Guest Who!

Boy-O-Boy!
Not Anglican

Who do you think is being introduced?

Some centuries ago a boy was born in the very heart of London, whose life was destined to have an incalculable effect on the history, political and literary, of his time. In appearance and manner he was hardly different from any other boy of English stock and blood; perhaps even in mental powers he did not surpass them, but the difference lay in his heart. He dreamed, while still a child, a wond'rous dream, and in his vision saw things glorious and beautiful; himself the author of a mighty epic which should shake the world to its foundation, and should make mankind see clearly, face to face, the mighty unseen forces round about them; the world applauding and his name passed down from mouth to mouth into eternity. Here then he rose, in earliest youth, above the rank of his companions. His vision, puissant, splendid, satisfied in him all wishes and desires, and in his soul he vowed that he would live a life, that in its clean, unspotted purity, should elevate his mind to thoughts above the reach of any but the noblest and the best . . .

And who do you think is doing the introducing?

James Wood on "the impossibility . . . of writing a great Christian novel"

James Wood
Photograph by Jared Leeds
The Guardian

On the blog of the liberal Catholic Commonweal website, Anthony Domestico has posted an entry titled "James Wood, Religion, and the Novel," in which he notes that Wood - in a recent Guardian interview with Peter Conrad, "Literary critic James Wood: 'I'm taking a religious view of an earthly form'" (April 8, 2015) - confesses to doubts about the possibility of a great Christian novel:

I can only think of bad Christian novels, like Graham Greene's. There are mystical novels - To the Lighthouse, Mrs Dalloway - and in The Brothers Karamazov you have something like the iconostasis in a Russian Orthodox cathedral: certain panels, like those about Father Zossima or the parable of the grand inquisitor, uphold the faith that Dostoevsky undermines elsewhere. Maybe Moby-Dick qualifies too, though at the cost of being undramatic or essayistic or poetic. Perhaps narrative is inherently secular. It corrugates things, bends them too much to stay religious, as Dostoevsky wisely feared. Among contemporaries, Marilynne Robinson comes closest in Gilead, which is about a Congregationalist pastor in Iowa who's dying - though she has to sacrifice a lot of the novel's innate comedy and dynamism on the altar of high thought. The novel is a comic form, because it's about our absurdities and failings. We’re told that Jesus wept, but never that he laughed.

As for today's Gypsy Scholar blogpost heading, which borrows Domestico's words to summarize Wood's position on the impossibility of "writing a great Christian novel," maybe there's truth to the view that writing a full-scale Christian novel isn't possible, but what about a great Christian novella? I humbly offer The Bottomless Bottle of Beer as exemplar.

Or am I once again just joking?

Christmas: Once a Year Too Often?

Hani Nakshabandi
Liberal Saudi Author and Journalist
Memri

Like every holiday, I suppose, Christmas comes but once a year, but that's once too many times for some, apparently, though not for the 'liberal' Saudi Mr. Nakshabandi, whose more positive opinion is implied in his words on Christians and (I guess) on some Islamists:

I listened to the Christmas sermon in a few churches, and they called for love and forgiveness. I also listened to a few Friday sermons [in the mosques] and most dealt with the ban on celebrating Christmas and threatened [anyone doing so] with hell. One side calls for love and the other side threatens damnation! ("Saudi Author: Nothing Wrong With Muslims Joining Christmas Celebrations," Memri, Special Dispatch No. 5577, December 26, 2013)

Well, there's got to be at least a balance between hatred and love! But maybe even that balance is insufficient for some haters who want the utter destruction of love, as Mr. Nakshabandi goes on to point out:

Tune the radio to any news channel. Most of the news items concern a killing here and a bombing there . . . and the vast majority, most unfortunately, are connected to Muslims. To [dissociate] ourselves [from these acts], we term [those perpetrating these actions] extremist terrorists. However an extremist is also someone who rules that celebrating the holidays [of non-Muslims] is forbidden because he objects to a world engulfed in love and prefers hating and ostracizing the other and even hopes that the other will die, if possible.

Mr. Nakshabandi hopes for peace on earth, "that love should prevail throughout the world." He believes that we would be happier if we all tried harder for that . . . but we find ourselves as fathers, mothers, siblings confronted by those who haven't left hatred behind. Mr. Nakshabandi nevertheless has hope:

Do we need love or killing? I hope the day will come when Muslim religious scholars have the courage to admit that participating in the celebrations and festivities of another -- any other -- is a good deed that is not motivated by love for this religion or other but by the desire that love should prevail throughout the world.

If only the Islamists agreed . . .

Alawite versus Sunni: Spillover into Turkey?

Alawite and Christian Iconography
Ayman Oghanna for The New York Times
New York Times

When I lived in Germany, I became friends with a Turkish Kurd named Memo who belonged to the Alawite minority, about 15 to 20 million (sic. see update below) of the Turkish population. I noticed from the start that he was a very liberal Muslim, but I eventually came to see that most Muslims -- or most Sunnis, anyway -- wouldn't consider him Muslim at all. At one point, he confided that the Alawites considered the Christian "Sermon on the Mount" as sacred scripture. Note the above photo, which shows an Alawite combining Christian and Alawite iconography.

Despite their moderate religious character (courtesy of their syncretism), Turkish Alawites are feeling spillover from the conflict in Syria between Alawites and Sunnis, as Jeffrey Gettleman explains in his article "As Syria War Roils, Unrest Among Sects Hits Turkey" (NYT, August 4, 2012):

As Syria's civil war degenerates into a bloody sectarian showdown between the government's Alawite-dominated troops and the Sunni Muslim majority, tensions are increasing across the border between Turkey's Alawite minority and the Sunni Muslim majority here.

Many Turkish Alawites, estimated at 15 million to 20 million strong and one of the biggest minorities in this country, seem to be solidly behind Syria's embattled strongman, Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey's government, and many Sunnis, supports the Syrian rebels.

The Alawites fear the sectarian violence spilling across the border. Already, the sweltering, teeming refugee camps along the frontier are fast becoming caldrons of anti-Alawite feelings.

And the Turkish Alawites worry about their own Sunni government and its increasingly Islamist policies, which could be designated "creeping sharia":

The Turkish government is led by an Islamist-rooted party that is slowly but clearly trying to bring more religion, particularly Sunni Islam, into the public sphere, eschewing decades of purposefully secular rule. Alawites here find it deeply unsettling, and a bit hypocritical, that Turkey has teamed up with Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive countries in the world, and Qatar, a religious monarchy, both Sunni, to bring democracy to Syria.

The Alawites point to the surge of foreign jihadists streaming into Turkey, en route to fight a holy war on Syria's battlefields. Many jihadists are fixated on turning Syria, which under the Assad family's rule has been one of the most secular countries in the Middle East, into a pure Islamist state.

Sunni jihadists would certainly not take kindly to Alawites, either in Syria or Turkey, for orthodox Muslims consider them bad Muslims or not even Muslims at all, making them subject to 'legitimate' attack:

The Alawites here [in Turkey] are worried they could become easy targets. Historically, they have been viewed with suspicion across the Middle East by mainstream Muslims and often scorned as infidels. The Alawite sect was born in the ninth century and braids together religious beliefs, including reincarnation, from different faiths.

Many Alawites do not ever go to a mosque; they tend to worship at home or in Alawite temples that have been denied the same state support in Turkey that Sunni mosques get. Many Alawite women do not veil their faces or even cover their heads. The towns they dominate in eastern Turkey, where young women sport tank tops and tight jeans, feel totally different than religious Sunni towns just a few hours away, where it can be difficult even to find a woman in public.

Refik Eryilmaz,an Alawite member of the Turkish parliament, meets Mr. Gettleman to explain why they are different:

He was sitting in a cafe in Antakya, a border town with a large Alawite population, and digging into a plate of baklava during the bright, sunny hours of the afternoon, when Muslims observing Ramadan usually fast.

"Look at my people," he smiled, spreading his hands wide and encompassing families eating ice cream and one young couple nuzzling on a couch. "My people are free."

He means free from sharia, and he's right . . . for now.

UPDATE: Long-time reader Erdal points out that Mr. Gettleman has conflated Alawites with Alevis, and I was careless enough to neglect fact-checking. The Alevis number 10 to 20 million, mostly in Turkey. The Alawites (or Alawi) number about 2.5 million, mostly in Syria. I knew of the two different groups, but not of the relative numbers.

Islamist Threat to Minorities in Syria

Shattered Church in Syria

Reuters/NYT

Last Wednesday, August 1 (2012), I posted on the rise of jihad in Syria, noting that the Sunni Muslims who come under Islamist influence will turn against not only the ruling Alawites but also the Shi'ites and the Christians, as well as all other minorities. A couple of days later, I posted a comment on Malcolm Pollack's blog post concerning President Obama's 'secret' order providing US support for rebels against the Syrian government:

So . . . we're going to support the Sunni Muslims against a brutal dictator who protects minorities so that the Sunnis can set up a brutal dictatorship that will wipe out the minorities? To replace a theocratic Iran with a theocratic al-Qaeda? Do we stand to gain anything from this?

Does anybody other than Sunni Islamists stand to gain anything? Apparently not, as Kapil Komireddi reports from Syria for the NYT in an article, "Syria's Crumbling Pluralism" (August 3, 2012):

The day begins here with the call to prayer and ends with the roar of gunfire. Syria's pluralistic society, which once rose above sectarian identity in a region often characterized by a homicidal assertion of religious belief, is now faced with civil disintegration and ethnic cleansing.

Komireddi summarizes the transformation in Syria:

Syria's 2.3 million Christians, constituting about 10 percent of the country's population, have generally known a more privileged existence under the Assad dynasty than even the Shiite Alawi sect to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs. Yet their allegiance to Assad was never absolute. Some Christians openly clamored for political change in the early months of the anti-government uprising. But as the rebellion became suffused with Sunni militants sympathetic to or affiliated with Al Qaeda, Christians recoiled.

Komireddi talks with a Syrian Christian:

A churchgoing Syrian told me that he used to see himself primarily as "Syrian" and that religious identity, in political terms, was an idea that never occurred to him -- until an opposition gang attacked his family earlier this year in Homs. "It's a label they pinned on us," he said. "If their revolution is for everyone, as they keep insisting it is, why are Christians being targeted? It is because what they are waging is not a struggle for freedom, and it's certainly not for everyone."

Follow the money:

As Saudi Arabian arms and money bolster the opposition, the 80,000 Christians who've been "cleansed" from their homes in Hamidiya and Bustan al-Diwan in Homs Province in March by the Free Syrian Army have gradually given up the prospect of ever returning home.

Meanwhile, the US, which should be the natural allies of threatened minorities, again stabs itself in the back:

The seeming indifference of the international community to the worsening condition of Syria's religious minorities -- and the near total absence of censure of the opposition forces by the Western governments arrayed against Assad -- is breeding a bitter anti-Americanism among many secular Syrians who see the United States aligning itself with Saudi Arabia, the fount of Wahhabism, against the Arab world's most resolutely secular state.

And the US just keeps digging that knife in deeper:

Washington is aware of the scale of the problem. As early as June 2011, Robert Stephen Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, briefed his counterparts in Damascus about Al Qaeda's penetration of the opposition forces. By still ploughing ahead with its support for Saudi Arabia's effort to destabilize Syria, Washington, far from assisting Israel or weakening Iran, is helping to fuel a humanitarian crisis that will come back to haunt the United States.

I disagree on Iran. If Syria's government falls, Iran will lose influence in the region, but the trade-off will not be to America's benefit if the Sunni Islamists take over. Nor will such a state of affairs help Israel, as Komireddi notes, a point on which I agree, for Islamists will be even more hostile to Israel than the secular Alawites.

Could this be prevented? Perhaps if the West had worked more closely earlier with Russia on getting Bashir to step down, but nobody has been ahead of the curve on these developments in Syria . . .

Rise of Jihad in Syria . . .

Map of Syria

New York Times

I've condensed a NYT article by Neil MacFarquhar and Hwaida Saad, "As Syrian War Drags On, Jihadists Take Bigger Role" (July 29, 2012), for it reports on a development that I've already been keeping an eye on from other sources:

[T]he uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's government . . . is becoming more radicalized: homegrown Muslim jihadists, as well as small groups of fighters from Al Qaeda, are taking a more prominent role and demanding a say in running the resistance . . . . [L]arger, more organized and better armed Syrian militant organizations [are] pushing an agenda based on jihad, the concept that they have a divine mandate to fight . . . . [I]t attracts more financing . . . . [In] Idlib Province, the northern Syrian region where resistance fighters control the most territory, . . . jihadists [are] fighting under the black banner of the Prophet Muhammad . . . . The groups demanded to raise the prophet's banner -- solid black with "There is no god but God" written in flowing white Arabic calligraphy . . . . [T]he changes on the ground have actually brought closer to reality the Syrian government's early . . . claim that the opposition was being driven by foreign-financed jihadists . . . . Salafist groups, or Muslim puritans, now receive most foreign financing . . . . [J]ihad has become a distinctive rallying cry . . . . [G]reater attention has been focused on a Qaeda involvement in the uprising since mid-July, when fighters professing allegiance to the terrorist organization appeared during the opposition takeover of the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey . . . . Fighters, activists and analysts say that jihadi groups are emerging now . . . . [M]ost of the money flowing to the Syrian opposition is coming from religious donors in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region whose generosity hinges on Salafi teaching . . . . One recent . . . video, highlighting the storming of a police station hear Aleppo, featured a pistol, the Koran and a song about fighting [for Islam]. "The Koran in our hands, we defy our enemy, we sacrifice with our blood for religion."

Given the religious complexity of Syria, and the fact that these are Sunni jihadists, we can expect an increasing division of forces in which Sunni Arabs radicalized by Islamists drive Alawites, Christians, Shi'ites, and other minorities to band together in a common front opposed to the Sunnis and expressing support for the secular government.

This conflict could get very bloody as the government uses the minorities to fight an increasingly radicalized Sunni Arab majority (60%) to the death . . .

Islamist Persecution of Non-Muslims . . .

Benedict Rogers

Thomas More Institute

Since Ayaan Hirsi Ali's February report in Newsweek about Islamism's global war on Christians, I've noticed that this issue is getting more press. Just two days ago, I read in the International Herald Tribune of "Indonesia's Rising Religious Intolerance," an op-ed piece by Benedict Rogers (May 21, 2012) that can be found online at the New York Times site. The article is about broader Islamist mistreatment of minorities, but it cites persecution of Christians as part of this larger pattern, a problem that Mr. Rogers describes from his recent visit to Indonesia:

[On] Sunday, I joined a small church in Bekasi, a suburb of Jakarta, for a service, but found the street blocked by a noisy, angry mob and a few police.

The church, known as HKBP Filadelfia, was forced to close a few years ago, even though the local courts had given permission to open. The local mayor, under pressure from Islamists, has declared a "zero church" policy in his area. For the past two months, the congregation has been blocked from worshiping in the street outside their building, and the atmosphere has grown increasingly tense.

When I was there, I felt it could have erupted into violence at any moment. The radicals in control of the loudspeaker shouted "Christians, get out," and "anyone not wearing a jilbab (headscarf), catch them, hunt them down" . . . . Another church, GKI Yasmin in Bogor, an hour from Jakarta, has approval from the Supreme Court to open, but the local mayor, again under pressure from Islamists, refuses to allow it. A district mayor is in defiance of the Supreme Court, and no one says a word . . . . In Aceh, 17 churches were forced to close.

I met other church pastors who talked about their churches being closed, and a woman, the Rev. Luspida, who was beaten while one of her congregation was knifed. "We have no religious freedom here anymore," she told me. "We need to give a message to the president. He cannot say the situation is good here. We need to remind him our situation is very critical, and he should do something for the future of Indonesia. Support from outside is very important to pressure the president."

Those of us who are keeping track of radical Islam's fortunes in various parts of the world have long noticed and commented upon this pattern of Islamist intimidation of religious minorities, especially with respect to Christians, for the Islamists seem to have particular animus against Christianity, perhaps because the West is the old enemy that resisted successfully for so long and even turned back the spread of Islam into Europe during Medieval and Early Modern times, a humiliation exacerbated by the West's colonization of Muslim countries in the later Modern period.

Postcolonial guilt has perhaps previously blunted Western criticism of radical Islam, but a new generation has grown up without a sense of that guilt, and people are talking . . .

The Arab Spring Springs into Action -- Against Christians?

Rached Ghannouchi

AFP Photo

Now Lebanon

On Friday, a friend of mine sent me a link to Hussein Ibish's article "Leave room for the unbelievers" (Now Lebanon, April 11, 2012), in which Ibish laments the turn toward Islamism in the lands of the Arab Spring, especially for the security of unbelievers:

What is most disturbing is that it is almost impossible to imagine an Islamist-influenced system protecting the religious rights of skeptics, agnostics and atheists. Blasphemy, satire, independent scholarly investigation of early Islamic history, or merely a profession of fundamental skepticism about faith in general (and not simply Islam) are all likely to remain criminal offenses. Protection for apostasy and conversion are another key test of real religious freedom.

He's right about the extreme danger for such individuals, but he's perhaps too easy on the Islamists' treatment of the Dhimmis:

[S]ince Islam traditionally regards Judaism and Christianity as legitimate, though imprecise, monotheistic faiths, it is not hard to imagine an Islamist-influenced Arab political order protecting the religious and civic rights of these relatively small minorities, even if the most extreme Islamists won't want to do this.

Some weeks ago, I blogged on Ayaan Hirsi Ali's warning about Islamism's worldwide war on Christians, and just today, I received a new article on this very topic from the Spectator, a piece written by Douglas Davis and titled "Out of the east" (The Spectator, April 7, 2012), an ironic line with a double-entendre signifying both that Christianity came to the West from "out of the east" and that it is now being forced "out of the east"!

A few weeks ago, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Amdullah, Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, responded to a question posed by a visiting Kuwaiti delegation. Would sharia permit churches to exist in their emirate? The sheikh's response was categorical. Kuwait is part of the Arabian Peninsula, he said, and 'therefore it is necessary to destroy all the churches of the region'.

The Sheikh based his ruling on a Hadith which recorded the Prophet's deathbed declaration that, 'There are not to be two religions in the Peninsula', a command that has been interpreted to mean that only Islam may be practised in the region.

Now, the Grand Mufti is not just another swivel-eyed fanatic. He is the most senior Islamic authority in Saudi Arabia, president of the Supreme Council of Ulema [Islamic scholars] and chairman of the Standing Committee for Scientific Research and Issuing of Fatwas. His views do not make him an isolated extremist.

Of course, this is Saudi Arabia, so what does one expect of the region's religious authorities? But the 'Arab Spring' lands offer little better:

Last year, some 200,000 Coptic Christians -- such Christians once made up about 10 per cent of Egypt's 80 million population -- fled their homes after being subjected to killing, beatings and church-burnings in Alexandria, Luxor and Cairo. On New Year's Day last year, 21 Copts were slaughtered in their church in Alexandria; a further 27 died in clashes with police in Cairo.

This week, the Coptic Orthodox Church announced that it was withdrawing from talks on a new Egyptian constitution because Islamist domination of the process has made its participation 'pointless'.

Not a good omen, for Egypt is home to the largest Christian community in Arab lands. Scholars and bloggers may debate whether Islam was traditionally tolerant -- and I have come to have my doubts -- but current-day Islam looks to be so permeated by Islamism that the question is less one of relative tolerance that of relative intolerance, namely, which strain of Islam is the least intolerant?

Yes, things have come to that, and people may find that even the least intolerant versions of sharia are more than many expected, as Joel Brinkley implies . . .

Anders Behring Breivik's 'Christian Europe'

Where Does Europe End?

(Image from Wikipedia)

Somewhere in a blog comment, I suggested that Breivik is a "cultural Christian," and I see that he uses this expression in his Manifesto to identify himself, but he has given more thought to the role of the Christian church than most Europeans who are culturally Christian, so we might say that he is very serious about his cultural Christianity. Anyway, here's what I managed to obtain from his Manifesto on his vision of Christianity:

3.139 Distinguishing between cultural Christendom and religious Christendom; reforming our suicidal Church:

A majority of so called agnostics and atheists in Europe are cultural conservative Christians without even knowing it. So what is the difference between cultural Christians and religious Christians?

If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God then you are a religious Christian. Myself and many more like me do not necessarily have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God. We do however believe in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform. This makes us Christian.

A majority of Christians, especially liberal, humanist Christians oppose the doctrines of self defence. I believe that self defence is a central part of Christianity as documented in another part of this book. The modern day pacifist Christianity is among other things a result of our current regimes and their deliberate influence of the Church. They castrated and made the Church impotent and irrelevant, we will rejuvenate it by implementing our own reforms. But pragmatism will be the basis for which direction we chose to go. A strong church (on certain areas) is essential for the unity of our European countries.

It is essential that we preserve and even strengthen the Church and European Christendom in general (by awarding it more political influence on certain areas), when it comes to the moral, cultural and social aspects of society. It should even be granted monopoly on certain areas to strengthen European cohesion/unity. This does not mean that we will continue allow the feminist-liberal, humanist faction of the Church to propagate its pacifist-humanist (suicidal) views/anti self defence doctrines. The Church must be anti-pacifist in the manner that it actively preaches self-defence and even support preemptive strikes as a mechanic to safeguard either Christian minorities in Muslim dominated areas or even Europe itself. We must ensure that a sustainable and traditional version of Christendom is propagated. This will involve that we take decisive steps to disallow the liberal leaders of the church to prevent them from committing suicide. We must ensure that the churches of Europe propagate . . . values that are sustainable and that will even contribute to safeguard Christian European values long term. European Christendom and the cross will be the symbol in which every cultural conservative can unite under in our common defence. It should serve as the uniting symbol for all Europeans whether they are agnostic or atheists.

The pacifist/suicidal Christians must never be allowed to dominate the church again which one of the reasons why I personally believe that the protestant Church in Europe should once again should reform to become Catholic (Nordic countries, the UK, Germany, Benelux etc). Re-introduction of cultural and Church aspects relating to honour should be the core of our objective when reforming the Church. My hope is that the future nationalist leadership in Western European countries will agree. At the very least, we must support the conservative, anti-pacifist cultural Christian leaders and ensure that they are able to influence the European churches. There must however be clear distinctions. The Church must not put any limits whatsoever on issues relating to science, research and development. Europe will continue to be the world's center for research and development in all areas, strengthened by a predictable and unchangeable cultural framework. This again will considerably strengthen European and societal cohesion and therefore contribute to sustainable societies where harmony, progress, freedom and the furtherance of mankind are the primary civilisational pillars.

So far as I can determine, Breivik envisions a Europe of nationalistic states culturally united by a Christian church that has returned to its 'Catholic' roots but has little political power to impose dogma.

This seems to presuppose some kind of overarching European political framework, but I don't know what sort, and I can't manage to upload the entire Manifesto with my browser, so I'll have to deal with this and other passages some time later on.

Speaking of the Copts . . .

Egypt

(Image from Wikipedia)

In their recent article for the New York Times, "Promise of Arab Uprisings Is Threatened by Divisions" (May 21, 2011), Anthony Shadid and David D. Kirkpatrick have reported on Egypt's religious tensions in a somewhat oblique manner:

In Cairo, the sense of national identity that surged at the moment of revolution -- when hundreds of thousands of people of all faiths celebrated in Tahrir Square with chants of "Hold your head high, you are an Egyptian" -- has given way to a week of religious violence pitting the Coptic Christian minority against their Muslim neighbors, reflecting long-smoldering tensions that an authoritarian state may have muted, or let fester.

One has to read rather carefully to recognize the unlikelihood that a Christian minority of merely 10 percent -- unlike those peaceful "people of all [other] faiths" -- could accurately be described as adopting violence that's "pitting the Coptic Christian minority against their Muslim neighbors." Let's rewrite the passage to reflect reality:

In Cairo, the sense of national identity that surged at the moment of revolution -- when hundreds of thousands of people of all faiths celebrated in Tahrir Square with chants of "Hold your head high, you are an Egyptian" -- has given way to a week of religious violence pitting the Muslim majority against the Coptic Christian minority, reflecting long-smoldering tensions that an authoritarian state may have muted, or let fester.

That would more accurately portray what is really happening in Egypt between the Copts and their Islamist opponents. But denial is a river in Egypt, and here is what instead gets reported:

At a rally this month in Tahrir Square to call for unity, Coptic Christians were conspicuously absent, thousands of them gathering nearby for a rally of their own. And even among some Muslims at the unity rally, suspicions were pronounced.

"As Muslims, our sheiks are always telling us to be good to Christians, but we don't think that is happening on the other side," said Ibrahim Sakr, 56, a chemistry professor, who asserted that Copts, who make up about 10 percent of the population, still consider themselves "the original" Egyptians because their presence predates Islam.

I am skeptical that many sheiks are "always" pressing the Muslim faithful "to be good to Christians," but be that as it may, the Copts are the original Egyptians, and their liturgical language derives from the ancient Egyptian language.

As for the unidentified "rally of their own," I suspect that the Copts were rallying to protest the recent attacks upon several of their churches, one of which was set ablaze. Little wonder that the "Coptic Christians were conspicuously absent" from the "rally this month in Tahrir Square."

And what of those "hundreds of thousands of people of all faiths" who had previously "celebrated"? Did they all show up for the unity rally? Of course not. There is no "all faiths" in Egypt. Aside from infinitesimally tiny slivers of other religions like the Bahá'í, who are scarcely worth counting, there are only the 90 percent Muslim majority and the 10 percent Christian minority -- and Egypt's Islamists would like to see that 10 percent whittled down to a mere sliver, too.

Will Copts go the way of Iraq's Christians and flee their native country in reaction to Islamist violence? I suppose that we'll find out.

"Imitation of Christ"

Thomas à Kempis

(Image from Wikipedia)

In a recent Christianity Today article, "The Jesus We'll Never Know" (April 9, 2010), Scot McKnight tells of how he begins his class on that 'historical Jesus' figure known as Jesus of Nazareth:

On the opening day of my class on Jesus of Nazareth, I give a standardized psychological test divided into two parts. The results are nothing short of astounding.

The first part is about Jesus. It asks students to imagine Jesus' personality, with questions such as, "Does he prefer to go his own way rather than act by the rules?" and "Is he a worrier?" The second part asks the same questions of the students, but instead of "Is he a worrier?" it asks, "Are you a worrier?" The test is not about right or wrong answers, nor is it designed to help students understand Jesus. Instead, if given to enough people, the test will reveal that we all think Jesus is like us. Introverts think Jesus is introverted, for example, and, on the basis of the same questions, extroverts think Jesus is extroverted.

Spiritual formation experts would love to hear that students in my Jesus class are becoming like Jesus, but the test actually reveals the reverse: Students are fashioning Jesus to be more like themselves. If the test were given to a random sample of adults, the results would be measurably similar. To one degree or another, we all conform Jesus to our own image.

Since we are pushing this point, let's not forget historical Jesus scholars, whose academic goal is to study the records, set the evidence in historical context, render judgment about the value of the evidence, and compose a portrait of "what Jesus was really like." They, too, have ended up making Jesus in their own image.

I recall as an undergraduate at Baylor University that during a time of depression, I imagined Jesus as a depressed individual, though a happy friend insisted that Jesus was a very happy fellow. We both made Jesus in our own images, so I reckon McKnight is correct. His point is not entirely new, of course, as Albert Schweitzer noted this early in the twentieth century in his critique of the Jesus reconstructed by scholars in their search for the historical Jesus, for these scholars all reconstituted Jesus in their own image. The tendency undoubtedly goes back centuries, for instance to Thomas à Kempis in his famous, fifteenth-century De imitatione Christi, as we perhaps see here, in an English translation by Aloysius Croft and Harold Bolton, The Imitation of Christ (Bruce Publishing Company, 1940), Book 4, Chapter 8:

As I offered Myself willingly to God the Father for your sins with hands outstretched and body naked on the cross, so that nothing remained in Me that had not become a complete sacrifice to appease the divine wrath, so ought you to be willing to offer yourself to Me day by day in the Mass as a pure and holy oblation, together with all your faculties and affections, with as much inward devotion as you can.

What more do I ask than that you give yourself entirely to Me? I care not for anything else you may give Me, for I seek not your gift but you. Just as it would not be enough for you to have everything if you did not have Me, so whatever you give cannot please Me if you do not give yourself.

Offer yourself to Me, therefore, and give yourself entirely for God -- your offering will be accepted. Behold, I offered Myself wholly to the Father for you, I even gave My whole Body and Blood for food that I might be all yours, and you Mine forever.

But if you rely upon self, and do not offer your free will to Mine, your offering will be incomplete and the union between us imperfect. Hence, if you desire to attain grace and freedom of heart, let the free offering of yourself into the hands of God precede your every action. This is why so few are inwardly free and enlightened -- they know not how to renounce themselves entirely.

My word stands: "Everyone of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth, cannot be My disciple." (Luke 14:33)

If, therefore, you wish to be My disciple, offer yourself to Me with all your heart. (paragraphs 231-232)

Here, we see a Christ who renounced all of his 'self' on the cross and asks his followers to do the same, which would likely appeal to Christians of many varieties of Christianity, but in some of the specifics might appeal only to Catholics, for in references to the "mass" and to Christ's body and blood as "food," we see a very Catholic Christ exhorting Catholic Christians to (distantly) imitate him by offering themselves as "oblations" during the same mass. Thomas à Kempis would thus appear to have constructed Christ as a Catholic.

I offer nothing surprising or profound in this observation, obviously, neither anything original nor purely scholarly. I was simply struck by Scot McKnight's anecdote about students and by the thought that Thomas à Kempis must have done the same sort of thing.

I suppose that some scholar has looked into the point, but this is just a note to myself . . .

Neda Agha-Soltan's death revisited . . .

Marzieh Amirizadeh

and

Maryam Rustampoor

Muslim-Background Christians

(Image from BosNewsLife)

Although I'm now about 90 percent convinced that Neda Agha-Soltan's death was a purely random killing by the Basij, who had no suspicion that she might have been Christian, the case of Muslim-background Christians such as Marzieh Amirizadeh and Maryam Rustampoor is what raised my suspicions:

Marzieh Amirizadeh, 30, and Maryam Rustampoor, 27, have been held for over four months in Tehran's notorious Evin prison apparently for converting to Christianity from Islam.

Iranian Christians and rights investigators said the two young women, who were arrested March 5, suffered sleep deprivation as part of police interrogations and were held in solitary confinement for three weeks in May and early June.

Later, they were put together in one small cell for about two weeks before being moved to a larger area to make place for other inmates, including many protesters who were detained following last month's disputed presidential elections, said Christians with close knowledge about the situation.

About 600 women were reportedly brought to Evin prison during the protests. (Stefan J. Bos, "Concerns Over Detained Iranian Christians Amid Political Turmoil," BosNewLife, July 7, 2009)

As the report notes, apostasy from Islam is taken very seriously in Iran:

Apostasy along with murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, and drug trafficking are all punishable by death in Iran, and last week Iranian media reported that at least six people were hanged for murder in the same prison where the two Christian women are held.

Iran's hardline on apostasy, combined with the seeming cross worn by Neda Agha-Soltan, left me wondering . . . but my former student Hajir, an Iranian, expressed skepticism that Neda had been specifically targeted:

Even though it might seem interesting that a girl whos name is Persian was wearing a cross in a picture, to me it is not surprising at all. First of all many of people who I know that live very secular if they find something stylish they might wear it for a period, therefore they are not necessarily Christian.

Or since many Persians these days are confused with their religious identity might identify themselves with any religion temporarily, but they cannot be considered real converts because [they] mostly do not have deep understanding and they just follow the trend for a short period.

But still there are many (unknown number) of Christian converts in Iran that she might also be one of them, Her religious belief is really uncertain to me, indeed it seems a cross to me in the photo.

. . .

I personally think her death was just like other deaths that unfortunately took place within the past few weeks and the only distinction is the video that has made the scene more significant than the others.

I believe she was shot down by Basij troops and the death was not plotted in advance. Because police were even unable to locate the protests, how could they possibly know somebody who has no high profile -- like her -- is somewhere among the protesters to plan to kill her?!

Hajir's final point is a very astute one. Following through on some plan to kill Neda Agha-Soltan in the chaotic crowds would have been very difficult. Still, let's not dismiss it entirely, for Iran's Islamist leaders are said to be worried about conversions away from Islam, especially conversions to Christianity, so much so that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reportedly promised, "I will stop Christianity in this country" (Kenneth R. Timmerman, "Freedom to Believe," NRO, December 15, 2005). Consider this analysis from the news report above on Marzieh Amirizadeh and Maryam Rustampoor:

Elam Ministries linked the attacks [on Muslim-background Christians] to concern among Iran's leaders about the spread of Christianity in the Islamic nation. "Because Iran is a strategic gateway nation, the growing church in Iran will impact Muslim nations across the Islamic world."

The group said in 1979, there were less than 500 known Christians from a Muslim background in Iran. "Today the most conservative estimate is that there are at least 100,000 believers in the nation."

Church leaders have reportedly said that they believe "millions" can be added "to the church in the next few years-such is the spiritual hunger that exists and the disillusionment with the Islamic regime." (Stefan J. Bos, "Concerns Over Detained Iranian Christians Amid Political Turmoil," BosNewLife, July 7, 2009)

One need not accept the optimistic projections of Elam Ministries to recognize that the Islamic Republic of Iran might be paranoid about such conversions. Some supporters of the Iranian government even seem to revel in the brutal suppression, as with this "Anonymous" individual in a comment to one of my blog entries on the election in Iran:

Ahmadinejad was ahead before the election, and there is no reason to believe he did not win a landslide. He has been rubbing the West's nose in its own sh*t for over 4 years.

Four more years, like it or not. (Your own sh*t, that is.)

I found courtesy difficult to maintain in the face of such vulgar gloating by an individual who didn't even bother with asterisks (though I have since supplied these), but I did manage what I hope was a sufficiently irenic reply:

Anonymous, when I saw the "Anonymous" signature, I expected the sort of comment that you posted, so I wasn't surprised and therefore certainly not disappointed.

Congratulations on your victory. You sound happy with it.

We'll just have to see how this all plays out over the years and months, but "Anonymous" should recall that fateful warning to Sir Gawain: Þe forme to þe fynisment foldez ful selden ("first things to last things very seldom match," SGGK, Part 2, line 499).

Neda Agha-Soltan: A Christian?

Neda Agha-Soltan

Click Photo to Enlarge

(Image from Gabrielle Cusumano)

Readers probably recognize this photo of Neda Soltan, the 26-year-old Iranian woman who was struck by a bullet in the heart on June 20, 2009 during the recent demonstrations in Iran. If you missed the earlier reports, see the Wikipedia entry on the "Death of Neda Agha-Soltan" for information and links.

Truth is hard to come by in a case such as this, for the Iranian government has clamped down on reports and has claimed that foreigners killed her. I certainly don't accept this official Iranian claim. Initially, I assumed that Ms. Soltan had simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and had gotten struck by a stray bullet, for she was apparently not directly involved in a protest at the moment, nor was she especially close to where clashes were occurring. Many reports that I've seen, however, insist that she was deliberately targeted by the Basij, a paramilitary volunteer militia formed to protect the Islamist Iranian state and monitor the Islamic practices of Iranian citizens. But I couldn't understand why someone as innocuous as Ms. Soltan would be targeted.

Now, the buzz on the internet has been growing that Ms. Soltan was a Christian, based on the evidence of what appears to be a Christian cross on the necklace that she is wearing in the photograph above. Click on the photo to enlarge the image, and decide for yourself, but it does appear to be a cross to my eyes -- as well as to the eyes of my wife.

From the fact that Ms. Soltan had studied at Islamic Azad University, majoring in philosophy and religion, I had assumed that she was Muslim, but supposing that she were a convert from Islam to Christianity, then a motive for her execution would become more plausible, for Muslim-background Christian have previously been targeted by Iran's Islamist government (e.g., Hossein Soodmand in 1989, Mehdi Dibaj in 1994, and Ghorban Tourani in 2005), and the popular disorder during the demonstrations may have provided the Basij a perfect opportunity to strike.

So . . . was Ms. Soltan a Christian . . . and was she targeted? I suspect that we'll be hearing more about this soon enough, though definitive answers might be difficult to obtain.