I I just said I really appreciate it. I've been I enjoyed our conversation a couple of months ago and really was looking forward to this time. I'm humbled and honored to be the first male to be on this podcast. and I just it was a real blessing. Thank you so much.

Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (50:27)
Thank you. And I appreciate you being open to it. Until the next episode, the lioness in me sees the lioness in you.