Love Thy (Arab) Neighbor

When international disputes escalate, the church has special responsibility to douse the flames of hatred.

Even if Saddam Hussein had ancestors on the Mayflower, both grandmothers in the DAR, and had attended Exeter, most Americans would still consider him pond scum. So let’s not let Saddam’s behavior turn us against all Arabs, as some seem to be doing:

• A stockbroker in Boston, Massachusetts, a naturalized American citizen of Palestinian origin, received a death threat: “Move out, or you’ll die.”

• The publisher of the largest Arabic-language newspaper in the U.S. received a warning that if any Americans trapped in Kuwait were harmed, he would be killed.

• The rate at which reports of such anti-Arab threats are received has multiplied 25-fold since the Kuwait invasion, says the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Arab jokes are apparently in these days, but racial stereotypes—terrorist, towelhead, belly-dancer—are the first rungs on a ladder that leads from obscuring people’s individuality, to excluding them from the circle of friendship, through denying opportunity to the talented, to focusing hostility and violence on the innocent. Because an Arab-American leader, poet Alex Odeh, was the victim of a racially motivated murder following the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro, many Arab-Americans believe such violence is possible again.

When international disputes escalate to this extent, the church has a special responsibility to douse the flames of hatred here at home.

First of all, the church must apply its teaching that we all stand as individuals before God to the context of war and racism. The prophets Ezekiel (chap. 18) and Jeremiah (31:29–34) liberated their readers from the idea that spiritual standing before God was tied to family, clan, or race. The apostle Peter was also taught of the Holy Spirit that nationality makes no difference to God (Acts 10:34–35, 47; 11:15–18).

In wartime particularly, understanding the spiritual significance of the individual is important, for we tend to tar members of an enemy race with a mile-wide brush. Readers who have lived long enough will remember posters portraying the German “Hun” as a fearsome, subhuman menace. Such characterization is the standard way to run a war, but a terrible way to work for peace. The way to overcome hostility is to get to know individuals, and the church could help us do this. Through multi-ethnic fellowship we will learn that many who have family ties to our country’s adversaries are loyal Americans. Arab-Americans may love their mothers’ tabouleh, but most are as distressed as the rest of us by Hussein’s hostilities.

Second, the church must be a channel of cultural and geographical information, even when the public schools are not. Because of their missions resources, many churches already have regular opportunities to put a human face on those who live in other cultures.

In the case of the Arab world specifically, the church can teach that Christianity has been a part of Middle Eastern culture since its beginning. (Why do we act as if Christianity started in America’s Middle West rather than the planet’s Middle East?) And that to this day there are strong, indigenous Christian communities there. Not all Arabs are Muslims. Not all Muslims are radical followers of crazed ayatollahs. (And, by the way, most Iranians are not Arabs.)

A little information like this would go a long way toward preventing hostility and promoting understanding in our own home towns.

By David Neff.

I grew up in a small town near several communities of Mennonites and Amish. They were the object of considerable curiosity and mild ridicule. But when my mother became very ill, a young Brethren in Christ woman moved into our home to cook and supervise the housework. She was charming and efficient. My mind began to change about Anabaptists.

Across the years, my mind has continued to change. As an evangelical, I now identify with them. I am not an Anabaptist, but I feel we belong to each other. Have they changed? Or have I? I hope we both understand more of what Christianity is all about, and how much we have to offer each other (see articles beginning on p. 25).

The distinctive Anabaptist doctrine of the “gathered church” has always attracted me. Most evangelicals give lip service to this doctrine, but it is the Anabaptists who have given it rich meaning: Christians are a people called out to be followers of Jesus Christ and servants of one another.

This has given Anabaptists a sense of belonging—they uniquely belong to Christ and to each other. This, in turn, creates a special identity, a sense of “we” and “they,” the believer and the unbeliever, the saints (those set apart, not necessarily those who are especially holy) and the world. Our values are not the same as those of the world. And the difference is important enough to make us willing to be judged a bit odd by the norms of society.

Habits Of The Heart

Anabaptists have grown by discovering that their true identity consists not in putting on the bonnet or taking off the tie, but in the heart of the believer, who is called to be different from a self-seeking world and to follow the Savior in self-giving service to all who are in need. It is no accident that many Mennonite churches first began to grow after bringing these matters into proper focus.

In recent years, moreover, many Anabaptists have come to see more clearly that their fellowship draws its nourishment from the gospel of the redeeming, self-giving God of the Bible. To forget this is to become a do-gooders’ society. For most people, that cannot generate the spine of steel that would enable them to respond by blessing those who persecute them.

Mennonites and other evangelicals have all grown in our sense of the breadth of God’s love and concern for all. Evangelicals had become so embroiled in the battle against liberalism and its “social gospel” that they forgot the social implications of the true gospel. We have learned that we have a mandate not only to carry the gospel to the whole world, but to bring good to all people. We are called out, not to distance ourselves from a suffering world, but to bind up its wounds.

Many Anabaptists are recognizing also how much they share with other evangelicals in their commitment to peace. Years ago, I asked a member of the Church of the Brethren which was more important to him: his pacifism or the gospel of divine grace through faith in the Savior. He paused, and then answered: “I am not sure; I think maybe my pacifism.” He wouldn’t give that answer today. Without repudiating their pacifism, many like him recognize that the gospel lies at the base of their nonviolence.

On the other hand, many evangelicals have also changed. We may still believe that it is sometimes necessary, as a last resort, to destroy life to save lives. Yet Christians must always seek peace, and peace does not come automatically. It is a fragile flower that must be cultivated at great sacrifice. Anabaptists can work with evangelicals for a common goal of peace.

Evangelicals and Anabaptists have much to learn from each other. Together we can grow into the servant role to which our Lord has called us.

By Kenneth S. Kantzer.

It was bound to happen, once Dr. Kevorkian unveiled his do-it-yourself suicide machine (CT, Aug. 20, 1990, p. 14). An elderly couple from California—she weary of living with disease, he at rope’s end over caring for a sick wife—flew to Detroit and checked into a motel. She swallowed a lethal dose of pills, then allowed him to place a plastic bag over her head. She was dead in minutes. Both had read about Kevorkian and mistakenly believed assisted suicide was legal in Michigan.

Call it stupid, brutal, or pathetic, but get used to it. The growing ranks of the aging have seen the future, and many do not like what they see: technology that compels them to defy death without really living; degenerative diseases that leave them helpless or dimwitted. A 73-year-old grandmother in reasonably good health expressed a view that is becoming common in her generation: “I’m just tired of going on.”

While it would be misleading to suggest euthanasia has become the preference of senior citizens (membership in the proeuthanasia Hemlock Society is a minuscule 35,000), clearly the church has a prolife challenge that cannot be solved by protest or legislation. What our aging mothers and fathers need most is a reaffirmation of what the church has always taught: Life—even with suffering and pain—has meaning. It is not something to be discarded when it does not work properly or does not seem to be valued. Our Lord’s love for us does not dim with age.

The church can preach this message by making its facilities accessible to the elderly; by including senior citizens on major boards and committees; by opening church-based senior centers for older folks in the neighborhood; and by reviving the Sunday-afternoon nursing-home visitation program. Individual Christians can support the church’s efforts and enrich their own families by “adopting” a new Grandma or Grandpa.

Sentiment favoring “assisted death” will increase as long as the elderly are left alone. That is exactly what the church should never do.

By Lyn Cryderman.

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