Crucial Questions Facing Middle Eastern Christianity Today
1. What can stop the numerical decline of Christianity in the Middle East? If emigration is possible and comparatively easy, what is there to encourage Christians to stay rooted in the region?
If you can’t find employment, educate your children and pay for medicine, if you are fearful of your present government being replaced by an Islamist government of some kind, and if you have a ‘green card’ because you have relatives who have emigrated and settled and feel secure in the US, why don’t you go and join them? A Palestinian Christian friend, who is a lecturer at Bethlehem Bible College, suggests that the best way to encourage them to stay is to give them a sense of mission and help them to see what they can contribute to the life of the countries of the region.
Catholics in Bethlehem
2. What kind of constitution will enable Christians to feel secure?
What will the new constitutions of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt say about the role of Islam in the constitution and laws of the country? Will it be ‘the sole source of legislation’ or ‘a source …’? Some Egyptian Islamists have been saying publicly for some years that if and when they get into power, they want to reinstate the dhimma system and make Christian Copts pay the jizya tax. Other Muslims have said that the dhimma system should be consigned to the cupboard of history and insist that Christians and Muslims must be equal as fellow-citizens. The Islamist Nahda Party in Tunisia, for example, which has won the largest share of votes in the recent election (but not a majority) say that they want to see a genuinely pluralist state in which there is no distinction on the basis of religion. The confessional system in Lebanon has until now guaranteed the security of the Christian community. But with the decrease in the proportion of Christians to around 35% of the population and the increasing power of Hizbullah, can the security of the Christian community be secured by the constitution?
3. Can Christians ever be involved politically?
It is encouraging to find that some Christians in Egypt have felt that they now have new opportunities to be involved. The Egyptian director of the Alexandria School of Theology in a recent email wrote, ‘Christians are now much more active evangelistically, socially and politically.’ An ordained American Presbyterian lecturer at the Coptic Evangelical Seminary in Cairo preached at an evangelical church in Cairo early in February during the Revolution on Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles in chapter 29. Following an incredibly enthusiastic response from the congregation after the service she wrote: ‘I was amazed that the church here, whose pietistic (and fearful) isolationism has driven me crazy in the past, is now starting to engage in integrated reflection about public life and civic responsibility … Christian hope means a vision for society, for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.’
Ethiopian Orthodox in Jerusalem
4. How should Christians relate to Islamists and moderate Muslims?
It’s comparatively easy to have dialogue with moderate Muslims and many Christians feel they want to strengthen the hands of the moderates in their struggles with the extremists. If it seems impossible to have dialogue with Islamists who want to establish an Islamic state or are committed to violent jihad, we need to be challenged by the example of people like Brother Andrew who shocked many of his supporters in 1998 when he visited the Hamas leaders who had been expelled by Israel and were camping out in tentsduring the winter on the mountains in southern Lebanon, and has on several occasions visited Hamas leaders in Gaza. Similarly Sami Awad of the Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem has worked with some Hamas leaders, exploring with them the principles of non-violent resistance.
5. What’s the future for Israel/Palestine?
I continue to believe that this conflict lies at the heart or very near the heart of many of the problems of the Middle East. Everything in the region is inter-connected, and I dare to believe that a peaceful and just solution to this conflict would go a long way towards reducing the anger of many Arabs and many Muslims towards the West. When Barak Obama became president, I felt a certain optimism based on his declared statements of intent about addressing the issues. At present, however, I have little confidence that he or the US is able or willing to play the role of peacemakers. If and when the recent Palestinian request to the UN for recognition as a state is put to the vote at the Security Council, will the US be forced to use its veto and will Britain abstain? Many fear that even if a Palestinian state were to be recognised, it wouldn’t really change the situation on the ground – especially with Israel’s continuing occupation of the West Bank. It’s hard to be very optimistic at the present time.
6. Can Protestant Christianity ever be deeply rooted in the Middle East?
Philip Jenkins’ magisterial book The Lost History of Christianity: the thousand-year golden age of the church in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, suggests that one of the reasons why Christianity virtually disappeared from North Africa following the Islamic conquests in the 7th Century was that it had not become deeply rooted in the whole country and its membership and leadership were largely foreign. Some (but not all) Protestant churches in the Middle East today look like carbon copies of the western churches which planted them and exist almost on a financial lifesupport machine. The Eastern churches look thoroughly contextualized – although some would argue that the contextualization process got stuck in the 5th century. Is it conceivable that some Protestant churches could wither away in the same way that the churches did in North Africa in the 7th and 8th centuries?
7. What are the most effective forms of Christian witness – schools, hospitals, development, advocacy, dialogue, media, or Bible distribution?
A former Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem used to describes the institutions of the diocese – including schools and hospitals – as ‘the arms and legs of the church.’ In Egypt the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services
(CEOSS) has developed a wide range of development projects over many decades which are all serving the whole community of both Muslims and Christians. In recent years Christians have discovered a new boldness through imaginative and creative use of media – including radio, literature distribution and satellite television and the internet. Having experienced the fearfulness of Christians in Egypt during the days of Gamal Abdul Nasser in the 1960s, it has been most encouraging to see how many have grown in their self-confidence and their desire – in spite of all their fears – to bear witness to their faith through life, deed and word.
Orthodox in Bethlehem
Colin and Anne Chapman worked with CMS in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Cyprus for seventeen years in three different spells, and have spent the last academic year at the Near East School of Theology, where Colin was teaching Islamic Studies. This article is adapted from a presentation at the Oxford Centre of Mission Studies in July and the Henry Martyn Centre in Cambridge in October on ‘Christians in the Middle East – past, present and future’. A recording of the presentation and the full text can be accessed on the website of the Henry Martyn Centre, Cambridge.
