Between two Irans

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Hello, and thank you for joining us for a special edition of The World and Everything in It. I’m Myrna Brown.

When David Nasser was just a child, he found himself squarely in the middle of the Iranian Revolution of 1979.

The events of those years would change the trajectory of Iran… but also of Nasser’s life… and his faith as well. His family fled the country as the monarchy gave way to becoming the Islamic Republic.

They ended up in America, where he became a Christian… then a pastor and author.

Now 47 years later, he’s watching closely as his new country fights to bring about change in the country of his birth… one he still thinks of as his home.

Welcome David.

DAVID NASSER: It's such an honor to be with you. Thanks for having me.

BROWN: Thanks for being here. David, I can remember being nine years old, and all I wanted to do was get that year over with so that I could quickly turn 10 and join the double digit club. I mean, that's all I wanted. But when you were nine years old, living in Iran in 1979 you were pretty sure you wouldn’t make it to 10 years old. Can you tell us about that?

NASSER: Yeah, man, I vividly have memories as a nine year old thinking, I hate God. It just felt like he went first. I felt like he hated me. People under the banner of religion, people in the name of God, were destroying the life of the people that I cared about and everything that we held stable and we held dear was going away and was becoming unstable.

And so I remember those days. I remember as a nine year old when the Iranian revolution happened. This was 47 years ago, I vividly have a memory of soldiers coming to take my dad out of our home. And as they were dragging my dad out of our home, my mom was just screaming to them, just kill him quickly. Please kill him quickly, because she didn't want him to be tortured. And they were doing that in the name of God.

I was nine years old. When you're nine years old and you're going through something like that, the last thing you're thinking is that God loves me and has a wonderful plan for my life. You're thinking, God's apparently pretty mad at me and my family and wants to hurt us.

BROWN: And you talked about your dad being taken in front of you all, but you had an incident at school. Tell us about that.

NASSER: That's right, yeah. So we lived in the army base. So from kindergarten all the way to senior high, you know, high school senior, we all kind of went to the same Military Academy in our base. And I remember the very beginnings of the Iranian Revolution one day going to school and being called out to an assembly behind our school. So we all piled out there, and a soldier came and stood in front of our entire student body, took out a piece of paper, read out the names of three students, mine being the first one, and asked us to make our way to the front.

And looking back on it, now, I realize it didn't hit me then as a nine year old, but those were the three kids that belonged to the three highest ranked officials in the army base, so they were trying to make an example of us.

And I made my way to the front, and I was the first one to make it to the front. And the soldier didn't even wait for the other two before he did what he did, and he took a gun out of a holster, put it in my forehead, and with his hands shaking, quoted the Quran and told me that he was sent to take my life. And again, when you're nine, you don't understand what's happening. I just remember thinking he looked scared enough to mean it. And the school principal got between me and the gun and asked him to come back another day.

I don't think he had to be motivated too much. He didn't want to do it. He was just ordered to do it. And that day I got rushed back home, and my parents explained to me, they said, hey, the government's being overthrown. They're using terrorism, terror, the greatest gift of a terrorist, fear, to instill in the life of people. So they're using fear in the life of people by making an example of someone like us. And he said, “Look, we're going to get as fast as we can, as far as we can away from them.”

And again, in my mind, when my mom and dad are saying, don't worry, you're not going back to school. Don't worry, we're getting out of here. In my mind, we weren't escaping tyrants. We were escaping God because that guy with a gun was leading worship that day, but he wasn't leading worship with a guitar or microphone in his hand. He was leading worship with a gun in his hand, the wrong kind of worship, right? Demonic worship. And so that's what people need to understand. When people think about religion in that part of the world. It's not a religion of peace and faith. It's a religion of terror and fear.

BROWN: There's a story that you tell…your dad has been taken and your mom is at wit's end. So she brought you all together, your sister and your brother?

NASSER: That's right, that’s right.

BROWN: And you all have been praying, but to no avail. So she thought that she would try something different. Can you tell that story?

NASSER: Yeah, well, there are actually two instances there. And I love that you brought both of them up. My first memory of prayer was, you know, I'm almost killed at my school, and then the next couple not far from then, my dad is taken. My dad's dragged out of our home to be killed. Then he's not killed. And at that moment, my mom got us together to pray, and we were Shiite Muslims, and she kept praying that my father would be killed quickly. So that was the first time. Aren't you glad God answers our prayers differently than we want? My dad was not killed at all. And then he came home, and then we escaped from Iran, and then we got put in Germany and Switzerland.

We were in Europe for nine months trying to make it and that is that second prayer you just alluded to, where my mom gets us together and says, Hey, we've exhausted all these different avenues of trying to make it to America. We tried legally, illegally. Nobody was allowing Iranians into America at that time. People were watching how Iran had held 50 plus hostages, American hostages in Iran from the American Embassy, how we were burning the American flag, calling America the great Satan. You know? So we were again, we were not getting in and we were stuck in Europe for nine months. And my mom got us together and said, Let's mention Jesus in a prayer.

BROWN: What did you all know about Jesus?

NASSER: Well, I just thought, okay, he must be America's God, so maybe, maybe he's got the combination lock or something. So we mentioned Jesus in a prayer, and that's what's amazing. Like , all of a sudden, to me, the timeline on it was we mentioned Jesus and then the doors opened up.

BROWN: Did you make that connection?

NASSER: Yes. In my mind, I thought, hey, Jesus, I hate religion, but thanks for letting us into your country. And that's the beauty of God. God is bigger than bad theology, or at least slash geography, you know. But when you look back at—I mean, maybe some of your listeners, obviously, most of them are not from Iran— but you look back at your life, and there are just drops of grace in the drought of your life. Where you look back, and when I look back, one of the first memories I have of Jesus is we mentioned his name in a prayer. We didn't even know him, but He knew us. We mentioned his name in a prayer, and a couple of weeks later, he did for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. And so I look back and see how, even then, He was making himself shown and known in the slightest sense, to us. Really, what we thought he was giving us was American citizenship, but He had something bigger in mind. So much He had eternal citizenship, Kingdom citizenship in mind.

BROWN: That's right. Seeds were being planted.

NASSER: Amen! Come on. See? I like that.

BROWN: So you all are, you're in Europe for a while, but then you end up in Killeen, Texas.

NASSER: Can you imagine? I mean, We don't go to New York, we go during the Iranian hostage situation, we go to patriotic Texas, to the largest army base in the world city. I mean, patriotism full tilt. Can you say wedgie waiting to happen? That was us. I mean, I'm a fish out of water, wrong haircut, wrong clothes, wrong everything. I parachute into, basically, you know, a different world, different culture. And so we went from, we came as refugees, but it didn't feel like a refuge. Yeah.

BROWN: What was the hardest part of that?

NASSER: For somebody listening to me right now, they know what it's like to move into a new city. It's hard enough to start over, you know, and to try to make new friends. Everybody's watching on TV. We're from, I'm from Iran, so I don't speak the language. I don't have the right haircut, the wrong clothes. So you're just, the kid that's getting bullied by everybody else is bullying you. You're the one kid below him in the food chain.

The hardest part wasn't even the mean things people would say. You know, it's not the jokes. It's not the turban jokes and the what's the dot on the forehead, cable hookup jokes. It's not so much even the mean things. It's when they don't even….. they pretend like you don't even exist. It's when 16 birthday party invitations go out for the skating rink, and there's 17 kids in the classroom, and you're always the 17th. And they're literally being passed out by the teacher, everyone's getting one but you.

I feel like we replace one kind of terrorism for another. We replace physical in Iran. We come to America looking for safe harbor, and the kind we got, the other kind of terror was emotional. And the weapon of mass destruction so often, of emotional terrorism is when someone doesn't even deem you worthy of existence, of acknowledgement. You just feel ignored, unseen, unheard. And so that's how it felt in the beginning.

And I don't think people meant it. You know, nine year olds are nine year olds. You know, they're just going home and hearing mom and dad say stuff about Iran. And then they realize you're the one Iranian, and so you're just the receiving end of a lot of those kinds of things. You're just a kid who's just trying to belong and you don't belong, which is why I was so set up, in one sense, in my insecurities for when it all kind of pivoted for me in high school.

BROWN: Let me catch the listener up here, because you moved, actually, to my neck of the woods in Alabama and things got better… from the outside.

NASSER: My dad had taken flight training in both Fort Hood, which is where we moved from Killeen, Texas, to Fort Rucker, which is actually Enterprise, Alabama, Dothan, Alabama, that part of Alabama. That's when my freshman year in high school was about to start, and my dad found out that I was really outcasted, and he tried to fix it. He meant, well, but sometimes you try to fix something, sometimes you try to put out a fire, and you accidentally put a cup of gasoline on it instead of water.

My dad was trying to fix the fact that I was this outcast kid, and he took me to the mall and tried to help me blend in, and he bought me clothes and haircut and shoes and all that. But honestly, I just replaced one demon with another because I went to school the next day and I started becoming popular. I learned how to end up at the right lunchroom table. I learned how to be cold, to be perceived as cool. I learned how to dump the right girl before she could dump me to climb the social ladder. But at least when I was a nobody, I was David the nobody, and all I'd become is just a sellout.

It's so true where it says in the Bible, what good is it for a man to gain the whole world, but to forfeit his soul? And at least when I was David Nasser the nobody, I was me, but then all of a sudden I'd become the sellout.

BROWN: I’ve got to tell you, this is probably my favorite part of your story. Now, not just because you ended up in my home state. Take us back to the night that you're in your buddy's car and he has a proposition for you, take us there.

NASSER: Right after high school, couple of months after high school, one night, I'm in a car with a buddy of mine, and to be very transparent we are smoking weed, we're kind of passing a joint back and forth, and my buddy invited me to church, of all things, and that’s so South culture. He didn't invite me because he felt like I had a spiritual need in my life. I just graduated from high school, and I was talking about how our popularity had gone away once we got our cap and gown and all that.

So he invited me for social reasons, cultural reasons, and so he invites me to church, and I didn't want to go, but then he named the five prettiest girls from my high school, and instantly I wanted to go. And I think this part is your favorite part, probably because it's my favorite part too, by the way. And I told them, I said, but there's no way my dad's gonna let me go to church. But he said, “Let's go. Let's go at least ask him. Let's go, at least ask him.” So on a Saturday night, I went in the house to ask my dad, just so my dad could say no, so my buddy could hear it and leave me alone. And my buddy came to the door to hear him, and I asked my dad if I can go to church. But instead of saying no, my dad asked the name of the church, and the reason that he did that—and I was shocked that he just didn't immediately say no—was because there were these people from this church, a guy named Aubrey Edwards, and a few others from this church called Shades Mountain Baptist Church in Birmingham—by this time, we moved up to Birmingham—who had been coming to my daddy's restaurant for about two weeks, and they had seen how my dad was short handed on wait staff, and instead of complaining about the bad service, they decided to get up and roll up their sleeves and wait on tables at my dad's restaurant.

And so they made it their mission to serve my dad when he was just short handed on wait staff. And then people in the choir of this church had signed up for shifts to be free bus boys and waiters at my dad's restaurant. And so God had used that for two weeks to massage my dad's heart, to soften him so that when I asked if I can go to church, instead of saying no, my dad asked the name of it, and then I was given permission to go to church.

And so I think the reason that's your favorite part is because it's my favorite part because my story is ultimately not about an Iranian Revolution… escaping, you know, and all that. My story is about a bunch of Christians who showed up at a restaurant and again, led worship, but not with a microphone in his hand, but with a towel and a mop in his hand. You know what I mean? And so I get to be on this podcast with you. I get to show up here because somebody showed up there.

BROWN: We gotta finish this story.

NASSER: So then my dad said, I can go. So, girl, I got to go to church because of that. They had this thing called visitation on Monday nights. And then for eight weeks, they would come to my house during those same eight weeks, and they would drag me to church. I say, drag me but I wanted to go. And their pastor kept preaching the gospel faithfully, and eight weeks in, I finally gave my life to the Lord, and that's how I became a Christian.

The night that I got baptized, my parents kicked me out of the house for becoming a Christian. My parents weren't super devout as Muslims, until I became a Christian. Then all of a sudden, my dad was like, you cannot be a Christian. We're Muslim, we are. But I don't blame him. You know, looking back, it was his pride. You know, he lost his position in the army. He'd given up so much, and now, because of his, in his mind, because of his prodigal son, he had lost his religion. Yeah.

BROWN: How long did that last? That estrangement?

NASSER: Yes, I get kicked out of the house that night. And five months after I was a Christian. I heard that my sister had become a Christian, and then five months after that, my mother, and then five months after that, my brother, Benjamin. And then two and a half years after I became a Christian, my father became a Christian. And so my whole family story is just about a bunch of believers who were just loving and kind. It's Romans 2. It says kindness leads to repentance.

BROWN: What a lesson for all of us. What a lesson! You refer to your family's conversion as the fruit of what came out of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and then nearly five decades later, you're using similar language now with this current conflict.

NASSER: I think looking back at the Iranian Revolution, two things are true at once. In one sense, it is horrific that so many lives were turned upside down. In one sense, it's horrific that innocent people were killed. But if it had not been for all of that, I would not be in America. I would not be an evangelist. I would not be married to Jennifer Nasser and have two kids who love the Lord.

And so God works all things to the good of his purpose. And so the fruit of something so tragic was that God didn't waste it. And I think the same is true now. I think we hate war. We don't want war. We hate what's happening over there. I don't want to pay six bucks for a gallon of gasoline. I don't want my 401 K plan to go away. And so I don't like to Jesus shoot people that are listening and who complain about what's going on over there, or complain and say, “Look, you know, my stock's going down.” And I don't want to tell them like,“Hey, hey, hey, you're a Christian.” You should, like, those things matter. But can both things matter at once? So there is the reality of what's happening. But then there's this fruit as well, in the sense that across the world and across the ocean, Muslims, who are not the enemy but the prize of God, are waking up to the gospel more than ever right now as well.

The fruit of this war, even though I hate war, is that it can be a wake up call to people for the gospel. The fruit of the revolution back when I was nine, is that it resulted in my family and I being able to come and hear the gospel.

BROWN: Before two months ago, did you ever allow yourself to hope that there would be a day with potential for regime change, that this day would come?

NASSER: Yes, but not to this degree, you know, like if you had told me when I was 18 and I became a Christian, that one day my dad would become a Christian, I'd have been like, you just don't know my dad. It's bigger than my wildest… but then God did it, and the same is true here. If you had told me seven months ago that Iran might be on the cusp of a democracy, I would have been like, man, you don't know what's going on down there, but God's moving. And this thing feels like that regime is more weak than they've ever been. There are hints of the fact that this could be toppling over soon. That the people of Iran might have finally freedom, freedom of religion. Freedom of speech. The women in Iran have been, the entire country has been oppressed, but the tip of the spear has been these precious women in Iran, you know, whose lips are being slashed by blades for simply wearing lipstick. And if you told me that we're on the cusp of finally seeing great things tip, you know, I would say I've been praying for that for a long time, but it feels like sometimes your prayers get closer and closer into becoming reality.

Can I share a quick story with you? About two months ago when all this started to come down, God gave me a vision. I felt like I was transported to Iran in the soccer stadium with about 30 or 40,000 people worshiping. And if you told me 10, months ago, that there'd be a, there'd be a soccer stadium filled with 30, 40,000 young people singing worship songs to God, I'd have been like, that's more like a fantasy, but sure, let's pray for that. Now it feels like that could be a reality. And I'm hearing from people who have been given the same vision and it's actually to a song people are singing in that vision that God gave me, called…. It's by a guy named Chris Tomlin…

BROWN: “Holy Forever”?

NASSER: Yeah, and I wanted to sing it in Farsi when I had that vision. So I ended up getting on YouTube. I found this young girl who had been singing it in Farsi. We've become friends. And you know what she did on Good Friday in Nashville, she got invited by Chris Tomlin to come, because Chris and I are friends. And I told her about, told him about this girl singing. She led that song to 17,000 people, streamed throughout the world, including Iran.

SINGING IN FARSI: And the angels cry…holy, holy….all creation cries…holy…You are lifted high…holy…holy forever.

Millions of people heard her sing “Holy Forever” in Farsi and, and so I have, I had a vision of a stadium singing Holy Forever in Farsi, in Iran. I've already seen a stadium in Nashville singing it in Farsi.

BROWN: You were there? Were you there?

NASSER: Yeah, oh yeah, I was there. And so I'm already seeing God use the Iranian scenario that's happening right now to call people in America to worship. And who knows? And so if, when you ask me that question, it's layered. I would say I've always had this dream and prayer, but it feels like you know, you know, when somebody's pregnant, they're just as pregnant day one as they are nine months in. But the bump is bigger. After a while. And I just feel like, man, the bump is bigger. Like we could be near a day where Iran could be liberated. And by the way, Iranians don't need…. ultimately, what Iranians need is not liberation, as far as democracy. That's awesome. That's what I want for them. But they really don't just need democracy. They need a revolution, you know. But what this would do is it would afford them a greater chance of being able to hear the gospel.

BROWN: Do you feel like the Western media is telling the Iranian people's story accurately right now or missing it?

NASSER: Yeah, well, first of all, I think you're telling it accurately. Thank you, because you're having me on and no one told me before this interview what to say or how to slant it, you know. But at the same time, I feel like it just depends on what algorithm you're being fed. I think people have an agenda, often with this, with the end in mind on how they want to tell the story. And here's what I would say, get your water cooler conversation at work going, as long as you don't miss really bending your knee for the ultimate source of life. God, what do you say?

Now, Myrna are you left handed or right hand?

BROWN: Right.

NASSER: There you go. I am too. So I would say this, make sure that as you hold the Bible in one hand and as you hold a newspaper in the other, and I guess, instead of a newspaper, your iPhone and your feed algorithm in the other, that your primary hand gets to hold the Bible.

BROWN: Post regime Iran…. You know, think of post regime Iran. Do you feel a specific calling, evangelistically, pastorally or otherwise?

NASSER: Yeah, I actually do. And listen, I'm a senior citizen. So you know, I'm 55 you know what I'm saying. I, I finally get to call myself that. Listen, God gets to pick the vocation and location of every single facet of my life. And so, if he'll have me, and God wants me to go back to Iran, I'll go back to Iran. If God wants me to support Iranians from here and be a voice of advocacy and be a work of voice of gospel, you know, equipping from here, great. But if he says, go, we go. And so I don't know.

If the whole thing tips post regime and I can go and contribute to the advancement of the gospel in Iran, girl, I'm going. And my wife and I have talked about this. I want to say though, you know, in this interview, I was telling you about a vision of a soccer stadium of Iranians worshiping. I don't see in that vision that I've got a microphone in my hand. And I'm about to be the speaker. I think my vision is that I get to see that in my lifetime.

But I think the greatest voice in Iran aren't going to be like the David Nassers of the world. I'm an old man. I think it's a young, audacious, ferocious little lion who loves God in Iran, who's 25. Come on, that's who's earned it. You know, I want to tee it up for them. It's their turn. It's their turn at the bat.

So people hear me tell that vision story, and they go, you see yourself preaching? I'm like, no, I see myself there. I might just be, I might just be an usher, helping people find their seats. You know what I mean? I'll hold the towel because it's gonna be hot in Iran, I'll just carry the jug of water, you know, to make sure everybody, nobody's thirsty. And so yeah, the short answer is yes. Yes. Lord, send me. Yes, but he gets to define where it is, you know.

BROWN: Okay, so this last question really isn't connected to Iran, but in 2017 you made this post on social media. And you wrote, just an excerpt. You said, and again it was, July 4, 2017…. “As a legal immigrant, I was enabled,” and then in parentheses, you have…“not entitled”… “to become an American.” And as I read that, I thought, well, in this current climate, how do you think that post would be received today?

NASSER: I don't care….. because here's, here's the thing, it's my post. And I'm not saying that I'm indifferent to how people feel. I'm a pastor. God's called me to love people, serve people, but sometimes the way, sometimes the best way, to serve people, is to tell them the truth and let the chips fall where they may. And I don't care if it's popular or not, I feel like I was gifted an American citizenship, and I don't take that for granted. You know, this country does not owe me anything. It allowed me to be able to come here and find refuge. Then it allowed me, when I was 18 years old, to become an American citizen. I was enabled, and I honor this nation for that.

And every day I wake up and I want to…. I don't have to earn it any day, every day. You know, no one's checking to see, like, Hey, you didn't pay your taxes properly. You're out of here or whatever. I don't have to earn it every day, but I want to honor it. I want to honor it, and I'm not entitled to anything. That's what I say to people, by the way, who really struggle right now with the immigration discussion.

In one sense, if you want to want, if you want to know, I'll just tell you. By the way, I'm an expert on Bible. I'm not an expert on foreign policy. So let me just say that up front. But here's the, here's here's where, here's where I'm at. I believe in borders with doors…. good hinges. So I believe, give us the tired, give us the poor. However, that said, and here's what I mean, I believe we should have borders and walls, but we should have doors. We should, we should give people an opportunity to come be a part of this great nation.

However, if someone wants to come through the door and they feel entitled, or if they want to come into this country, and they feel like the very thing that makes this country great, they want to work towards the detriment of, then I would say, then, why are you here? You were gifted this country. And what this country does is it has the freedom of speech. And so if you want to come here and then stifle the freedom of speech, then I'm like you in the wrong place, like, why are you in this country? If you want to come here, if you want to come into this country that affords people freedom of religion, and then you want to take away my freedom of religion, I'd say you need to leave. This is a gift and not something that we're entitled to. At least, that's how I feel, and I'm grateful I was given that gift.

BROWN: Author, pastor and speaker, David Nasser. Thank you so much.

NASSER: Yeah, I love your show. So appreciate ya’ll.

BROWN: You’ve been listening to an extended interview with author and pastor David Nasser. This is the full version of the edited conversation you heard earlier this week on The World and Everything in It.

Let us know you’re listening. You can do that by dropping us a line. Email us at editor@wng.org. That’s editor@wng.org. Or you can subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you Monday. Have a great weekend! I’m Myrna Brown

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