A Letter to My Sons about Lebanon: After 11 Years in Lebanon, a Father Writes to His Draft-Age Boys

Leonard H. Rodgers, based in Cyprus, is the Middle East program director for World Vision International. He speaks Arabic and has traveled widely throughout the region. He was a Youth for Christ missionary in Lebanon, and for 11 years he and his family lived in Beirut. His sons, Len and Craig, are students at Seattle Pacific University. Shortly before Christmas, he wrote his boys this letter, in which he offered a viewpoint not normally seen in the news media.

Dear Len and Craig,

Since you are the age of the American and French marines who died in the suicide bombing of the multinational forces in Lebanon, I wanted to write to you in order to clarify some issues you probably are thinking about. I know that the two of you are more informed about Lebanon and the Middle East than most people, since you grew up there. However, the situation continues to change almost daily, and I wanted you to have from me the clearest explanation possible. A lot of your classmates and professors will be asking you questions since they know of your interest in that part of the world.

Do Not Succumb To Despair

There is a lot of fatalism in the Western world about the Middle East. People inside and outside the church are projecting a good deal of cynicism, and at the outset I want to say that there is hope. In no other time has the church in Lebanon had so many opportunities to display this hope. In a special way we have a responsibility in the situation since we believe Jesus Christ is the Life of the world. We see hope in the immediate future because we know there is ultimate hope. Our faith keeps us full of hope! You would be so proud of the people we know in Lebanon.

Recently, two Lebanese Christians were kidnaped from the mountain village Naba Safa where we are helping a village rebuild about 65 homes destroyed in a tank battle between Israeli and Syrian forces in the summer of 1982. The local reconstruction committee is half Druze (a Muslim sect) and half Christian. Kidnaping in this mountainous area known as the Shouf is deadly and predictable.

The bodies are normally discovered the next day. Two Druze from the reconstruction committee went to the Druze vigilante group holding the kidnaped Christians and offered themselves as replacements for those kidnaped. They said, “Whatever you were planning to do to these people you can do to us, but let them go. They are our neighbors. In the community of Naba Safa we work together.” The militia leaders were so moved by this expression of community solidarity that they released the two Christians along with the Druze who had offered themselves as ransom. The two Druze and the two Christians returned to their village together.

In this case, followers of Jesus were saved by the very mercy they had shown. Their faith was spontaneous in the midst of despair, and they displayed inner lives full of love, peace, and goodness. These people are not working to be good and kind, they are good and kind. It would be work for them to refrain from being good and kind because goodness and kindness are a part of their nature (Gal. 5:22–23). Shakespeare once wrote, “The quality of mercy is not strained.” These are the untold stories of nine years of war in Lebanon and more than 130 broken cease-fire agreements. There is hope in the midst of despair.

The War In Lebanon Is Not Between Muslims And Christians

The news media give the impression that the war in Lebanon is a religious war. This is unfortunate. At the end of World War II Lebanon became a nation on the basis of a religious population. Political lines were drawn by this census and continue today. Religion has become a political designation encouraged by party chieftains. These chieftains represent the various sects of Christianity and Islam along party lines. To simplify matters the news media simply use the term Christian or Muslim rather than explain the intricate background or the way the unscrupulous party leaders have used religion as a political tool. Keep in mind that there are still strong, ethical, and moral leaders among Christians and Muslims. For example, Shafik Al Wazan, the present prime minister of Lebanon, is a Muslim. He represents solid human values and is one of the unsung heroes of the Lebanese tragedy. There are people in Lebanon like him who do not allow their religion to be stereotyped but instead hold up ethical values for the welfare of all citizens, both Christian and Muslim. There are many fair people in Lebanon who have not been deceived by the news media’s attempt to categorize and simplify the war in terms of Christian and Muslim. President Amin Gemayel of Lebanon is a trustworthy and reliable political partner who is worthy of U.S. support. He desires to bring together the warring factions and to create power sharing in Lebanon. Christians should pray for him and his government that he will be able to bring about reconciliation on an equitable basis.

The Arabs Look West, Not East

Today I saw a paper by a well-meaning and rather well-informed journalist, who said, “Arabs now hate us with a passion.” Most people in Western countries assume that the Arabs hate Western civilization. You know from your own childhood this is not true. The Arab world is inextricably linked to the West. They have no desire to look East, especially to the Soviet Union. Our long acquaintance with the Arab people has shown us that for the most part they desire to be linked to Western nations not only economically but in other ways. This does not exclude their looking to other parts of the world, particularly the nonaligned world, for certain identification. However, most intelligent Arab people have a quiet love affair with Western society. They are, however, frustrated by the double standard they see. On the one hand they are aware of the great political and moral reformers of the West, but they do not observe the application of that reform in the democracy that the Western world exports to the Middle East. This causes a great deal of frustration. A case in point would be the condemnation by Western powers of Iran as a fanatic religious/political society and not a true democracy, but the same standard is not applied to Israel, which is a religious/political entity and not a true democracy. Another example of this dual standard is the stated ideal coming out of the West that all races are equal. The Arab world sees films and reads literature about Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., but Arabs also see that equal rights are not applied to the Palestinian people in the Middle East.

U.S. Policy In The Middle East

A journalist interviewed one of the sailors on one of the U.S. gunships firing on the Shouf mountain region of Lebanon. He was asked what the war was all about. His answer was, “I think it has something to do with communism.” This statement seems to summarize the way the present administration sees the situation. U.S. policy toward Third World trouble spots is widely faulted for neglecting root causes, dissent, and conflict, concentrating instead on Soviet-Cuban (Syrian-Libyan) inflammation of the resulting chaos. Getting the U.S. Marines out of Lebanon, or at least into safer positions, is no more a Middle East policy than putting them there. The marines were sent to Lebanon for short-range reasons: first, to cover for the Palestinian withdrawal; then, as a gesture of U.S. commitment to protect the Christian community from reprisals in civil war after the Israelis withdrew from Beirut. But no one seems to know exactly what the long-range reasons might be for U.S. involvement in Lebanon. The U.S. could be of help in Lebanon, but not for the reasons stated by the administration. U.S. forces could be there to encourage self-reliance for those who seek justice and equality, but not to offer power carte blanche to “Christians” who have the capability to be as ruthless and as violent as militant Islamic groups. By listening to the news, one would think that we were involved in the modern-day crusades, thus harking back to that dreadful era in history some 700 years ago when Christians imagined that the sword was more effective than the spirit, to wrench from Muslim grip the holy places sacred to Christianity. We could not encourage a return to that mentality in this last part of the twentieth century.

Western Powers Are Interested In The Revival Of Islam To Offset Communism

Although we read a great deal about the evil of Iran and the lunacy of Libya, one cannot but acknowledge that a great deal of the present unrest in the Middle East is manufactured by Western interests in order to encourage an even stronger ideology (Islam) to offset possibilities of Marxism in the area. The great powers, instead of helping to ease tensions, have at times inflamed them, or used them for their own economic, political, and strategic interests. This situation has led to violation of human rights, and moral and physical violence.

The Poor In The Middle East

In spite of the fantastic revenue from oil, stark contrast between rich and poor continues to dominate the Middle East. Oil wealth has not been invested for the elimination of poverty, illiteracy, and injustice in the Arab world. Much of the income is recycled into Western economies, and large sums are used in financing wars by proxy. Some Mideast countries have promoted highly visible relief programs, but the majority of the funds have been spent on pleasure and Islamic missionary activities in Africa, Asia, and the West. In sum, the money has created violence among individuals and groups as well as wars between nations. All of this underscores why I’m giving my time to the kind of holistic ministry that World Vision is encouraging. The needs are great, and few are meeting them, simply because it is assumed that the Middle East is affluent.

The Forces At Play

1. Islamic fanaticism. There is a revival of militant Islam in the Middle East. As I have mentioned, some of this is encouraged by Western intelligence. Nevertheless, it is a vital force at work today. It should be emphasized that it is only one force at work.

2. Nationalism. Some leaders of Arab states, on the other hand, represent a desire for legitimate Arab nationalism. Not surprisingly, some of the leading Arab nationalists in this century have been Orthodox Christians, and two in particular stand out as founders of important political parties and movements. These include the Al Ba’th (Renaissance) and the Al’Hisb Al-Qawmi (Nationalist party). One early Christian politician said, “I am Christian by religion but Muslim by nationality.” For the majority of Christians, however, some kind of commitment by Muslims to a purely secular nationalism was necessary before they would abandon themselves wholely to the Arab cause. Charles Malik put it this way, “For the Christians of the Near East, Muslim culture is in a deep sense their culture. They cannot be too deeply interested in the development of their common heritage.” But Malik also felt strongly that there was a need for reciprocity on the part of Muslims, for whom Christianity is an important part of their cultural heritage. The majority of the Arab political leadership of the Middle East today wants Arab nationalism and a form of Arab democracy rather than militant Islam.

3. Secularism. Secularists are people who really are not religious at all and in fact are often ideologically Marxist and want to use religion only as a way of gaining the political allegiance of the religious. The nationalist and secularist movements of the Middle East were promoted mainly by Christians, joined by Muslims and some Jewish intellectuals who had been in contact with European culture. These movements were based on the values of the Western humanist movement, the principles of the French Revolution, and in some cases, Marxist philosophy and economic analysis—all of them aiming at a society based on equality among individuals regardless of their ethnic or religious backgrounds.

Crisis Of Identity

Individuals in the Middle East are being forced to redefine their identities along ethnic and religious lines. Christians are experiencing a difficult time. They can leave the region out of fear and despair or they can opt for political power and political existence similar to that of the Jews or Muslims. The third option is to continue the struggle toward a deconfessionalized society. As you know, young Christians with big crosses around their necks are taking up guns and killing innocent people in revenge and retaliation. Their argument is that the only language Islam and Judaism understand is the language of power and force. Such situations are making Christians raise the basic question of what it means to be a Christian in the Middle East today. Is our faith the faith of power and therefore of politics, of preserving our physical well-being? Or do we accept with courage the call to witness to truth, love, and peace until death, if necessary, for the sake of the resurrection of all? Do we accept an earthly kingdom, or do we long for the kingdom of God whose rule and power are of a completely different nature?

With the fragmentation of the Middle East into ethno-religious groupings, there is a need for Islamic/Christian/Jewish understanding and cooperation. Christians, for example, should help Jews go beyond their practice of reading history from the Holocaust and help them understand history in light of the Cross and the Resurrection. Reconciliation between Arabs implies that Israel does not build its security at the expense of Palestinian rights and security but does help the Palestinians recover their identity and human dignity.

And so, Len and Craig, I share this analysis and background with you because you care. In the future, I feel you will do much more than I’ve been able to do to see these values put into action. I learn so much from you with regard to authentic faith since I see you take, and live out, the values I speak about. I value your insights, since I’ve noticed how much you are able to practice the qualities of reconciliation and peace in your own contacts with friends from the Middle East.

Your Dad.

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