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One of the few news articles to quote Lebanese Christians was Monday's front-page Washington Post story, which ended with a discussion among three young Lebanese Christians:

"If I'm supposed to respect [Hezbollah leader Hasan] Nasrallah, he should respect me. If he respects us, I respect him," said Fadi Geagea, a 21-year-old student, smoking a cigarette. "To be honest, he's not respecting us." …

Geagea and his friends say they know what [Lebanon] is now becoming: a Shiite fiefdom of Hezbollah. And to stop Hezbollah, to take away its weapons, to diminish its influence, they were willing to see Israel attack their country.

"If we don't have weapons, then no one should have weapons. If Hezbollah keeps its weapons, then why shouldn't we have them?" asked 21-year-old Joseph Muhanna. His friends nodded.

"They need to either surrender their weapons or have their heads cracked," said 18-year-old George Khouri.

They argued about various Christian leaders. One slapped the other, more in play than anger. They differed on whether Nasrallah should be killed. But they agreed about Lebanon's identity and what the future would hold.

"Islam is controlling us, and we've known that for a long time," said Khouri, wearing a cross crafted as an emblem of a Christian party. "Lebanon is a Christian country. We're steadfast, and one day we'll be in charge of Lebanon again."

"God will be good to us ahead," Muhanna said.

God will surely be good. Whether he will be good in precisely the way that Muhanna and Khouri expect him to—or in the way that many premillennial dispensationalist Christians expect him to, etc. God will work good in his own way. In the meantime, Venture International head Len Rodgers suggests a few action steps for concerned Christians:

1. We need to pray and encourage the followers of Jesus in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and Palestine; the lands where the church had its start.

2. We need to pray for humility and wisdom for the leaders—may they make peace their priority.

3. We must respond in practical ways to help the injured, the refugees, and those struggling with anger, discouragement, and depression. This is what Jesus would do.

2. Malawi church attacked
Malawi is no hotbed of persecution. Between 70 and 80 percent of the country is Christian, and about one of every four Malawians are Roman Catholics. There has been a touch of Christian-Muslim tension in recent years, but not as much as in nearby countries. So the nation  is mystified about what happened Sunday, when someone set off a gas bomb at a Catholic Mass in the capital, Lilongwe. About 800 people were at the service—about two dozen were injured. The suspect—whom some reports say was dressed as a choir member—escaped during the exit stampede and is still at large.

3. IRS "stepping up efforts" on enforcement of church politics ban
The Los Angeles Times reports that 15,000 tax-exempt organizations, churches, and tax preparers are getting a memo from the IRS reminding them of the Political Activity Compliance Initiative, which was announced earlier this year. It's the same rules (too vague, say critics) for churches, but new rules for the IRS. For example, it will no longer wait until it gets a tax return or until the end of the tax year to investigate allegations of wrongful campaigning. "The rule against political campaign intervention by charities and churches is long established,"  IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson said. "We are stepping up our efforts to enforce it."

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July (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50