I managed to read almost all of Christianity and Islam in Spain A.D. 756-1031 by C. Haines over the weekend, and it is, well, passable. And number three or four on my reading list is Early Christianity in Arabia by Thomas Wright, so I should know more about the topic within three weeks or so.
But for now I do know of two churches in Saudi Arabia, including one recently discovered one. There is a link HERE on the church in Jeddah, but the site is in Arabic but I guess you can use a translator site if you want. And then there is a 4th C. Assyrian church also, the article is in English with some beautiful pictures HERE.
Technically under shari'a either of these could be rebuilt or repaired into functioning churches. But there is hadith (of questionable authenticity) saying that there should only be one religion in the Gulf, and that is why KSA has not allowed any visible church congregations to exist in the country.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Rumors of War: Israel and Iran
Well, the mob riots in Acre have subsided after four days, which is good. On the other hand we receive news (which seems reasonable) that Israel may well be planning a strike on Iran before the end of the Bush administration, which has been strongly supportive of Israel over the years.
The article is over at the UK site, TimesOnline. One section:
Some key decision makers in Israel fear that unless they attack Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities in the next few months, while George W Bush is still president, there will not be another period when they can rely on the United States as being anywhere near as supportive in the aftermath of a unilateral attack.
In the past 40 years there have been few occasions when I have been more concerned about a specific conflict escalating to involve, economically, the whole world. We are watching a disinformation exercise involving a number of intelligence services. Reality is becoming ever harder to disentangle. [...]
The article is over at the UK site, TimesOnline. One section:
Some key decision makers in Israel fear that unless they attack Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities in the next few months, while George W Bush is still president, there will not be another period when they can rely on the United States as being anywhere near as supportive in the aftermath of a unilateral attack.
In the past 40 years there have been few occasions when I have been more concerned about a specific conflict escalating to involve, economically, the whole world. We are watching a disinformation exercise involving a number of intelligence services. Reality is becoming ever harder to disentangle. [...]
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Quote from Ramon Llull (Raymund Lully)
Blessed Ramon Llull (1235-1315), Missionary to the Muslims and Martyr
"Death has no terrors for a sincere servant of Christ who is laboring to bring souls to a knowledge of the truth."
Can you figure out why this guy is my hero? I mean, he combines the best elements of catholic Christianity, evangelical zeal, and a missio-centric spirituality focused on the unreached--especially Muslims. What more could you want? Oh yeah: he was a married man and lay missionary.
(Abu Daoud is listening to The Division Bell by Pink Floyd. Have you all heard this album? I really like it, what do you think?)
"Death has no terrors for a sincere servant of Christ who is laboring to bring souls to a knowledge of the truth."
Can you figure out why this guy is my hero? I mean, he combines the best elements of catholic Christianity, evangelical zeal, and a missio-centric spirituality focused on the unreached--especially Muslims. What more could you want? Oh yeah: he was a married man and lay missionary.
(Abu Daoud is listening to The Division Bell by Pink Floyd. Have you all heard this album? I really like it, what do you think?)
Baptism for Muslims: Syncretism or heterodox practice?
Thanks to a reader for posting this. I have been enjoying reading Religious Syncretism by Eric Maroney over the past few days. If you can pick it up I recommend it, though some of the material on the BVM will make you squirm (especially all of you devout Catholics out there).
But here is an interesting and recent article about Muslims, in fulfilling their vows, taking their children to be "baptized" in fulfilling a specific vow. I will say that I had known about this outside of MENA, but to hear of it happening in Egypt is quite curious, though not entirely surprising given the Holy Family's sojourn there. I will say that sacramentally it is probably not a genuine baptism though. That the priests have built a different room for Muslim baptisms indicate that theologically what is happening is not a regular baptism. It is probably more of an act of dedication and thanksgiving that the priests are willing to help with. Clearly they do not believe that this Muslim baby is truly being grafted into the Church, the body of Christ, through this act. In any case, it would be interesting to explore more this interesting phenomenon.
Baptism brings together Muslims and Christians in Drenka celebrations
ASSIUT: Last month, 49-year-old Om Khaled was on her way to the Virgin Mary Monastery in Drenka, Assiut to baptize her three-month-old son. The Muslim woman, following an age-old tradition in her hometown, was fulfilling a vow to God (nadr) to baptize her son according to Christian rituals if she were to ever get pregnant.
During the monastery celebrations, held every year from Aug. 7 to 21, Muslims making similar vows flock to the monastery, where the Holy Family is believed to have taken refuge during their visit to Egypt. According to Father Yacoub Suleiman, spokesman of the Virgin Mary Monastery, about 40 Muslims seeking to baptize their newborns arrive every day. The number reaches 100 during the last three days of celebrations.
This has led the monastery to build another room dedicated solely to baptizing Muslims, next to the one dedicated to Copts.
Both rooms feature a stone container filled with water, in which babies are immersed three consecutive times. The only difference is the use of the holy oil, referred to as ‘Miron’ in baptizing Christians. The full baptism ritual, including the holy oil, is the first step in the Christian faith. Boys are baptized after 40 days of birth and girls after 80. In the case of converting to Christianity, baptism is not limited to a certain age.
But this difference between the two rooms had led to some objections. Hossam Salman, a 40-year-old Muslim, insisted on baptizing his newborn in the Christian room, with all the rituals intact.
The priests who tried to persuade Salman that there’s no difference between the two rooms, had to find an alternative.
“The priests had to find an alternative because using the Miron oil [during the ritual] would mean that the child is a Christian,” one of the priests told Daily News Egypt. [...]
But here is an interesting and recent article about Muslims, in fulfilling their vows, taking their children to be "baptized" in fulfilling a specific vow. I will say that I had known about this outside of MENA, but to hear of it happening in Egypt is quite curious, though not entirely surprising given the Holy Family's sojourn there. I will say that sacramentally it is probably not a genuine baptism though. That the priests have built a different room for Muslim baptisms indicate that theologically what is happening is not a regular baptism. It is probably more of an act of dedication and thanksgiving that the priests are willing to help with. Clearly they do not believe that this Muslim baby is truly being grafted into the Church, the body of Christ, through this act. In any case, it would be interesting to explore more this interesting phenomenon.
Baptism brings together Muslims and Christians in Drenka celebrations
ASSIUT: Last month, 49-year-old Om Khaled was on her way to the Virgin Mary Monastery in Drenka, Assiut to baptize her three-month-old son. The Muslim woman, following an age-old tradition in her hometown, was fulfilling a vow to God (nadr) to baptize her son according to Christian rituals if she were to ever get pregnant.
During the monastery celebrations, held every year from Aug. 7 to 21, Muslims making similar vows flock to the monastery, where the Holy Family is believed to have taken refuge during their visit to Egypt. According to Father Yacoub Suleiman, spokesman of the Virgin Mary Monastery, about 40 Muslims seeking to baptize their newborns arrive every day. The number reaches 100 during the last three days of celebrations.
This has led the monastery to build another room dedicated solely to baptizing Muslims, next to the one dedicated to Copts.
Both rooms feature a stone container filled with water, in which babies are immersed three consecutive times. The only difference is the use of the holy oil, referred to as ‘Miron’ in baptizing Christians. The full baptism ritual, including the holy oil, is the first step in the Christian faith. Boys are baptized after 40 days of birth and girls after 80. In the case of converting to Christianity, baptism is not limited to a certain age.
But this difference between the two rooms had led to some objections. Hossam Salman, a 40-year-old Muslim, insisted on baptizing his newborn in the Christian room, with all the rituals intact.
The priests who tried to persuade Salman that there’s no difference between the two rooms, had to find an alternative.
“The priests had to find an alternative because using the Miron oil [during the ritual] would mean that the child is a Christian,” one of the priests told Daily News Egypt. [...]
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Unrest in Acre between Arabs and Jews
This is not sexy enough to make the Western news, I'm guessing, but it's very significant IMHO:
The riots erupted before dawn Wednesday when an Arab resident of the mixed town drove his car into a Jewish neighborhood during the holy day of Yom Kippur, during which even secular Jews refrain from driving out of respect. Jewish rioters alleged that the man defiantly played loud music, and proceeded to assault him, sparking large scale clashes between Jews and Arabs in the area.
Israeli Arab MK Mohammed Barakeh (Hadash) said the incident had less to do with Yom Kippur than a deliberate "escalation of racist speech" ahead of Israeli municipal elections next month.
The riots erupted before dawn Wednesday when an Arab resident of the mixed town drove his car into a Jewish neighborhood during the holy day of Yom Kippur, during which even secular Jews refrain from driving out of respect. Jewish rioters alleged that the man defiantly played loud music, and proceeded to assault him, sparking large scale clashes between Jews and Arabs in the area.
Israeli Arab MK Mohammed Barakeh (Hadash) said the incident had less to do with Yom Kippur than a deliberate "escalation of racist speech" ahead of Israeli municipal elections next month.
Balkan and Bulgerian Islam and syncretism
Balkan Islam is in many instances a form of Pagan-Christian-Islamic syncretism. Here are some of the more interesting practices:
Baptism by Anatolian Muslims, and later by their Balkan counterparts, was performed not to satisfy any sacramental necessity, but from the popular folk belief that immersion in Christian holy water would armed infants against disease and protected them from mental illness. [...]
The Pomacks of Bulgaria practised a particularly lovely and egregious form of syncretistic Islam where many, if not all, of the old Bulgaro-Christian patterns that had developed for a millenium continued to be practised without anyone missing a step. [...] They believed that taking Easter eggs from Christians assured one of good health and they believed that bringing sick children to church on Good Friday would gaurantee a cure. They sought out the blessings of priests on feast days, and they took holy water from the same priests for the benefit of family members and even livestock. The Pomacks also continued to make offerings to Orthodox Church icons; they even covertly kept church books and icons in their homes. [...] they continued the old Slavic custom of animal sacrifice and families often remembered the day of their patron saints and continued to celebrate them privately...
Religious Syncretism by Eric Maroney, p. 63
London: SCM Press, 2006
Baptism by Anatolian Muslims, and later by their Balkan counterparts, was performed not to satisfy any sacramental necessity, but from the popular folk belief that immersion in Christian holy water would armed infants against disease and protected them from mental illness. [...]
The Pomacks of Bulgaria practised a particularly lovely and egregious form of syncretistic Islam where many, if not all, of the old Bulgaro-Christian patterns that had developed for a millenium continued to be practised without anyone missing a step. [...] They believed that taking Easter eggs from Christians assured one of good health and they believed that bringing sick children to church on Good Friday would gaurantee a cure. They sought out the blessings of priests on feast days, and they took holy water from the same priests for the benefit of family members and even livestock. The Pomacks also continued to make offerings to Orthodox Church icons; they even covertly kept church books and icons in their homes. [...] they continued the old Slavic custom of animal sacrifice and families often remembered the day of their patron saints and continued to celebrate them privately...
Religious Syncretism by Eric Maroney, p. 63
London: SCM Press, 2006
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Syncretism and the Marranos of Iberia
I have been doing some reading on syncretism lately, that is, the combining of two religions such that the result is not identifiable as either of the two original religions. The reason I'm looking at this is because presently in the area of missiology in the Muslim world there is an understandable desire to avoid syncretism while being as conextualized and inculturated as possible.
Marranism is an almost extinct religion today, but grew out of the crypto-Judaism present in the Iberian peninsula after the completion of the Reconquista (1492). It is thus a mixture of Judaism and Catholicism, but is neither of the two. Here is an interesting quote from the book I'm reading on the topic:
[S]eemingly irreconcilable elements can always be reconciled by someone, somewhere. Dissimilar parents can raise a child they never anticipated. And something that is impure is often pure in someone else's eyes.
Religious Syncretism by Eric Maroney, p. 41
London: SCM Press, 2006
Marranism is an almost extinct religion today, but grew out of the crypto-Judaism present in the Iberian peninsula after the completion of the Reconquista (1492). It is thus a mixture of Judaism and Catholicism, but is neither of the two. Here is an interesting quote from the book I'm reading on the topic:
[S]eemingly irreconcilable elements can always be reconciled by someone, somewhere. Dissimilar parents can raise a child they never anticipated. And something that is impure is often pure in someone else's eyes.
Religious Syncretism by Eric Maroney, p. 41
London: SCM Press, 2006
The Catholic Church and frontier mission today
I guess you could count this as part II of a continuing conversation, after my rather short post a few days ago on Raymund Lully, and the loss of missionary zeal in the Catholic Church today. I specifically was quite careful in choosing my words, and here is what I said:
There were great examples here and there to the contrary, but placing frontier mission and world mission at the center of the Church's life never took root in Catholicism. (Yes, I'm gonna say that, and it makes me sad.)
But Rob answered my post thusly:
I don't buy this "RC's don't mission", Abu Daoud. We were almost everywhere long before anyone else. We got kicked out of Japan before most people knew where it was. If our growth has slowed, forgive us as we organize a billion people.
Of course this is not what I said, that RC's don't do mission. I said that today they don't do frontier mission, and that frontier mission, when it was successful was never really owned by the people historically, but by this or that religious order. Orders are very important to the life of the Catholic Church and I know this well, having studied for years theology with one of them. But if they are the center of the Church's mission to the frontier (definition forthcoming), then it is a losing strategy, as most religious orders cannot even supply enough priests to keep their institutions in the West functioning within a recognizably Catholic framework.
Rob mentions that his neighbors are not Christians, does he live on the frontier of missions? The simple answer is no. Mongolia, which he mentions may indeed be frontier mission though. Much of sub-Saharan Africa is no longer the mission frontier. Almost all of N. Africa is. How many new churches and converts have been baptized into the Catholic Church in North Africa? None that I know of. How many have become part of evangelically oriented home churches? Probably several thousand, maybe more than 10k.
But here is the definition for frontier missions:
Frontier Missions is a Christian missiological term referring to the pioneering of the gospel among ethno-cultural and ethno-linguistic population segments where there is no indigenous church. The phrase was originally used with reference to Catholic, and later Protestant, mission stations in the Western United States. In the 1960s missiologists began to re-employ the term to distinguish between two kinds of missionary work: that which was being done among peoples where the indigenous church was already established, and new efforts among peoples where the Christian Church was very weak or non-existent. The contemporary usage of the term is part of a general trend to look at the missionary task more in terms of social, cultural and linguistic isolation from the gospel, rather than strictly geographic isolation.
My original point still stands. This sort of mission was never and is not owned by the core of the Catholic Church, notwithstanding notable exceptions here and there and the zealous former work of certain religious orders. It was the idea of Blessed Raymund Lully that it should be the heart beat of the Catholic Church and he lived out this vision powerfully.
There were great examples here and there to the contrary, but placing frontier mission and world mission at the center of the Church's life never took root in Catholicism. (Yes, I'm gonna say that, and it makes me sad.)
But Rob answered my post thusly:
I don't buy this "RC's don't mission", Abu Daoud. We were almost everywhere long before anyone else. We got kicked out of Japan before most people knew where it was. If our growth has slowed, forgive us as we organize a billion people.
Of course this is not what I said, that RC's don't do mission. I said that today they don't do frontier mission, and that frontier mission, when it was successful was never really owned by the people historically, but by this or that religious order. Orders are very important to the life of the Catholic Church and I know this well, having studied for years theology with one of them. But if they are the center of the Church's mission to the frontier (definition forthcoming), then it is a losing strategy, as most religious orders cannot even supply enough priests to keep their institutions in the West functioning within a recognizably Catholic framework.
Rob mentions that his neighbors are not Christians, does he live on the frontier of missions? The simple answer is no. Mongolia, which he mentions may indeed be frontier mission though. Much of sub-Saharan Africa is no longer the mission frontier. Almost all of N. Africa is. How many new churches and converts have been baptized into the Catholic Church in North Africa? None that I know of. How many have become part of evangelically oriented home churches? Probably several thousand, maybe more than 10k.
But here is the definition for frontier missions:
Frontier Missions is a Christian missiological term referring to the pioneering of the gospel among ethno-cultural and ethno-linguistic population segments where there is no indigenous church. The phrase was originally used with reference to Catholic, and later Protestant, mission stations in the Western United States. In the 1960s missiologists began to re-employ the term to distinguish between two kinds of missionary work: that which was being done among peoples where the indigenous church was already established, and new efforts among peoples where the Christian Church was very weak or non-existent. The contemporary usage of the term is part of a general trend to look at the missionary task more in terms of social, cultural and linguistic isolation from the gospel, rather than strictly geographic isolation.
My original point still stands. This sort of mission was never and is not owned by the core of the Catholic Church, notwithstanding notable exceptions here and there and the zealous former work of certain religious orders. It was the idea of Blessed Raymund Lully that it should be the heart beat of the Catholic Church and he lived out this vision powerfully.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Pope begins Bible-reading marathon
From CNN:
ROME, Italy (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI's "In the beginning" started off a weeklong Bible-reading marathon on Italian television Sunday.
RAI state TV began its program called "The Bible Day and Night," with Benedict reciting the first chapter of the book of Genesis -- the holy text's opening verses about the creation of the world.
The marathon will feature more than 1,200 people reading the Old and New Testament in over seven days and six nights. [...]
"The word of God will enter the homes and accompany the lives of families and individual people," Benedict said of the program following his traditional noontime blessing on Sunday. "If welcomed, this seed will not fail to bring abundant fruits."
What I wouldn't give to hear an Episcopal bishop say something like that! OK, ok, so some of them do, but most of them, well...
And may I also mention that simple interaction with the Bible is one of the main things that draws Muslims to Christ? Yes, and I do mean just reading or hearing it, aside from any preaching or explanations.
ROME, Italy (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI's "In the beginning" started off a weeklong Bible-reading marathon on Italian television Sunday.
RAI state TV began its program called "The Bible Day and Night," with Benedict reciting the first chapter of the book of Genesis -- the holy text's opening verses about the creation of the world.
The marathon will feature more than 1,200 people reading the Old and New Testament in over seven days and six nights. [...]
"The word of God will enter the homes and accompany the lives of families and individual people," Benedict said of the program following his traditional noontime blessing on Sunday. "If welcomed, this seed will not fail to bring abundant fruits."
What I wouldn't give to hear an Episcopal bishop say something like that! OK, ok, so some of them do, but most of them, well...
And may I also mention that simple interaction with the Bible is one of the main things that draws Muslims to Christ? Yes, and I do mean just reading or hearing it, aside from any preaching or explanations.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Review this blog...
World Mission and Ramon Llull (aka Raymond Lully)
In case you didn't know one of my great heroes of all times is Raymund Lully, and I have a nice quote about him from one of the many old history books I am reading these days that was dug up from the underbelly of my college's library. The author, speaking of Lull says:
The mission to the non-Christian world, he believed, should be the first concern of the Church, claiming its most capable men and a worthy portion of its property. He advocated missions not only to North Africa but to the east, not only to the Muslims but to the Mongols. He knew the Muslims best, however, and said of them, “Once they were converted, it would be light thing to convert the rest of the world." […] Lull’s idea that the whole church should take up this task came to nought. It continued to be the concern of only a few, chiefly from these two Orders [Franciscans and Dominicans], who were scattered over North Africa and, as occasion offered, in Palestine and Syria. Some did go on to the land of the Mongols.
Beginning From Jerusalem: Christian Expansion through Seventeen Centuries
John Foster, London, 1956, pp. 59, 60
Lull's focus on world mission and frontier mission being central to church life would have to wait for the Reformation and then the birth of evangelicalism, but ultimately in the early 19th Century it gained a very significant following among certain Western evangelical and (later) charismatic churches. There were great examples here and there to the contrary, but placing frontier mission and world mission at the center of the Church's life never took root in Catholicism. (Yes, I'm gonna say that, and it makes me sad.)
The mission to the non-Christian world, he believed, should be the first concern of the Church, claiming its most capable men and a worthy portion of its property. He advocated missions not only to North Africa but to the east, not only to the Muslims but to the Mongols. He knew the Muslims best, however, and said of them, “Once they were converted, it would be light thing to convert the rest of the world." […] Lull’s idea that the whole church should take up this task came to nought. It continued to be the concern of only a few, chiefly from these two Orders [Franciscans and Dominicans], who were scattered over North Africa and, as occasion offered, in Palestine and Syria. Some did go on to the land of the Mongols.
Beginning From Jerusalem: Christian Expansion through Seventeen Centuries
John Foster, London, 1956, pp. 59, 60
Lull's focus on world mission and frontier mission being central to church life would have to wait for the Reformation and then the birth of evangelicalism, but ultimately in the early 19th Century it gained a very significant following among certain Western evangelical and (later) charismatic churches. There were great examples here and there to the contrary, but placing frontier mission and world mission at the center of the Church's life never took root in Catholicism. (Yes, I'm gonna say that, and it makes me sad.)
High Priests and the early church
One hears from time to time how after Constantine everything went down hill and the leaders of the church came to be equated with priests who, as in the Old Covenant, offered sacrifices on behalf of the people and were, in some way, the mediators of God's grace. It is true that this understanding of the priesthood increased in the Western church, especially in the medieval period. But like it or not we find in as early a document as the Didache, on which I have commented extensively, a clear indication that sacerdotal language for ministers is very early.
But like it or not, we find this brazen statement regarding the early church's prophets being not just priests, but high priests:
But every true prophet that wills to abide among you is worthy of his support. So also a true teacher is himself worthy, as the workman, of his support. Every first-fruit, therefore, of the products of wine-press and threshing-floor, of oxen and of sheep, you shall take and give to the prophets, for they are your high priests.
Didache 13
But like it or not, we find this brazen statement regarding the early church's prophets being not just priests, but high priests:
But every true prophet that wills to abide among you is worthy of his support. So also a true teacher is himself worthy, as the workman, of his support. Every first-fruit, therefore, of the products of wine-press and threshing-floor, of oxen and of sheep, you shall take and give to the prophets, for they are your high priests.
Didache 13
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Sunni nervousness about the rise of the Shi'a
From HERE:
Qatar-based Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi recently set off a hot controversy. The influential Sunni cleric, a regular on Al-Jazeera, stated that "Shiites are heretics and their danger comes from their attempts to invade Sunni society." Interestingly enough this is far from just a religious debate, because it actually encompasses the fear that Sunni Gulf states feel regarding Shiite Iran's expansion.
In the context of a very tensed geopolitical situation in the Gulf, Qaradawi warned: "We should protect Sunni society from the Shiite invasion…. I am only trying to preempt the threat before it gets worse. If we let Shiites penetrate Sunni societies, the outcome won't be praiseworthy. The presence of Shiites in Iraq and Lebanon is the best evidence of instability."
This declaration is clearly aimed at Iran's threat to the region. While numerous examples of Iran's strategy of penetration of Gulf societies have surfaced in the past few years, new reports are quite worrisome.
Just two weeks ago, Adel al-Assadi, the former Iranian ambassador to the UAE told Gulf News that since 1979 Iran has assembled a force of infiltrators and collaborators who are ready to destabilize the region when needed.
Assadi specifically pointed out the danger represented by elements trained by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who are in a sleeper mode until they are activated by Tehran.
Qatar-based Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi recently set off a hot controversy. The influential Sunni cleric, a regular on Al-Jazeera, stated that "Shiites are heretics and their danger comes from their attempts to invade Sunni society." Interestingly enough this is far from just a religious debate, because it actually encompasses the fear that Sunni Gulf states feel regarding Shiite Iran's expansion.
In the context of a very tensed geopolitical situation in the Gulf, Qaradawi warned: "We should protect Sunni society from the Shiite invasion…. I am only trying to preempt the threat before it gets worse. If we let Shiites penetrate Sunni societies, the outcome won't be praiseworthy. The presence of Shiites in Iraq and Lebanon is the best evidence of instability."
This declaration is clearly aimed at Iran's threat to the region. While numerous examples of Iran's strategy of penetration of Gulf societies have surfaced in the past few years, new reports are quite worrisome.
Just two weeks ago, Adel al-Assadi, the former Iranian ambassador to the UAE told Gulf News that since 1979 Iran has assembled a force of infiltrators and collaborators who are ready to destabilize the region when needed.
Assadi specifically pointed out the danger represented by elements trained by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who are in a sleeper mode until they are activated by Tehran.
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