The Other Peace Conference

Middle Eastern and Western Christians hold a summit meeting of their own to resolve long-standing tensions.

Audeh Rantisi, an Anglican minister in the Palestinian village of Ramallah, still gets agitated when he tells about a young American missionary who visited his predominantly Christian community more than three decades ago. The missionary distributed clothing and then asked who loved Jesus Christ. When most of the people—already Anglican church members—raised their hands, the missionary snapped photos and wrote home that he had brought revival to Ramallah.

As head of the Evangelical Boys’ School in Ramallah, Rantisi has since established some close relationships with Western evangelical groups. But variations of the earlier episode have been repeated so many times that he still is on his guard when first meeting evangelical missionaries from the United States. “These people come with so much money [and they] defy the existing church,” he said. “They want to establish their own empire.”

Relationships between Middle Eastern churches and Western evangelicals have often been fraught with tensions and misunderstandings over the years. Many missionaries, especially earlier in this century, came to the Middle East with little understanding of the local culture and Christian church. They engaged in what the Middle Easterners call “sheep stealing,” or attempting to convert the Christians into their own church flock. For their part, the existing churches, many of which can trace their roots to the first century, have often been reluctant to work with anyone outside their own traditions. Suspicions over mistakes made years ago have lingered in both camps.

Today, however, in the midst of a rapidly changing geopolitical and religious context, church leaders from both East and West are calling for changes in that relationship. “Christians are increasingly feeling they are in need of each other,” said Youhanna Colta, bishop of the Coptic Catholic Church of Egypt. So last month, while U.S. Secretary of State James Baker was attempting to pull together a Middle East peace conference, Western evangelicals and leaders of Middle Eastern churches gathered in Cyprus for a peace conference of their own.

Educating The West

Jointly sponsored by the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) and the American-organized Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding (EMEU), the “Signs of Hope in the Middle East” consultation brought more than 150 Christian leaders together, about 90 from the West and 60 from Middle Eastern countries. The MECC represents some 14 million Christians in the region, and EMEU is an ad-hoc network of pastors, mission executives, schools, and business people.

The meeting was largely aimed at educating Western, primarily American, evangelicals about the realities of ministering in the Middle East. Mutual understanding, strategy sharing, and fellowship were also key goals. Among the evangelical groups participating were World Relief, World Vision, the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, the Zwemer Institute, Venture Middle East, Prison Fellowship, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Youth for Christ, and Young Life.

By all accounts, the consultation drew a larger and more diverse group of participants than had any previous effort. Orthodox, Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelicals, men, women, clergy, and laypeople all robustly entered into the discussion, which for many participants was an unprecedented experience. Colta called the meeting “a new kind of Pentecost” and added that, for him, it was “a strong sign of hope” for the future of Christianity.

The ancient churches used much of the occasion to teach the West about themselves, their traditions, and their theologies. The MECC divides its member churches into five categories: the Oriental Orthodox, Byzantine (also called Eastern or Greek) Orthodox, Catholic, Assyrian Church of the East, and Protestant churches. The first four date back to the earliest centuries after Christ’s resurrection. “Christianity here has continued since Pentecost, despite the problems,” asserted MECC general secretary Gabriel Habib, adding that many, if not most, of the churches in the region are currently “going through renewal.”

Ongoing concerns about the activities and attitudes of American evangelicals were aired as well. “Some [American] Christians don’t consider other Christians really Christians,” said Safwat El Baiady of the Coptic Evangelical Church Synod of the Nile.

Dialogue also occurred among the Middle Eastern Christians. Mona Khauli, executive director of the national YWCA in Lebanon, challenged the ancient churches to become more aware of the needs of young people and women. Khauli said that too often the hierarchical framework of the ancient churches allows itself to feel threatened. “They want sole leadership in the churches in order to control the spiritual education of their congregation in the way it has been passed on to them through tradition, so that Western ideas and ideologies do not impact their communities,” she said.

Habib noted that relations between the MECC and Middle Eastern evangelicals need more work. Not all evangelical churches in the region belong to the MECC for a variety of religious, political, and personal reasons. “We should recognize more than we have done the diversity of gifts in the churches,” Habib said, pledging that MECC will continue to look for ways “to dialogue with the evangelicals.”

After The War

Church leaders agreed that in light of recent events, dialogue between East and West was timely. “The crucial issue is the survival of the churches … and Christianity in general here is facing so many challenges,” Habib said. Among those challenges are severe economic hardships, political instability, governmental oppression, the phenomenal growth of Muslim populations, the growing extremism of Islamic fundamentalism, and the alarming rate of Christian emigration to the West (see “Ancient Churches Fear for Survival”). Now Western Christians are beginning to see those challenges are not for the Eastern church alone.

The full ramifications of the Persian Gulf War are still being assessed and debated in the Middle East, but churches agree that the region will never be the same as a result of it. Neither, they say, will the Christian community. “We need a Christian partnership between West and East in order to fulfill the purpose of our Lord in this very difficult area,” Khauli said.

The question is the extent to which interreligious tensions among Christians will hamper such partnerships. Many participants found last month’s consultation a positive first step but wondered how much magnanimity will remain after church leaders go back to their communities and missionaries go back to their donors.

Several issues raised at the meeting were left unresolved. Among the thorniest was the role American parachurch groups can play in the region. Several Middle Eastern leaders were highly critical of the groups, one going so far as to call their presence in the area “scandalous.” Ancient church leaders called on parachurch groups to become part of and accountable to the local church structures. Yet some parachurch leaders said that in the past, when they tried to work with the ancient churches, they were flatly rejected.

The ever-sensitive issue of politics was also discussed. Many Middle Eastern leaders urged American Christians to lobby actively for “more just and peaceful policies” from the U.S. government. Yet many of the evangelical mission agencies represented attempts to remain as apolitical as possible. Israel and its occupation of Palestinian land was a prominent topic throughout the meeting. And, while all the churches in the Middle East are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, some felt other human-rights issues in the region were downplayed. For example, the continued oppression of Christians in Turkey, recent attacks on evangelical churches in Egypt (see World Scene, p. 56), and the imprisonment of Muslim converts to Christianity were raised, but gingerly sidestepped.

Future Efforts

“We still have a lot of work to do,” admitted Raymond Bakke, executive director of International Urban Associates, and the unofficial chairman of EMEU. Nonetheless, Bakke said the consultation exceeded every expectation of the organizing committee: “I thought we opened many new doors and built incredible new relationships across a wide spectrum.”

Evangelicals attending the meeting expressed a strong commitment to continuing such dialogues and friendships. “The Middle Eastern churches are meeting us halfway, and we’ve not seen this in times past. We have some work to do on our part, too,” said Jimmy Maroney, director of the global desk for the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board.

InterVarsity director of missions Dan Harrison said he was not offended by the Middle Eastern pleas for parachurch groups to work with and under the existing churches. Harrison said the approach was “quite consistent” with what his organization is doing. “This was a wonderful learning experience to come to grips with some of those issues while learning about the spiritual and religious realities in the Middle East.”

Bakke is optimistic about the future of evangelical involvement in the Middle East, which he said must reach back to the roots of Christianity to be effective. “The proclamation of a Paul has to come alongside the love tradition of a Barnabas to make mission happen in this area,” Bakke said. And the time to do it, he asserted, is now.

By Kim A. Lawton in Limassol, Cyprus.

Ancient Churches Fear for Survival

Throughout Lebanon’s brutal civil war, YWCA national director Mona Khauli in Beirut received calls from American friends urging her to leave because of the extreme danger of the situation. A committed Christian, Khauli was always adamant in her response: “The minute I see God packing up, I will.”

Even though the war is over, Khauli admits with sympathy and alarm that thousands of Christians continue to choose the path of emigration. “It has become increasingly difficult … for Christians to stand their ground here,” she says.

Church leaders say the trend of Christian emigration is chronic throughout the entire Middle East, in countries that trace their Christian roots to Pentecost and the missionary journeys of the apostles. The Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) says it has no overall figures on emigration rates (though some recent statistics do indicate the exodus of Christians from Israel). And one MECC official told CHRISTIANITY TODAY that even if he did have figures, he would not release them “for political reasons.” However, the MECC has issued a statement admitting that Christian emigration has “reached an unprecedented level” in all Middle Eastern countries.

Church leaders say Arab Christians decide to leave for a variety of reasons, including political instability and oppression, economic crises, and the increasing pressures of being a minority religion among Muslims—particularly as the Islamic fundamentalist movement has gained influence in many countries.

“Christianity started here, and it would be very sad if Christians elsewhere let it die here,” says MECC spokesman Harry Hagopian. He and other Middle Eastern Christians believe the Western church must play a role in stemming the tide. Yet what that role looks like is unclear.

MECC general secretary Gabriel Habib urges Western, and particularly American, churches to lobby their governments for policies more favorable to the Arab peoples. “The only solution is to bring a new order … of justice and peace,” he says.

Palestinian Christian lawyer Jonathan Kuttab would like American Christians to show their support of the Arab church with visits of solidarity. He is critical of Christian tourists who come, often attracted to the Holy Land by ads from the Israeli government, “to see the stones of the cathedrals, but not the living body of Christ there today, which is barely hanging on.”

Khauli believes prayers for the strength and continuation of the Middle Eastern church are most important, followed by financial assistance for developmental projects and the dismantling of negative stereotypes of Arabs as Islamic extremists and terrorists. Says Khauli, “Even though we are small in number and getting smaller … a few can do a lot if the light of Christ is radiating through them.”

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