Confessing Christ in the heart of Islam.

Pressure, oppression, and discrimination may be good for the faith. And total freedom and official blessing may not be good for Christians.

In countries that take a hands-off approach, or where government and church have become cozy, either the gospel is transformed into cheery moralism or the church is consigned to irrelevance.

But put the pressure on—communist, Islamic, racist, or fascist pressures—and prayer revives and faith grows. In Egypt, the keystone of Islamic power politics, Christianity has not had a culturally favorable climate since A.D. 642. Yet the church that traces its roots to a visit from Saint Mark is very much alive.

To learn about Christian life under Islam, the Christianity Today Institute sent two scholars and two staff members to the land of the Pharaohs:

James K. Hoffmeier is associate professor of Bible, theology, and archaeology at Wheaton College (Ill.). He holds the Ph.D. in Egyptian religion from the University of Toronto, where he also completed an M.A. in Egyptian archaeology. Hoffmeier has participated twice in the East Karnak Expedition.

J. Dudley Woodberry, assistant professor of Islamic studies, Fuller Theological Seminary School of World Mission, holds the Ph.D. in Islamic studies from Harvard University. Woodberry has lived in the Middle East for 12 years and does consulting work for businesses, orienting people who will be living in the Muslim world.

Terry C. Muck is executive editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. He holds the Ph.D. in comparative religion from Northwestern University. Muck wrote about the influx into America of Islam and other world religions in “The Mosque Next Door” (CT, Feb. 19, 1988).

Rodney R. Clapp, the major author of this report, is associate editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. He holds degrees in journalism from Oklahoma State University and the Wheaton Graduate School, where he has also studied theology and ethics. A keen observer of religious movements, Clapp is coauthor with Robert Webber of the forthcoming book People of the Truth: The Power of the Worshiping Community in the Modern World (Harper & Row.)

A piano is shoved into a corner, black music stands bunched haphazardly on one side of the room. With 21 students, we sit at small, kidney-shaped desks, listening to the American lecture. Some students have come after working all day at their jobs; others have come after another day of waiting for a government post that has yet to materialize.

Some students are not far beyond their university days; others are approaching middle age. One woman has with her two sons, about ages 10 and 12. Both boys sleep: one with his head against the wall; the other’s head cranes backwards over the top of his chair, with the mouth wide open. He makes a faint sucking sound.

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The lecturer is Jack Lorimer, a Presbyterian missionary to Egypt of some 35 years. Lorimer, sixtyish, with a silver mustache, speaks in Arabic. Only a few words are decipherable to an English-speaking listener. But when Lorimer writes on the blackboard, he writes in English rather than Arabic. Names like “Clement” and “Demetrius” appear, and the tempo of the class picks up.

It is no wonder. These students are discussing some pivotal figures in early church history. They are learning about battles against the most pernicious heresies orthodox Christianity confronted, such as Gnosticism and Docetism; and about stupendous intellectual attempts to fit Platonism to Christianity. Most important, they are learning about these things where they happened: in Alexandria of Egypt, their native city.

It is no exaggeration to say that Christianity would be an entirely different religion if Alexandria had never existed. With its famous library, it was a Hellenic intellectual center long before the advent of Christianity. And it was once the premier Jewish center in the world, the site where, more than 150 years before Christ, scholars made the Septuagint, the seminal Greek translation of the Old Testament.

But the strategically situated seaport city was even more crucial to the development of Christian orthodoxy. From it sprung the Alexandrian Catechetical School, guided by the likes of Bishop Demetrius. From it the acidic Clement fought Gnostics and denounced philosophical opponents as “old shoes, worn out except for the tongue.”

The Alexandrian-born Origen followed Demetrius and Clement. His name meant “born of Horus,” but his parents converted to Christianity before or soon after his birth, and Origen grew to be the greatest Christian philosopher before Augustine. Hardly less significant was Athanasius the Great, bishop of Alexandria in the fourth century, who stood “against the world” to defend the full divinity and humanity of Jesus.

The Alexandrian Christian heritage is alive in Alexandria. But the world no longer looks to it for theological guidance. Today’s seminaries are mostly small and unassuming, like the one we are visiting. It is an extension of the Cairo Coptic Evangelical Seminary, and Lorimer makes the three-hour drive from Cairo once a week to teach Alexandrians theology, their theology, in the borrowed music room of an American school.

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The door stays open at the back of the room. The cool Mediterranean breeze drifts inside. And midway through the class, out of the dark, so does a nearby chanting. The voice is amplified, smooth, clear, and bell-like; it goes on for a minute or two. Lorimer keeps on lecturing. The students keep on taking notes. They are accustomed to the cries of the muezzin, cries calling to prayer the Islamic faithful, at least 90 percent of the people of Alexandria.

Living Christianly In Islamic Egypt

The Middle Eastern resurgence of Islam is one of the most significant religio-political developments of the 1980s. Muslim extremists have been behind several of the major news stories of the decade: the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, the successful assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Ayatollah Khomeini’s ascendence to control of Iran, the continuing Iran-Iraq war, and Colonel Qaddafi’s exploits.

Commenting on the strength of the Islamic resurgence, one scholar has noted, “In no Christian country at the present time can religious leaders command the degree of religious belief and the extent of religious participation that remain common in Muslim lands; more to the point, they do not exercise, nor even claim, the kind of political role that in Muslim lands is not only normal but is widely seen as natural.”

The political involvement of Islam seems “natural” to Muslims because Muhammad bound the successful government of society to the successful practice of religion. He expected government itself to lead people in the good Muslim life and to prepare them for the next world.

It would be unfair not to note that many Muslims around the world (among them a good number of the “secularized” faithful) now insist on a separation of faith and government. But the continuing intimacy between religion and the state among conservative Muslims makes Islam the major force to be reckoned with in the Middle East.

In that ferment, Egypt is central. Although steeped in ancient pharaonic and Christian history, it has been Islamic since Muhammad’s followers invaded in the seventh century—the era of Islam’s birth. Today there are stricter Islamic countries—such as Iran and Saudi Arabia—but none that exerts as much regional influence as Egypt. As scholar Daniel Pipes writes, “Egypt is the most important single country for Islamic political action in the twentieth century.”

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That is the case for at least five reasons:

• Egypt’s relatively open society, hospitality, and central location attract foreign scholars and journalists. These qualities make Egypt (85 to 90 percent Muslim) a vital link between the Arab and non-Arab worlds.

• Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s president from 1952 to 1970, broke ties with the Western imperialism hated throughout the Arab countries. Nasser also maintained relative independence from his new ally, the Soviet Union. These moves, plus Nasser’s charisma, captured the allegiance of much of the Arab world, until the disastrous 1967 war with Israel stole his magic. Yet the respect for Egypt he established among Arabs lingers to this day.

• Cairo, Egypt’s largest and capital city, is home to Al-Azhar, the international university of Islam and the oldest continuously operating institution of higher learning in the world.

• The first mass fundamentalist Islamic movment, the Muslim Brotherhood, was founded in Egypt in 1928.

• Egypt’s precarious peace with Israel holds Arab-Israeli power in balance. If Egypt converts to radical Islam, that balance could be destroyed.

Just how much of a threat are radical Muslims to Egypt’s stability, and to the well-being of Christians in that country? A surface survey of recent events might make them appear very threatening. In 1980, the government declared Shari’a, the sacred law of Islam, not merely a main source of civil law, but the main source of civil law. And in 1981, the Institute of Islamic Economics, in line with a strict interpretation of the Qur’an, introduced interest-free banking.

How The Faith Survived

The ubiquitous minarets that dot the skyline of any Egyptian city, coupled with the towering granite obelisks standing in ancient temple precincts, virtually obscure the fact that for many centuries Egypt was a Christian country. Although overshadowed architecturally, that Christian legacy is still alive. How has the Christian faith, so thoroughly extinguished in the rest of North Africa, survived in Egypt? A look at its religious history may help answer this question.

3000–525 B.C. The polytheistic religion of Egypt, with its major deities Ra (the sun), Ptah, Amun, and Osiris, dominates Egypt. Despite several periods in which Egypt is controlled by outsiders (Hyksos 1700–1550, Libyans 945–715, Nubians 715–664, and Assyrians 664), her religious traditions are left intact. In fact, the outsiders for the most part accommodate themselves to Egyptian customs.

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525 B.C.–A.D. 395 The Persians, followed by the Greeks and Romans, rule Egypt with little significant change to Egyptian religion—although, as historian Sir Idris Bell has commented, during the Roman era “traditional worship of Egypt was losing some of its vitality.” Into this milieu Christianity is introduced.

A.D. 33 During the feast of Pentecost in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit comes to inaugurate the church. Peter’s powerful sermon is heard by Egyptians present in Jerusalem (Acts 2:5, 9–11). Perhaps these are the first to take Christianity to Egypt.

A.D. 42 Saint Mark brings the gospel to Egypt, according to the Coptic Orthodox tradition. (This early date seems unlikely in view of Mark’s ambivalence about missionary service in A.D. 46–48, when traveling with Paul in Asia [Acts 13:13]).

A.D. 54 Apollos, the apostle from Alexandria, is found teaching in Ephesus, where he meets Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:24–28). His presence in Asia Minor suggests that the Egyptian church was already established in Alexandria.

A.D. 110–125 Christianity is growing in Egypt (as evidenced by a papyrus fragment dated in the early second century, which contains portions of John 18).

A.D. 190 Pantaenus, who a few decades earlier founded the famous catechetical school of Alexandria, dies. (According to Eusebius, he preached the gospel in India.)

A.D. 155–220 Clement of Alexandria, described as the first “Christian scholar,” becomes head of the Alexandrian school at the death of its founder in 190. A number of his works have survived, including “Exhortations to Conversion,” “Paedagogus,” and “Miscellanies.”

A.D. 202 Emperor Septimius Severus begins his persecution against Christians and Jews in Egypt, and an edict prohibiting proselytizing to Christianity is issued. These developments indicate Christianity is making significant inroads in Egypt.

A.D. 185–254 Origen, perhaps the most important figure in early Egyptian Christianity, succeeds his mentor Clement as principal of the Alexandrian school, a post he will hold for 28 years. This intellectual giant produces a number of significant works, including CONTRA CELSUM, a refutation of Celsus’ attack on Christianity. He is also considered to be the father of textual criticism.

A.D. 249–251 The Roman emperor Gaius Decius aims intense persecution at eradicating Christianity. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria during this period, describes this persecution and implies that Christianity is “widespread in Egypt.” The consequence of the persecution is the spread of the faith. From 250–300, Christianity is a considerable force in Egypt, though the land remains largely pagan.

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A.D. 251–356 Anthony emerges after 20 years as a desert hermit to found Egyptian monasticism.

A.D. 287–346 Pachomius founds communal monasticism. (Egypt’s monastic orders, like those elsewhere, have been largely responsible for preserving the Scriptures. Many of the manuscripts from Egypt’s monastaries were unceremoniously taken to Europe in the past two centuries.)

A.D. 303–305 The persecution of Roman emperor Diocletian is aimed at eradicating the “plague” of Christianity. The suffering is incredible. Nevertheless, Christianity becomes the predominant faith by 330.

A.D. 312 Emperor Constantine converts to Christianity.

A.D. 313 The “Edict of Milan” (issued jointly by Emperors Constantine and Licinius) gives official permission for Christian worship and provides for compensation to Christians for losses incurred in the previous decade.

A.D. 325 Council of Nicea meets to deal with a heresy originating with Alexandrian presbyter Arius, who denies the eternal pre-existence of Christ.

A.D. 296–373 Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria from 328, is the key figure in the debate against Arianism in Egypt.

A.D. 412–444 Cyril of Alexandria is the chief opponent of the Nestorians, who claim that Christ had two natures. Cyril argues for the unity of Christ’s nature, or monophysitism (the position still held in the Coptic Orthodox church). The fifth-century debate is, to a large extent, politically motivated as the Sees of Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople vie for preeminence. Out of this debate comes the Chalcedonian creed.

A.D. 642 The Arab-Islamic invasion makes Egypt predominantly Islamic. A wealthy, educated minority of Christians survives by paying heavy taxes to their overlords. (There are differing views of the nature of the invasion. Muslims try to play down accounts of brutality, persecution, and forced conversions, while the Coptic Orthodox underscore these.)

There are later periods of persecution under the Caliph el Hakim (996–1021) and by the Turks after 1517. (Our knowledge of Christianity in Egypt until the last century is hazy. It clung to its Coptic—that is, ancient Egyptian—liturgical tradition, while the language of communication was Arabic. Consequently, the church declined in numbers and influence and became ripe for renewal and reformation.)

A.D. 1818 From England come workers of the Church Missionary Society who seek to breathe life into the Coptic Christians, but like Moravian missionaries who preceded them, they have little impact.

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A.D. 1854 A few American Presbyterian missionaries come to Egypt. Their success is dramatic, due in large part to their bringing an Arabic translation of the Bible. A kind of Protestant Reformation results. Sunday schools, Bible studies, and biblical preaching attract people from the Orthodox church. (This Protestant denomination, known in Egypt as Ingeli—“gospel” or “evangelical” or Coptic Evangelical—is the largest, having perhaps 130,000 members and adherents.) The efforts of the Presbyterian missionaries lead to an awakening within the Coptic Orthodox church, a counterreformation. The ancient church accepts the “Protestant” Arabic Bible (which it uses to this day) and starts its own Sunday school movement. For this reason, the Coptic Orthodox church becomes far more biblical than other branches of Orthodoxy.

Christianity has survived in Egypt because throughout their history, Egyptian people have been reluctant to change, they have had some of the greatest leaders in church history to guide them, and they remain committed to the Scriptures.

By James K. Hoffmeier

A Radical Islam?

Like so many Third World countries, Egypt is a nation in unrest. With a population of 40 to 50 million persons, Egypt is also the most populous country in the Arab world, and that population is booming—43 percent of all Egyptians are under 15. Its citizens are increasingly crowded off the strip of arable land flanking the Nile, a strip so narrow as to compose less than 3 percent of Egypt’s total land mass. Inevitably, former farmers and fisherfolk migrate to burgeoning cities (Cairo alone is approaching a population of 15 million), which struggle under overburdened economies. The nation’s per capita annual income, as of 1983, was less than $700.

Most Egyptians now consider Nasser’s experiment with socialism a failure. With an open hand of friendship to the United States, Anwar Sadat attempted to restore the economy. He moved toward capitalism and built new political alliances that would take Egypt to a new stage of prosperity. But Sadat’s domestic popularity with conservative Muslims fell disastrously when he initiated peace accords with Israel. He died at the hands of a fringe group, but even upper-class Egyptians bought and repeatedly watched videotapes of the assassination.

Radical Muslims, then, play on the sense that everything except religion has been tried to straighten out Egypt’s political and economic problems. For them, Islam is the answer. Egypt should institute the Shari’a and give its full devotion to the will of Allah as revealed in the Qur’an.

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Despite these currents, however, Egypt is far from becoming another Iran. The official political clout of the extremists remains well contained. The National Democratic Party, a non-ideological ruling party, holds 358 of the seats in the People’s Assembly. (Thirty-five others are held by a centrist, business-oriented party, and 65 are divided between socialists and Islamic fundamentalists.) In addition, Shar‘i laws on theft, adultery, usury, apostasy from Islam, and divorce have all been repudiated.

In many ways, observers say, Egypt has come too far into the twentieth century to adopt the fundamentalist agenda. For instance, millions of women now work outside their homes—will they or their husbands want them to return placidly to the narrower roles assigned them by fundamentalists, and lose the income they depend on?

Finally, observers believe the fanatical Muslim threat is lessened because the radicals are divided among themselves. As long as they remain divided they cannot conquer.

The Egyptian religious and political situation, in short, is not moving faster and faster in a single direction, toward monolithic Islam. The dominant current at the moment is a semisecular, semi-Islamic government. The cross current is the radical Islamic movement. Caught in-between are some 8 to 15 million believers in Jesus.

A Day In The Life Of An Egyptian Christian

In Cairo, a drab layer of dust coats everything, from small residential dwellings to 30-story Western-style hotels. In Alexandria, people seem to live on their balconies: some lower baskets on a rope and call to the street grocer for bread, some hang laundry, and some simply chat with their neighbors. In Minya, a city of about 300,000 to the south of Cairo, it is quieter. At the city park the Nile’s currents can be heard lapping at its banks; darkness falls and hungry dogs bark hoarsely in the distance.

But in all these cities, and nearly every other metropolis or burg in Egypt, the muezzin sings out his call to prayer. Five times each day, beginning at 4:30 in the morning, Egyptians hear the words and cadences that become so familiar they seem as eternal as the Nile.

Imagine an Egyptian Christian waking to the sound of the call. It is the first thing in the day, but far from the only thing, to remind him that his faith sets him apart from nine out of ten Egyptians. In his grogginess he wonders if he should prepare for work. But he glances at his calendar and sees that it is Friday, the Islamic holy day. Today is a day of rest. Sunday—his day of worship—is a work day in Egypt.

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Sometimes the Christian slips away from his job and into a church, just to worship in the daylight. But he needs his work—high-salaried jobs like his are harder for Christians to procure than their Muslim friends—so most Sunday mornings he stays at his desk, worshiping instead on Saturday nights or Sunday evenings.

At the moment he remembers plans to spend the day with his family. So he sleeps a few more hours, then rises, dresses, and heads out onto the streets. Strict laws limit the building of Christian churches. Presidential permits are required, and some congregations wait years for permission to make small repairs. Churches cannot be built within a specified distance of a mosque, and steeples are not allowed to spear higher than minarets. What the Christian sees, then, at least every few blocks, is a place of prayer for his Islamic neighbors. In contrast, churches are often dwarfed by high-rise apartment buildings, or squeezed inconspicuously between government offices.

As he boards the bus, the Christian must step around Muslim neighbors who have spread prayer rugs on the sidewalk and now kneel, foreheads to the ground, in the direction of Mecca.

Soon he arrives at his parents’ home. He finds his father and younger brothers and sisters in front of the television set. His watch reads 11 A.M., and the day’s programming is just beginning. A bearded sheikh (roughly the Muslim equivalent of a pastor) flashes on the screen. Calmly, he begins to chant, and the corresponding words from the Qur’an appear on the screen. The passage is familiar, one the young Christian studied in his public school.

After visiting his mother in the kitchen, he finds a newspaper and scans the TV listings for the day. His eye catches on an Elvis Presley movie and an intriguing Egyptian serial, “Helmya Nights.” He is too accustomed to notice the five “religious programmes” scheduled on the three national networks through the remainder of the day. When his eye does fall on one of the listed religious programs, he does not have to wonder what religion it will feature.

Except for a few programs at Christmas and Easter, public television is closed to Christian broadcasters, and he wishes, with a returning sense of humiliation and regret, that it was not. A few months ago, he recalls, a Muslim teacher appeared on one of the three stations saying the Christian prophet (Jesus) went to bed with five virgins on one night. Several of his Muslim friends were astonished at Jesus’ immorality. He tried to explain that the parable of ten virgins, though it said the virgins went “into” the bridegroom, did not mean this as the Arabic colloquialism for sexual intercourse. Most of them listened to him, but he thought then about the thousands who saw the broadcast and never heard the correct interpretation of the passage.

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He reads the rest of the paper and teases his youngest sister. Appealing odors drift from the kitchen and he realizes his mother is beginning to prepare lunch. It is noon, and another call to prayer sounds outside the window.

Challenges To Faith

Living under such conditions, Egyptian Christians grow hardy; their faith develops tenacious roots. It is not difficult to find examples of men and women who have suffered for what they believe—not martyrdom, but certainly matters worse than inconvenience.

It is a Wednesday night in a town in lower Egypt. Adel Markos (not his real name), an evangelical Christian, is showing us around town. Despite its substantial size, many of the town’s roads are narrow and unpaved. A fine dust, with its pungent odor, fills the air. Donkey-drawn carts jockey with cars and trucks for the right of way. In Cairo, drivers are constantly honking their horns. There pedestrians spill out into the street with a resigned air, giving themselves up to a hurricane of traffic.

But here traffic is thinner, horns are less often employed, and pedestrians are treated as if they have a right to live. Most of them eschew the sidewalks and stride down the streets—true to Egyptian custom, men or women arm in arm with friends of the same sex. The street lamps are a low, incandescent yellow, hollowing out small, warm caves of light for the people who pass beneath them. Vendors, with fires crackling under shish kebabs, wait at various corners.

Adel is a bald-headed, medium-sized man. His deep-set eyes and aquiline nose make him reminiscent of a Hollywood version of Al Capone. But he is soft-spoken, and when he mentions his service in the Egyptian army, he says he was happy he never had to kill a man. Adel’s mission, at the moment, is to take his American visitors to his Coptic Evangelical church.

When Adel arrives at the church, four armed, government guards stand at the gate. Adel explains that there are usually fewer guards, but only a few days before, Muslim fanatics attacked a local Christian organization. Whatever tension lingers does not show on the white-uniformed guards, who languidly smoke and talk.

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Just inside the church there is loud, theatrical music. Adel says the children of the church are watching a film. He opens a door: Charlton Heston, his majestic white hair and beard flapping in the wind, is commanding the Red Sea to part as Israel escapes Pharaoh.

We proceed upstairs with Adel, and quickly come across more activity. In a small room, three women sort clothing beneath a dim, uncovered light bulb. (One missionary has earlier told us that many Egyptian Christians regularly go to separate activities at as many as three or four churches. Egyptians have fewer diversions than Americans, he said, and the maintenance of their faith in an unencouraging environment demands Christian community. Adel’s church testifies to the truthfulness of the missionary’s account; it is busy even on a weeknight.)

The church women are volunteers concerned with distributing clothes to the poor. They work standing up, at a simple wooden table. One woman, in a black dress, with black hair and heavy eyelids, appears to be the leader. The others defer to her when questions are asked about their church activities.

Speaking through a translator, she soon warms to her subject. She puts down the garment in her hands and says most of her work with the church is in the education department. She enjoys it because it was her training.

Years ago she was headmistress of a school that housed and taught one thousand girls. But she was accused of shredding the Qur’an, burning it, and then stomping on the ashes in a final fit of contempt. None of this was true, the woman says; she believes she was attacked for being a Christian. Eventually she lost her job. Her story was one others would repeat, with differing details.

The next day, outside town, a friend of Adel’s talks about the difficulty of building or repairing churches in Egypt. “It’s difficult but not impossible,” he says. Often churches ignore or creatively circumvent the Egyptian bureaucracy. He knows of one church that had a broken latrine. After asking permission to repair it and not getting the permission for several weeks, the church simply repaired the latrine.

In another case, Christians were delayed in building a church. Finally they sought permission to build a home. That granted, they began constructing a church. When the walls rose a few yards above the ground, the police realized a church was being built. They posted guards, but only during the day. The church builders continued to work at night, with the police apparently satisfied they were enforcing the letter of the law.

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A Church Bright And Strong

The church-building story exemplifies the pluck and determination of Egyptian Christians. Louka Michael (not his real name) is pastor of an urban Coptic Evangelical church. Like many Egyptian pastors, he is strikingly productive. With a church of only 300 regular members, he established a popular ministry to the elderly and a preschool educating 74 students. At a previous church, in a Minya suburb, Louka took notice of the large body of retarded children in Egypt (inbreeding largely accounts for the estimated 3 percent retarded citizens), and started an educational ministry for the mentally handicapped.

Obviously not a man lacking in energy or ambition, Louka nonetheless carries an air of heaviness. His polished coal eyes are soft, tinged by sadness. Wistfully, he speaks of the late 1960s, when Canada and Australia were especially open to Egyptian immigrants, and many Christian friends left the country. “Now we just send them Christmas cards,” he says.

He harbors no illusions about the difficulties of ministry in his homeland. Too many Christians, Louka tells us, are nominally Muslim. They cannot avoid Muslim radio and television. They fast during Ramadan (a central Islamic holiday season) and swear, like Muslims, by invoking the name of the prophet Muhammad. Sometimes, he says, when a Christian dies the family asks a sheikh to read a surah (a chapter from the Qur’an). Louka alludes to estimates that between 10,000 and 15,000 Egyptian Christians convert to Islam each year, often for reasons of money or marriage. (Another Egyptian later presented the mordant formula that Christians convert for love and hate—to marry a Muslim lover, or to take advantage of the more liberal Islamic divorce laws.)

The Cross Within The Crescent

Many pharmacies in Egypt identify themselves by a sign bearing a cross within a crescent—emblems of healing in the Christian and Muslim communities. But the sign is also symbolic of how the two faiths are bound together by what they have in common, and of how they must live together despite their radical differences.

Society and politics

The flag of the Egyptian revolution of 1919 against the British colonizers bore the emblem of the cross within the crescent, for both religious communities shared common aspirations and a common destiny in the land. Yet, the alliance has often been an uneasy one, for each has its own vision of what the society should be—a vision best understood by comparing the teachings of Muhammad and Jesus.

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Although there are some significant differences between their teachings, both preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” And neither was well received in his home town. But here the similarity ends. Muhammad believed that he must rule rather than suffer; so he escaped from Mecca and accepted a job 275 miles north in Medina, where he could begin to build a power base and rule in God’s name. Jesus, on the other hand, chose to suffer rather than rule. After feeding the five thousand, he turned down the chance to become king. He chose instead to die for the world.

Muhammad believed God’s kingdom should be an earthly kingdom, whereas Jesus told Pilate, “My kingship is not of this world” (John 18:36). The Arabian prophet believed force could be used to extend the kingdom and began the conquest of the neighboring tribes, which would later lead to the establishment of the Islamic empire. Jesus, however, refused to use force to build his kingdom. Saying his kingdom was not of this World, Jesus told Peter to sheath his sword when the soldiers came to take Jesus away.

The Arabian prophet also thought God’s kingly rule could be ushered in by applying divine law to all aspects of life. Jesus, on the other hand, saw the limitations of law to change people; so he talked about the need for a transformation from within. It is not enough, he said, to refrain from killing someone; we must not even hate another person in our heart (Matt. 5:21f.). The kingdom of God is like leaven, which transforms from within, not something that can be enforced from without (Matt. 13:33).

What we in North America call “religion” and “politics” overlapped in Muhammad’s understanding. Certainly our Lord expected that our faith would affect all aspects of life, including the political. Yet he distinguished between the two realms, saying, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matt. 22:21). Thus, Christians do not experience the Muslims’ urgency to live under a government dominated by their faith.

These divergent visions are reflected in contemporary Egypt. Christians want religion and state separate so they may have freedom and may not, as a minority, be relegated to a second-class status politically. A large segment of the Muslim population desires the same freedom of a more secular state. Yet in recent years Muslim fundamentalists have grown in strength. In 1980 they were able to get the constitution changed to read that religious law is the main source of legislation. Now they are trying to make this claim a reality.

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Faith and practice

The Arabic word Islam means “to submit” to God. (Christians, too, are enjoined to submit to him [James 4:7].) For Muslims, this submission includes observing five pillars of the faith. First (like Jews and Christians), they confess the unity of God, and then go further to confess the apostleship of Muhammad. Next, they are to pray five times a day, give alms, and fast during daylight hours in the month of Ramadan. (Forms of these practices are encouraged in Matthew 6:1–18.) Finally, they are to go on the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca once in their lifetime, if possible (just as Jews were to go to Jerusalem three times a year).

Underlying these practices, we note comparable similarities and differences in beliefs. When Muslims call upon God (Allah in Arabic), they mean the one God of whom the Bible speaks. The attributes of God are similar in both religions, but the emphasis and interpretation are sometimes different. Islam emphasizes the sovereignty of God to the extent that he forgives whom he wills and does not forgive whom he does not will, apart from any means of salvation like the Cross.

According to the Qur’an, God is a loving God, but he loves only those who love him, not those who do not (3:31–32). There is nothing here to compare with the unconditional love of God found in the Bible: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10); and “But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Muslims reject the Christian understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity, which the Qur’an describes as being made up of Allah, Jesus, and Mary (5:116)—perhaps reflecting the veneration of Mary by Christians in Muhammad’s day.

The Qur’an refers to many people in the Bible: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and John the Baptist, to name a few. Sometimes the stories reflect apocryphal accounts, such as Abraham’s being saved from a fiery furnace (21:58–69; 37:97).

Jesus is always treated with the greatest respect in the Qur’an. But he is said to have been born beside a palm tree and to have spoken from the cradle—stories reminiscent of apocryphal gospels circulating at the time the Qur’an was first recited. Other similarities with our Gospels can be found, even though the same descriptions and titles are often understood differently. Christ was the Word (10:10; cf. John 1:1); he performed miracles (3:49; cf. Luke 7:21–22); and he was sinless (10:10; cf. Heb. 4:15).

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Most Muslims believe the Qur’an denies that Christ was crucified (based on 4:157–158), although it merely says that the Jews did not kill him. It may, therefore, intend nothing more than Jesus did when he said to Pilate, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11). The Christian believes that God’s power was demonstrated not by saving Jesus before he accomplished his work on the cross but by raising him after the work was accomplished.

Muslims believe that people are basically good and are capable of doing God’s will when they know it. The Bible teaches that all people have a bias toward wrong (Eph. 2:3). These contrasting views lead to significantly different understandings of the solution to the problem of human sin. Islam holds that all we need is to know the law of God and receive his forgiveness. The Bible affirms, however, that God’s law is only a tutor, showing us both God’s will and our inability to do it. We need forgiveness, but we also need an acceptable means of forgiveness if God is to remain righteous and yet acquit us. The Bible further declares that, because we have a bias toward evil, we need new life, which results in the transformation of our nature. Nicodemus, a pious follower of the law, was like many Muslims in his reliance on his own efforts. Jesus told him, “You must be born anew” (John 3:7).

Almost every church in Egypt has a mosque nearby. Frequently a cross on the church’s spire is held aloft beside the crescent on the minaret. Thus, when the cry goes out five times a day from the minaret, “Come to salvation,” the church bears its answer: the Cross of Christ.

By J. Dudley Woodberry.

Nor is Louka at peace about the radical Muslims and their prospects for power in Egypt. (Some Christians fear their numbers make up 40 to 50 percent of the nation—most estimates are much lower.) Louka refers to the unending stream of propaganda flowing from radios and televisions. “It goes on and on and on,” he sighs. “You breathe it.”

Yet despite his weariness, Louka himself rejected an opportunity to leave Egypt. After he earned a graduate degree at a prestigious American university, his friends there encouraged him to remain in the United States. He admits he was tempted. But he and his wife had a sense of calling. “That is why we are here,” he tells us in his living room. “Hopefully, we are providing a little more reason for our young people to stay.”

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Whatever its effect on young people, Louka’s pastoring does not go unnoticed by the elderly in his church. One old man unburdened himself of the opinion that today’s church leadership is more talented and dedicated than that of earlier times. With a poetry that ennobled the sacrifice of Louka and the other sensitive, struggling pastors like him, he said, “The church here is bright like the sun and strong like a big army.”

A Steely Bishop

Like Louka Michael, Father John Mitri (not his real name), ministering in another urban setting, evidences the strain of pastoring in a land that considers Christianity foreign. Father John has a tall, athletic-looking body that appears out of place in his black cassock. His hair is closely cropped, his eyes unafraid. He agrees with Louka about the harsh outlook for the church in Egypt, but carries his concern differently. Whereas Louka seems tired, nearly resigned, this Roman Catholic priest’s relentless pessimism appears to animate and steel him.

He declares that without the Coptic Orthodox Church, there would be no church in Egypt. The Coptic Orthodox number approximately 7 million. By comparison, he says, there are 70,000 to Catholics, so few that “it is almost not right to call it a church.” (Others put the estimate closer to 150,000.) Stabbing a yellow Bic pen at the air to emphasize his point, Father John speaks of the ridiculousness of bishops strutting in crowns and sacerdotal finery, even though there are hardly any people in their churches.

The chief danger to Egyptian Christianity is not Islam, he claims. It is the church itself. The different denominations refuse to present a unified front, have no integrated plan for the future, and are unsuccessful in living with the poor and experiencing their problems. He also criticizes Catholics and Protestants for insufficiently developing their youth and for neglecting Christian service opportunities for women. Given these inadequacies, he says, Christianity in Egypt could disappear. Father John ends his litany with an impish announcement: “All this is not what you expected to hear. If you want to hear how wonderful things are, go see the archbishop tomorrow.”

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But the priest admits there are sparks of hope in the darkness. There are “quiet saints.” There are young people “who say they are simply Christian and don’t worry what church they are in.”

These developments help him endure as a clergyman, Father John says. And there are other reasons. “First of all, my parents were true believers. My father lived to be 85, and every Sunday he went to pray at church. So I love Christ because of my parents.”

Second, he says, “I don’t have a lot in the way of earthly possessions. My car is a 19-year-old Volkswagen. So in my daily life and prayers, I have learned about a life of simplicity.” This simplicity is mirrored in the life of his parishioners. “They are poor families struggling to provide a life for themselves and their children. They manage to face each day with courage and hope. I learn from them.”

And finally, “The fewer sorts of desires a person has—with ambition, money—the more peace he will have. The fact I am a bishop is an accident. I did not seek it.”

That much was believable: the priest hardly sounds like an ensconced denominational bureaucrat. As far as he is concerned, honesty is paramount. Abraham Lincoln inspires him more than any other man “because of his patience and honesty—his honesty first of all with himself. Honesty with one’s self, honesty that refuses hypocrisy—this is what builds the church.”

Father John leans forward and harpoons the air one last time with his Bic. “MGM and Hollywood and space shots may change the way we live, but it’s people like Abraham Lincoln who will change the way we are.”

Egypt And The Iron Curtain

The stories of Louka Michael, Father John, and other Egyptian believers demonstrate the stress of being Christian in Egypt. So do news reports of events such as the 1981 imprisonment, following riots, of 1,536 religious and political activists. Though the large majority of that number were radical Muslims, Coptic Orthodox and evangelicals were arrested as well. Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda III was placed under house arrest.

The American and Canadian Coptic Association, and our Egyptian sources, report:

• that hundreds of church-building permits, to be issued by the president, are pending, with some going back more than ten years;

• that in Cairo’s Coptic neighborhood of Old Cairo, 15 historic churches have been taken under government jurisdiction;

• that the Christian periodical El Keraza has been banned;

• that Coptic Orthodox are discriminated against at all levels of government, holding none of the 160 top positions outside the Egyptian cabinet, and are refused positions as province governor, ambassador, university president or college dean, police commissioner, and president of a nationalized company;

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• that the government regulates Coptic Orthodox schools and confiscated Coptic Orthodox hospitals while donating money and land to similar Muslim institutions;

• that the state-controlled mass media deny fair access to Coptic Orthodox Christians.

On hearing about imprisonment and other limitations on religious liberty, the Westerner’s reflexive reaction may be to compare such a country to those behind the Iron Curtain. However, while Egyptian Christians certainly suffer from curtailed freedoms, many say the analogy to the Iron Curtain nations is not a good one.

They are sensitive to the government’s position, arguing that it must try to pacify the fundamentalist Muslims. The 1981 riots exemplified the economic and social frustration much of Egypt’s population feels, a frustration that must be contained. And when hundreds of Muslims were arrested, a symbolic number of Christians were also arrested to save the government from accusations that it is anti-Islamic.

Many Muslims despise the connection Egyptian Christians have with the “imperialistic” West. They sometimes imagine a new Crusade is being planned for the retaking of Islamic lands. In addition, Christians are proportionately wealthier and better educated than Muslims. (Until World War II, 75 percent of the country’s schools belonged to the church.) Thus, there are many reasons—some more real than others—for friction between Egypt’s Muslim majority and its Christian minority.

All said, Egyptian Muslims consider Egyptian Christians the best-treated religious minority in the world. Although few Egyptian Christians would agree with the superlative, they say “oppression” is too strong a word for their condition. The more secular their government, the better, they say. Like Sadat before him, President Hosni Mubarak has so far resisted complete Islamization. One Christian observer believes Mubarak aspires to Islam “in its most serene and profound form,” which includes tolerance for other faiths.

On visiting Coptic Orthodox church offices, we were struck by two framed photographs on the wall of most offices. On one side was a picture of Pope Shenouda; on the other, a portrait of a resolute President Mubarak. The inclusion of Mubarak’s likeness on a level with the Pope indicates the careful respect many Egyptian Christians hold for their current government.

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Addressing the same Mubarak, a Coptic monastic publication adopts a tone that would match the sentiments of the most ardent American civil religionist: “So now, dear President, you have been chosen by God in the midst of this most difficult era of history in Egypt and in all of the East—chosen to confront a reality in which peoples, interests, sects, and values are in disagreement. By his grace and inspiration God has appointed you not only to reconcile and protect the spiritual interests of our country which is steeped in the proud heritage of Islamic tolerance, but at the same time to bear all the economic, sociological, and cultural burdens. We stand behind you and consider ourselves among the front line soldiers of prayer: our heart is with yours, we are at your disposal …”

Egypt’S Christian Legacy

The Egyptian Christians’ equanimity about a government that has imprisoned its people and even restricted the freedoms of its leaders can be better understood with a view to Egyptian church history. Egyptian Christians possess a long and rich history. Dating to the early second century, it is nearly ten times the age of America’s church history—old enough that, in the words of one historian, it is more an instinct than a tradition or heritage. And it is a history (or an instinct) that includes suffering much worse than what present-day Christians know.

On one October Monday, Pope Shenouda III, elected patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church in 1971, speaks with appropriate pride about that heritage. Like all Coptic monks (the pope is chosen from among the bishops, and bishops come from the monasteries), Shenouda wears a full beard; his is a black-and-gray cascade nearly concealing his mouth. He is dressed in papal regalia, including the black, bejeweled cope and the turban-shaped crown of the Coptic Orthodox episcopacy.

Shenouda is, by Coptic tradition, patriarch in the line of Saint Mark, just as the Roman Catholic pope is believed to be in the succession of Saint Peter. Tradition has it that Saint Mark came to Egypt sometime after Christ’s resurrection. His sandal broke as he was walking the streets of Alexandria. He visited a cobbler for repairs, and the cobbler, cutting his finger with an awl, cried out, “Is Theos!” (“O One God!”). The oath was the disciple’s evangelistic cue. He told the cobbler about the redemption of Christ, and from there the gospel spread across Egypt.

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There is no historical documentation for this tradition, but biblical scholars observe that Egyptians were present at the feast of Pentecost (Acts 2:10), making it likely the gospel was taken to Egypt within months or years of Christ’s death.

Referring to this ancient heritage, Shenouda claims the Coptic Orthodox have “kept the tradition of the past until now without any change,” and mentions as examples the Wednesday and Friday fasts it continues to observe, the sustained practice of removing one’s shoes before entering the sanctuary, and the church’s unshortened three-to four-hour liturgies.

Included in this heritage, Shenouda says, is Egypt’s role in founding Christian monasticism Saint Anthony (ca. 251–356), was the first Christian monk, the original desert father. Anthony was a hermit; but in the early fourth century, Pachomius, another Egyptian, founded cenobitic or communal monasticism.

No less a part of its heritage was the persecution Egyptian Christianity has known. “The Coptic church,” Shenouda says, “has carried the Cross all its life.” He does not explain his comment, but Coptic historians document the horrendous third-century persecution of Copts by the Roman emperor Diocletian. Egypt suffered the most from this, the worst of all Roman persecutions of Christians, with estimates of Egyptian martyrs running from 144,000 to 800,000. As one ancient writer put it, “If the martyrs of the whole world were put on one arm of the balance and the martyrs of Egypt on the other, the balance would tilt in favor of the Egyptians.” Diocletian’s slaughter was so catastrophic that Copts to this day consider A.D. 284, the year of the tyrant’s ascension to power, as the beginning of their calendar.

Around the year 640 Egyptian Christianity absorbed another shock: the invasion of Muslim Arabs. It survived under succeeding Muslim dynasties—Tulunids, Ikshidids, Ayyubids, and Mamelukes. The fortunes of the church have waxed and waned at different periods, and today, though Pope Shenouda did not say so, its relative numbers are dwindling. But it has known revival in recent decades, being reinvigorated by the Sunday school and Bible study movements, both probably inspired by the Protestant churches introduced by missionaries.

If the Orthodox have benefited from Protestant educational methods, they have not adopted Protestant piety. Like Roman Catholics, they venerate the Virgin Mary and the relics of saints. Yet, true to Pope Shenouda’s claims that they will not depart from the past, they adhere to the universal doctrines of orthodox Christianity.

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The rest of the church has not always considered the Copts orthodox. At the fifth-century Council of Chalcedon, the Coptic church separated from the Eastern and Western churches over a question of Christ’s humanity and divinity. The Western church, following Chalcedon, declared Christ one person with a human and a divine nature. The Egyptians were “monophysites,” maintaining that Christ had a single, divine nature. But modern theologians agree that the difference was one of vocabulary, not substance, and no longer consider the Copts heretical.

Concluding his audience with us, Pope Shenouda affirms his orthodoxy by throwing darts at the “new theology” that attacks the veracity of Scripture. Surrounded by Muslims eager to discount the Bible’s authority, Egyptian Christians of all stripes—Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant—tend to be wary of even conservative biblical criticism. For his part, the Pope has no patience with those who would declare the early chapters of Genesis and the books of Jonah and Job mythological. Nor can he understand a New Testament scholar questioning who wrote the Gospel of John: “How can we benefit in such a doubtful way, guiding people to doubt, not to faith?” Only Egyptian theologians educated in the West are doing such things, he says.

Accordingly, he has some advice for Christians in America. “Take the verses of the Bible for spiritual benefit, not as criticism. Try to grow better and better in the depths of your life.… Work for your eternity, for the kingdom of God, and for the expansion of the gospel.”

The Pope says nothing about the challenges his church faces in a Muslim land. But across the street from his sitting room, visible from its windows, stands the papal cathedral. Its exterior has been finished for years, but rubble and half-dismantled scaffolding litter the inside. Awaiting presidential permission for its completion, the cathedral is mute testimony that the gospel will not expand easily in Egypt.

How Will The Church Fare In The Future?

What are the prospects for Christianity in Egypt? David Barrett’s World Christian Encyclopedia puts the Coptic Orthodox community of 1900 at 6.6 percent of Egypt’s population; in 1970 at 6.2 percent; in 1975 at 6.0 percent; in 1980 at 5.8 percent; and projects 4.8 percent for the year 2000. The Encyclopedia sees the Protestant and Roman Catholic populations holding steady—each at 0.02 percent of the population—into the year 2000. (During our visit, we learned that the numbers on Egyptian Christians are notoriously varied, according to whom you ask. Protestant sources, for instance, said there are twice as many Protestants as Catholics in the country.)

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But Egyptian Christians insist such numbers fail to tell the entire story. They, far more than any foreign observers, know the cost of faith in a nation where Christianity is marginal. Yet they have hope because they can point to and participate in ministries clearly touched by the Holy Spirit.

One such ministry is that of Menes Abdul Noor, pastor of the Kasr el-Dubara Church in Cairo. At 57, the wiry Menes has an elastic face that one moment crumples into a frown, the next stretches into a full-toothed smile. He sits talking in the spacious parlor of his parsonage, directly joined to the tall, limestone church sanctuary. As Menes speaks, two or three young men and women drift into the parlor or out of the kitchen. Before disappearing to help them, Menes’s wife, Nadia, explains that the young people seek counseling; often some live with the Noors until their lives are straightened out.

Menes’s church of 600 members (with up to 1,000 regularly attending worship services), others have already told us, is one of the largest Protestant churches in the Middle East. Menes has translated 45 books from English into Arabic, including several of William Barclay’s commentaries and Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict. He has written commentaries on Ephesians, the three letters of John, the letters of Peter, and the letters to the Thessalonians. He preaches weekly in his church, but also on TransWorld Radio.

Menes claims to be accomplishing so much by virtue of having read a book on time management, hiring secretaries, and leaving most of the household affairs to Nadia. And he confesses that his days usually stretch from seven in the morning until just past midnight.

Others have said Menes’s frenetic ministry is effective. Now he provides some data. The radio sermons elicit about 7,000 letters per month. His books sell rapidly at newsstands; at the Cairo Book Fair, 500 copies of one title sold in 20 minutes. He has become one of the most recognizable “holy men” in the country, well known enough that later, at a restaurant, a waiter inquires of Nadia if her husband is the famous minister—and if so, why isn’t he wearing an ecclesiastical gown. In a fashion typical of both Noors, Nadia turns the occasion into an opportunity to share God’s love, explaining the Protestant split from Catholicism—and clerical garb—at the Reformation, and going from there into a discussion of justification by faith.

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Such behavior is typical of Nadia and Menes. He is a bold evangelist who has continued his ministry despite opposition and death threats. He is optimistic, moreover, because Egypt is now seeing the conversion of entire households and villages to Christ. There are now Bible studies in the Coptic Orthodox and Catholic churches. And there are Bibles on the newsstands. All of this, he says, is unprecedented.

Finally, Menes is optimistic because of the faith of Egypt’s next generation. He stresses how important it is to visit a Monday night prayer meeting of young university graduates.

The prayer meeting begins at seven, and by half-past all the chairs in the room, on the second floor of the church, are filled. Still more recent graduates—most of them doctors, engineers, pharmacists, and other professionals—filter into the meeting, setting up chairs on the balcony outside the room’s open doors. The group spends a solid hour in praise, alternating spontaneous songs, silent prayer, and spoken prayer. The singing is spirited, with arms upraised, eyes closed, heads tilted upward.

There is a short talk by a leader, and finally the group of some 150 men and women breaks into smaller prayer cells and, like a grove occupied by cicadas, fills the night air with the hum of their petitions and intercessions.

The meeting ends around half-past nine. Afterwards, we knock on the door of Menes’s house. At the door he suppresses yawns and rubs bloodshot eyes. But soon he recovers his energy and loquacity. After all, he is busy translating a new version of the Bible into Arabic. And there are two-and-a-half hours left in the workday of the man whose name, translated, means “Servant of the Light.”

The Bishop Of Beni Suef

There was another ministry we heard about repeatedly in Egypt, but it is far away from the hubbub of Cairo. Orthodox Bishop Athanasius, admired by Coptic Orthodox and evangelicals alike, is the episcopal head of the rural district of Beni Suef, overseeing 86 churches. The town of Beni Suef, center of the district, is a three or four-hour drive south of Cairo. The road from Cairo to Beni Suef passes fellahin (farmers) hoeing in their fields; men roped to the top of date palms, slicing the yellow-brown fruit out from underneath dusty fronds; women carrying laundry to and from the Nile; and small, blindfolded donkeys ambling in their ceaseless circles at waterwheels.

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The landscape beside the Nile is colorful. Corn and other irrigated crops, and groves of tall, stately palms, green the countryside. Children, especially, are dressed in rich reds, lime green, oranges, and yellows. They dash across fields and perch on top of huge bundles of cornstalks lashed to the backs of donkeys. Behind the fields, across the river, white limestone cliffs occasionally ascend, setting the limits of the desert. Rural Egypt avoids the urban air pollution of Cairo (said to be the second-most-polluted city in the world). The sky is wide and blue, although in places the baking of mud bricks darkens the air with thin, black clouds, which late in the day refract sunlight and deepen dusk’s rosy hue.

Unlike rural America, Egypt’s countryside is never free of people. Once on Beni Suef’s narrow streets, of course, the concentration of people thickens, though there are not many motor vehicles. Bishop Athanasius greets us in a large, dark room in his official residence. He is a small man, just over five feet tall, with heavy black-rimmed glasses and tiny hands. The bishop speaks with a pleasant, reedy voice that originates, ventriloquist-like, far down in his throat.

Athanasius, at 64, and a bishop for 25 years, is candid about the difficulties facing the church in Islamic Egypt. Like almost everyone else, he cites the rise of Muslim extremism as the greatest threat to the church. His answer to extremism is simple and pastoral: “I find the solution only in Christian behavior—Christian love, forbearance, Christian witness.”

But does he think the church in Egypt will survive? Bishop Athanasius refuses to accept the question as phrased. “The question is, will the church in Egypt, in the East, and in the West survive?” The Western church faces materialism, decadence, and rampant individualism; the bishop fears it has become “too timid” to face the “overwhelming anti-Christian” ethos of its societies. He insists there is a difference between happiness and affluence (“I am a poor man; I do not have much; but I am happy”) and that Western Christians confuse love with pleasure.

“The trend in modern civilization is to accept man as he is,” Bishop Athanasius says, “and we have degraded Christianity and humanity” by putting aside the Christian hope for a transformed humanity. “To see Christianity survive in the world is to become true Christians once more. It is this true Christianity which has the power to change life and make people really happy.”

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The Bishop’S Bible Study

The bishop is one of several leaders in the Coptic church who have come to believe that an essential element of restoring true Christianity is study of the Bible. Accordingly, he conducts a Bible study each Friday evening.

On one Friday, Bishop Athanasius’s church is full at 5:30. There are about 600 men, women, and children in the church, with males seated on the left side of center and females on the right (following ancient Oriental custom). The bishop stands at the front of the nave with an overhead projector and a microphone. Seated directly behind him are a dozen priests and monks, the monks wearing black hoods dotted with yellow crosses. Behind them, in typical Coptic Orthodox custom, is a screen painted (in golds, reds, and blues) with icons of the apostles and Christ. The altar is hidden behind the screen.

The bishop begins the Bible study by announcing the topic: the image of God in humanity. Laying some groundwork in Genesis, he then opens the floor to discussion by asking what it means to be created in the image of God. A man stands and says it means having freedom and humility. Athanasius listens, but then asks, “Where is the reference?” When the man can provide no scriptural citation, the bishop waves his tiny hand and points a finger at another person now standing to speak.

“When God created man he created a working man,” this gentleman says. Before he can say anything more, Athanasius asks, “Where is the reference?” and again his interlocutor is at a loss. With that the bishop summarizes both answers; then, ranging from Genesis to the genealogical accounts of Luke 3, he supplies the scriptural background he considers sorely missing.

The discussion begins once more, and eventually the talk—among simple farmers and fishermen in a nation with an adult illiteracy rate over 50 percent—turns to genetic engineering. There is both openness and suspicion on the part of the people, with the bishop declaring that genetic engineering need not threaten orthodoxy. “There is a great difference between God creating things from nothing and science creating from things already there,” he says. One, then two men, stand to disagree. In the midst of this interchange, a bird enters the church through an open door and flits from one chandelier to another. Engrossed in their study, few people look up, even when it begins chirping.

Here, as in the prayer meeting at Menes’s church or when witnessing the quiet determination of Louka’s ministry, we are impressed with the intensity of faith possessed by Egyptian Christians. In any of these settings, the question “Will the church survive?” becomes less academic. We had sensed that Bishop Athanasius and other Egyptians were impatient with the question. Now we realized that perhaps, for them, such inquiries are more profound than we appreciated. Knowing the costs of faith in ways beyond our experience, they could not answer such questions with mere words: they could reply only with their spirits, wills, flesh, and blood—with the commitment of their entire lives.

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Soon the Bible study’s discussion shifts to other attributes of the image of God, including beauty. There is still too much tendency to forget scriptural support of arguments, and at one point the bishop demands, “References! I want references, not just talking.”

Redirecting the study, the bishop lectures on the importance of being “born from the Lord,” since it was only “through Christ that we can return to the first image.” (Outside, a wedding party passes, complete with horns and drums, but again the study is oblivious to distraction.) With that he ranges through Genesis, the Psalms, Hosea, Ezekiel, Job, and Paul’s letters, laying out an understanding of the image of God that in no way suffers from a paucity of biblical foundation.

The study winds down with questions on suffering. To hear these questions is to be reminded again of the dozens of Egyptian Christians we have talked to during the weeks of our visit. The questions summarize what we have learned: that Egyptian believers have learned they cannot avoid suffering, yet they find sustenance in their faith.

On this subject the bishop could be speaking for Louka, for Father John, Menes, Adel, or Pope Shenouda. Suffering, he says, can be a gift for purification. It came “because we had entered into a way marred by Satan” and need to turn from it. And when it is not a gift, it is an unavoidable part of being human—and Christian. “All people suffer,” says the bishop, “but especially the believer, because the world is against him.”

The people listen, intently, to their diminutive but powerful bishop, who had told them before about their Muslim neighbors, “We can’t preach, we can’t evangelize, but we can love,” and who now, ready again to send them back into a world dominated by those neighbors, speaks words true not just to his parish, but to any and every church in Egypt.

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He says simply, “Bear and forbear.”

Life Among The Garbage Pickers

Cairo’s teeming streets are covered with cars, trucks—and occasionally, incongruously—donkey-drawn carts. Usually the carts are driven by stoic-faced men and laden with chicken crates, reams of cardboard, rotting food, and other garbage. Often a child or two rides atop the pile, sometimes sleeping, sometimes watching the whirl of traffic.

The carts’ drivers and children are part of Cairo’s infrastructure, the unpaid garbage collectors of Africa’s largest city. They are bound for one or another of the garbage collectors’ villages on the outskirts of Cairo. There they will dump the refuse, sort through it for foodstuffs or any salable items, and discard the rest—in their tin hovel homes, in their streets, in the canals where they bathe.

We visited one such village, a burg of about 2,000 garbage collectors and another 1,500 sheep and cattle herders. The air was filled with the smoke of burning garbage and dust from passing carts. The homes had dirt floors and partial roofs, actually serving as little more than shades. A pack of ducks starkly demonstrated the unsanitary conditions of the village: their white feathers stained and sodden, one or two ducks limping on diseased legs, another with eyes red-rimmed and inflamed.

Living among the garbage collectors are five doctors and nurses, there because of their Christian commitment. Working from 8:30 A.M. to 10 P.M. daily, they are staff members of the Coptic’ Evangelical Organization for Social Services (CEOSS), a remarkable organization with development programs in several major cities and nearly 50 rural villages.

The doctors and nurses at the village, and other CEOSS workers who do not live on site, have taken on a huge assignment. The clinic they operate one day a week is the only medical assistance available within 12 kilometers of the village. They struggle against superstitions. (Many villagers, for instance, still entrust their health to practitioners of magic; some parents will paint a hand on a child’s forehead to ward off the evil eye of the covetous.) CEOSS staff members also work at educating villagers on the importance of hygiene (encouraging them, for example, to wear heavy gloves while sorting garbage).

The myriad CEOSS programs include family planning, literacy education, teenagers’ coffee houses, a children’s club, a home economics program, and loans for everything from sewing machines to small trucks.

CEOSS’S director, Samuel Habib, is president of the Protestant community in Egypt. Because of his wide influence, including close connections with Protestant, Coptic, Catholic, and government leaders, he is only half-jokingly referred to as Egypt’s “Protestant Pope.” His organization is an example of how much dedicated Christians can accomplish—even in a land where evangelization is forbidden.

By Rodney Clapp.

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