AMES E. �JOHNNY� JOHNSON LIVES BY two principles: instant forgiveness and unconditional love. While many Christians spend a lifetime struggling just to grasp those two concepts, let alone practice them, Johnny Johnson has turned them into an art form. The story of his amazing life is told in his recently released book Beyond Defeat: The �Johnny� Johnson Story. Johnson�s life has been a roller-coaster ride of good times and bad, heartaches and triumphs, and enough miracles to make you sit up and say �Praise the Lord.� But through it all, two principles stand out: that�s right�instant forgiveness and unconditional love.

�If you take the high road, you can never get really trapped,� he says knowingly. �If you can practice instant forgiveness and unconditional love, you can immediately rise above the person who�s criticizing you, talking about you, trying to hurt you.� And he ought to know. His life has been a unique and remarkable journey that has often been marked by lives changed by instant forgiveness and proactive, unconditional love.

Johnson tells about returning home from a speaking appointment in North Carolina. As he and his wife, Juanita, were driving along, he noticed a little pout cross his wife�s face. �Get that frown off your face,� he teased.

�I was just thinking,� she said. �What were you thinking?� �You know, that woman,� she said, �and what she said to you.� �What woman?� �That woman who made that insulting remark.�

�I really couldn�t remember it,� he says. �I use my five-second instant forgiveness, and I forget it. And Juanita said, �I should�ve done exactly what you�ve done. I�m going to forgive her too.��

�A lot of people think you can wait until tomorrow [to forgive someone]. You can�t; you don�t have the time. That thing [anger, hatred] starts growing so fast. If that happens, you might not be able to control it.�

Humble Beginnings
Johnny Johnson is the youngest of nine children, born to a sharecropper, Richard Jackson Johnson, and his wife, Veola, near Madison, Illinois. Johnny�s father was clearly the most significant personal influence in his life. At six feet nine inches and 275 pounds, the elder Johnson was a formidable physical presence; but it was his positive Christian attitudes that made the biggest impression on his young son.

One of the predominant themes in Johnson�s life is his lifelong struggle against racism. His introduction to racial segregation came when he was a child and went to play at a neighbor boy�s house. When they walked in the front door Johnson was told he�d have to go around to the back door and wait in the kitchen. �His shoes aren�t dirty,� said the little boy.

A FEW FIRSTS James E. Johnson has received nearly 800 awards and citations throughout his public life. These are a few of the areas in which he was involved in breaking racial barriers: First African-American to become a commissioned warrant officer in the United States Marine Corps. First African-American to be appointed to a governor�s cabinet�director of the California Department of Veterans� Affairs. First African-American to be appointed vice chair of the United States Civil Service Commission. First African-American to be appointed assistant secretary of the United States Navy. First African-American to serve on the executive board of the Boy Scouts of America.

�That�s not the point,� said the boy�s mother. �He�s Colored; he knows his place.�

Little Johnny ran home crying. When his father asked for an explanation he said, �I guess she�s not an American. She won�t even let me come to the front door.�

Once again his father taught Johnson the power of forgiveness and unconditional love. �Just remember,� he said, �she�s the one hurting inside, not you. She doesn�t know what a fine boy you are; she didn�t get a chance to know you.�

Johnson remembers proudly his father�s self-sufficiency and work ethic. During the height of the Great Depression he was never out of work, and he never had to rely on charity or the generosity of others. �I�ve never been out of work, and I never will be,� he�d say, �because when the boss gives me a dollar, I give him a dollar and a half�s worth of work.�

That advice was not lost on the young Johnson. When the family moved to Chicago, Johnny, then 12 years old, earned money by selling newspapers on street corners and doing errands for musician Lionel Hampton, who came to perform at the Savoy Hotel.

It was also in Chicago that Johnson had his first introduction to youth gangs. He was confronted by gang members and forced to hand over part of the money he earned from the odd jobs he did before and after school. Little by little he was drawn deeper into the cycle of petty violence and theft.

At this crucial point young Johnson was saved by getting involved in Scouting. Boy Scouts planted in him the twin resolve to serve God and his country.

Fighting a Faceless Enemy
Toward the end of World War II Johnson enlisted in the United States Marines. After boot camp he was sent to Okinawa during the final furious campaigns of the war. He was wounded while transporting ammunition to the front lines. After the war he returned to the United States and was assigned to Advanced Food Technicians� School. The United States military had yet to become integrated, and most African-Americans were assigned to low-level service or support positions.

Black soldiers, sailors, and pilots also faced the peculiar irony of having to observe restrictions for �Whites� and �Coloreds� in restaurants, hotels, and gas stations after they had risked their lives defending their country. During his 21 years as a Marine, Johnson lived through many situations of official and unofficial racism, even after President Truman issued an executive order in 1948 banning racial segregation in the military.

But through it all, Johnson fought to remain true to the principles ingrained in him as a child: instant forgiveness and unconditional love. He rose steadily in rank and took advantage of every opportunity to improve his education and become more effective in serving his country.

He and Juanita had four children, three sons and one daughter. When he left the Marines, Johnson started a second career in insurance sales. He retired from the military while stationed at the El Toro Marine Base in Orange County, and he and his family settled in Tustin, California.

In the midsixties Orange County was predominantly White, and Johnson was told by the sales director that because there were so few minorities he might find it difficult to sell insurance. �There aren�t enough Blacks in this area,� he was told. �Less than 1 percent.�

�What�s wrong with Whites?� he asked. �Don�t they buy insurance?�

After six weeks of on-the-job training Johnson had sold more than $1 million of insurance. �My dad said to me, �When you�re in a position like that and someone is looking at your race, just tell them, �I see you�re looking at the color of my skin. I�m a little bit different than you, but it really doesn�t bother me to be this color, and I hope it doesn�t bother you.���

From selling insurance Johnson was tapped by Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, to head the state�s Department of Veterans� Affairs. Then he was appointed by newly elected United States president Richard Nixon to be vice chair of the Civil Service Commission. And that position has led to several other political appointments over the past three decades.

The Faith Factor
One of the major developments in Johnson�s spiritual experience came in 1965, when he became acquainted with the Full Gospel Businessmen�s Association. �I�d never heard about the Holy Spirit,� he says. �I thought I was a good Christian; I�d read the Bible; but the Holy Spirit was never really explained to me.�

At one meeting Johnson invited the Holy Spirit to fill his life more fully. �When that happened, I had a love for people that I�d never had before. I couldn�t find anybody I could hate. Before there were lots of them,� he says with a wink.

In his career as an insurance representative, and later as a political appointee, Johnson often used his personal contacts to minister to people he�d meet. Not only would he pray for them, but he took practical steps to help them heal strained relationships and restore their broken lives.

While working for the Civil Service Commission Johnson initiated a weekly prayer breakfast (over the objections of those who cited the �separation of church and state�). Over the course of his government service these and other religious services were attended by politicians and bureaucrats from all political parties and persuasions.

In 1971 Johnson was nominated to serve as assistant secretary of the United States Navy. Along the way he made it his highest priority to serve God while he served his country. Johnson was part of the Nixon administration when the Watergate scandal rocked the country. He was on a first-name basis with many of the principal characters in the episode.

Throughout the process he was available through phone calls and personal visits to support and encourage those whose careers were being destroyed by the scandal (the introduction to his book was written by Charles W. Colson).

Practical Matters
For the past 25 years Johnny Johnson has had a significant role in promoting Christian values�particularly instant forgiveness and unconditional love�in ways both public and private. He has earned advanced degrees, taught classes as a college professor, delivered motivational speeches and presentations, and developed a foundation to help people move from public assistance to economic self-sufficiency.

In 1981 Johnson and a few friends began what they call a �religious presidential inaugural celebration.� �We decided that other people would be drinking to the president�s health, and we�d be praying for his health.� And every four years since, that celebration, although unofficial, seeks to put the spotlight on the spiritual health of the nation as it processes the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another.

Also in 1981 Johnson and the HOPE (Helping Other People Exist) Foundation began a Saturday morning prayer breakfast that meets on the first weekend of the month at the Rayburn Building of the United States Capitol. Called CHAIN (Capitol Hill Anointed Intercessors of the Nation), the group joins together in prayer for the country and its leaders.

Johnson, board chair of the HOPE Foundation, also works with government agencies and private corporations to bring employment training to people in economically disadvantaged areas. He is a member of the president�s Welfare to Work Committee.

Still Growing
In 1992 Johnson approached Paul Glenn at the Potomac Adventist Book and Health Food Center in Takoma Park, Maryland, and asked if the store would be interested in selling his book, Beyond Defeat (originally published by Doubleday).

Glenn called it �one of the most thrilling books I had ever read,� and a friendship was born. Paul and his wife and Johnny and his wife would sometimes worship and socialize together. And Paul began sending the Johnsons the magazine Signs of the Times.

�My dad always told me, �The Sabbath is on the seventh day,�� remembers Johnson. �And I�d say, �But Dad, everyone goes to church on Sunday.� And he�d say, �That�s not biblical.��

In the meantime, every time Paul met Johnny he would give him a book, which Johnny, whose habit is reading, would digest in a few days. Over a friendship that�s now lasted more than eight years, the two families developed an appreciation for each other and how the Lord had led in their lives. In 1998 Johnny and Juanita Johnson joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church by profession of faith.

At the time of this writing Johnny Johnson is being considered as the United States ambassador to Australia. Although he admits to being �very interested� in the appointment, he is able to see things from the much wider perspective of eternity.

When asked, �How do you want to be known?� he replies, �The first thing I want people to know is that I love God with all my heart. I want to be a good Christian.

�I want people to know that I love my wife, and I want to be a good husband.

�I love my kids, and I want to be a good father.

�And I love people, and I want to love people regardless of their race, color, creed, or class.�

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Stephen Chavez is an assistant editor of the Adventist Review.