The impact of the Gulf War on the churches in the Middle East: A socio-cultural and spiritual analysis

Much has been written about the Persian Gulf War, mostly from an American perspective. Little has been published from a non-Western, especially Christian perspective, to a North American audience. This paper is an attempt to highlight the effect of the Gulf War on the people of the Middle East generally and the Christian communities in particular. The author analyzes the social and political factors, summarizes the reports received from various public and private sources, such as national pastors and mission organizations, and presents his own impressions and evaluation of the current events as a Lebanese Christian national.     

Witnessing to Christ Today

The global health situation at the beginning of the third millennium is alarming. 1 While countries in the global North spend huge amounts of money providing high‐tech medicine for their citizens, many people in resource‐limited settings still do not have access to basic health care. These people bear an unjust burden of disease, and tens of thousands die every day of diseases that can be treated and often cured. In this regard, the contribution of Christian churches to health care is sorely needed. Already, churches and faith‐based organizations are important health providers in many countries. This is especially the case with regard to people in remote areas and in resource‐limited settings, and with marginalized groups in these and other places. In addition to the engagement by Christian bodies in health care, in many churches, especially the fast‐growing churches of the global South, spiritual healing is becoming increasingly important. These churches seek to provide healing through prayer, blessing, the laying on of hands, and anointing with oil. However, many inside and outside the churches are not so confident that the churches' engagement in the field of health and healing is essential to their mission. Some argue that the churches should only be involved in health care provision if there are no secular health providers available. Also, whilst others insist on the use of exclusively “spiritual” means to overcome illness, many question whether Christians today should still seek to overcome illness through this approach. Against this background, the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the German Institute for Medical Mission (DIFAEM) wish to contribute to an understanding of the healing mission of the church today. Both organizations are engaged in the field of mission and healing, and have a long history in dealing with questions about the Christian healing ministry. 2 Since its inception, the WCC has regarded issues related to health as part of its core work. Health care and theological questions on health and healing have been on the agenda of WCC programmes on mission, as well as those dealing with justice and diakonia. For many years, the WCC's Christian Medical Commission guided the organization's work on health and healing. DIFAEM has been a partner with the WCC in worldwide discussions on the healing mission of the churches since the mid‐1960s, and a leader in the promotion and implementation of the concept of primary health care. In 2005, the world mission conference in Athens, Greece, considered the theme, “Come Holy Spirit, Heal and Reconcile: Called in Christ to Be Reconciling and Healing Communities,” and strongly reaffirmed the healing mission of the church. In 2007, the WCC and DIFAEM jointly called for a “study group on mission and healing” to follow up the Athens mission conference. This study group was subsequently mandated to work on the Christian understanding of the healing mission of the church, and to promote Christian engagement in the field of health. The members of the group are theologians and medical professionals from four continents and various denominations. 3 The objectives of the group include:

• to clarify the holistic and integrated nature of Christian mission and healing, based on biblical theology;
• to demonstrate ways in which Christian communities can contribute towards health and healing in contemporary contexts.

In this article, the study group offers a summary of the ecumenical discussions on health, healing and wholeness that were documented in WCC publications issued between 1965 and 2005. The main insight of these discussions was that health is not only physical and/or mental well‐being but includes the social and spiritual and other dimensions as well. This is reflected in the definition of health approved by the WCC in 1989: “Health is a dynamic state of well‐being of the individual and society, of physical, mental, spiritual, economic, political, and social well‐being – of being in harmony with each other, with the material environment and with God.” 4 This expanded definition of health leads us to the Christian understanding that healing is not only and not primarily medical. Healing then includes, for instance, addressing the spiritual needs of sick persons as well as working for justice, peace and the integrity of creation. Moreover, the role of congregational and non‐congregational communities and faith‐ based and governmental organizations as well as individual Christians in the field of health and healing becomes obvious. Faith communities/congregations in particular are called to practise healing in various ways. They contribute to healing as social networks, as places of teaching and learning together, and as advocates for justice, peace and the integrity of creation. Healing is practised in liturgical acts and through nurturing and practicing charismatic gifts, through counselling and caring, and through creating safe and open spaces. Faith communities have a role in promoting primary health care, and can become vital partners of the formal health sector. This contribution aims to reaffirm the healing mission of the church, and to encourage churches, plus Christian communities and organizations, to engage in this ministry, and thus take part in God's mission of transforming the world. 5 Beate JAKOB     

Collective Resistance as Prophetic Witness

Authentic Christian witness today, marked by the mission from the margins, must engage communities of the marginalized at the structural level through collective solidarity resistance. This article first examines social structures themselves and their capacity to enhance or denigrate human dignity. Inherited structures of oppression can be identified and addressed. Christian witness has a particular exigence for and role in identifying and resisting oppressive structures for the sake of justice. Prophetic witness to kingdom values–saying no to unjust systems–involves joining with victims in active resistance through local and global mobilization for social change and celebration of life.     

Indigenous Peoples of Indo-Myanmar

Drawing from the Indigenous Christian communities of the Indo-Myanmar region of India, this article discusses the theme of reconciliation as a mission paradigm. Sketching some cultural contours of communities to illustrate the role of the historical encounter and experience of Christian mission in consolidating modern ethnic identity, the paper points out some vestiges of the culture. Despite the embrace of Christianity and the immense changes to the communities initiated, observation reveals practices of contradictions, latent tensions, resistance to the “other,” and sporadic conflicts. The paper therefore argues that the historical experience of reconciliation among the different Indigenous groups needs to continue in constructing an inclusive society of Indigenous Christians. The article discusses including women and other excluded members, overcoming cultural practices, and transforming resistance to the “other” as markers of inclusive community. In developing the argument from a local context, it reiterates the centrality of reconciliation and inclusive community in the experience of Christian mission. To be disciples of Christ is to belong together, and belonging together requires “mutual enfolding” to a new social kinship – the kingdom of God. In conclusion, some recommendations for a mission of reconciliation from Indigenous Christian communities are listed in the hope that reconciliation as mission is sustained by a vision of a healed and just world.     

The Influence of Christian Conversion in Mapuche Traditional Medicine in Temuco, Chile: Toward a Cultural Syncretism or a form of Ideological Assimilation?

The Mapuche communities living in the urban areas of Chile have undergone radical cultural changes due to Christian conversion. This article analyzes the influence of these changes on the Mapuche ideas and practices of the traditional healers (machi) and patients in Temuco (IX Region), Chile, and the changes and adaptations in the perceptions of healing practices and rituals by the patients. The paper shows how, despite some evident challenges, the encounter with the religion of Christianity can create a process of cultural and spiritual syncretism and push traditional medicine toward an increased specialization in the therapeutic practices.     

The changing geography of Christianity in China, 1918-2004

Using systematic provincial level data on the number of Protestant Christians in 1918, 1949, 1997 and 2004, and those on Christian religious venues in 1979, 1997 and 2004, this article analyses changes in the coastal dominance, urban primacy and spatial diffusion of Christian communities in China. Six decades of communist rule eroded the missionary legacy, as Christian communities spread to China’s interior provinces and the rural hinterland, and became more widespread in China by 2004, with the sharpest decline in metropolitan cities and in the Guangdong province, and the fastest growth in the interior and northeast provinces. Ethnographies and case studies suggest that these developments may have resulted from the diminution of the missionary legacy, the relative decline of the institutional churches versus indigenous congregations, the replacement of an anti-state old guard by more pragmatic and compliant church leaders, the rise of the charismatic Pentecostal movement and the evangelism of a new breed of Christian entrepreneurs. These religious sociological factors may have also interacted with urbanisation and national and local religious policy to produce permutations in the distribution of Christian communities which can only be thoroughly analysed through systematic data-based research.     

Cultural Embeddedness of Health,Illness and Healing: Prospects for Integrating Indigenous and Western Healing Practices

Culture influences conceptualizations about illness, health and healthcare. In this article we argue that Western-oriented health care models have limited success when applied to health conditions of people of non-Western cultures and contend that culture is an important factor in health, illness and healing. We present two cultural modes of illness and healing to illustrate that many health conditions are meaningful and can be effectively managed with consideration of the cultural contexts of the communities concerned. We illustrate, by case examples, how these cultural conceptualisations influence the treatment of illness in three different cultural settings. In addition, we identify some of the key challenges to integrating traditional healing into counselling and psychotherapy. Integration of different cultural healthcare models is a best practice in comprehensive context sensitive delivery of healthcare.     

(THE IMAGE OF) GOD IN ALL OF US

This essay compares Sikh and Christian thought about and practices of hospitality in light of the global refugee crisis. It aims to show how both practices of hospitality, and religious ethical thought about hospitality, can be enhanced by dialogue between traditions. The refugee crisis arises out of a global failure of hospitality, and the type of hospitality refugees most fundamentally need is that which confers membership in a political community. Comparing Christian and Sikh ethics of hospitality provides guidance toward building rooted religious communities that welcome outsiders, including by incorporating them into political communities. In particular, Christians who hold social power and privilege can better fulfill ethical mandates of hospitality by looking to the example of Sikhs and other marginalized groups. Sikhs have often built communities through acts of hospitality and welcomed outsiders without fear, even in contexts where their own belonging is questioned and their own security is under threat.     

A participatory approach to healing and transformation in South Africa

In this article I describe my personal journey from working as private practitioner to participating in the wider South African society. Post-apartheid South African society struggles with overwhelming problems related to poverty, illness, violence, sexism, and racism. Moreover, in those communities where the trauma is most severe, professional resources are scarce. I propose a participatory approach which invites therapists to respond to these socio-economic and political challenges and the problems that arise from them by thinking and acting outside the constraints of their consultation rooms and of traditional therapeutic conversations, into active participation in ways that might support healing and social transformation. I use two examples to illustrate and discuss the participatory approach with which I have engaged for over 10 years. The illustrative examples show how a participatory approach can create ripples that impact communities in healing and transformative ways.     

The Viability of Christian Same-Sex Unions: Why Scripturally Normed Faith Communities Must Support Homosexual Relationships

Abstract

This article examines the common, competing lay theologies employed to address the viability of Christian same-sex unions and critiques their problematic underpinnings. Particular attention is given to the unproductive hermeneutical dynamics that have characterized the debate over this issue. After a critical examination of the relevant biblical texts and other foundational assumptions, the author proposes a biblical theology of Christian same-sex unions as a constructive, conciliatory alternative. The author contends that Christian communities that grant a controlling influence to the Bible as Scripture must accept the biblical testimony on the identity of human beings and the calling of human beings to image God's covenant faithfulness through the gift of sexuality, regardless of sexual orientation. The article is written primarily with clergy in mind, specifically to offer resources for providing guidance in ecclesial processes of discernment on the issue of Christian same-sex unions.     

Design and the digital Bible: persuasive technology and religious reading

This article analyses two ‘digital Bibles’, products that allow the user to engage with the Bible through the screen and speakers of his/her mobile phone, tablet or computer. Both products, ‘YouVersion’ and ‘GloBible’, have been created by Evangelical Christian companies. I argue that both are designed to train the user in traditional Evangelical Christian understandings of the work of reading. Digital media offer new opportunities to guide and influence the user, and this article applies the concepts of ‘persuasive technologies’ and ‘procedural rhetoric’ to analyse the design intentions of the two digital Bibles. This approach helps us to appreciate the significance of the material form of a sacred text as a vehicle for religious socialisation and raises important questions about the potential for digital media to re-shape traditional relationships of power in Evangelical Christian communities.     

Revolutionizing the Clinical Frame

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the role of individual and social advocacy as practices that promote resilience and enhance the ecological relationship between trauma survivors and their communities. Issues of access, comprehension, linguistic and social isolation, cultural disorientation and displacement, and feelings of powerlessness within governmental and non-governmental systems encompass common challenges that trauma survivors experience. We discuss two composite cases that explore what individual advocacy and social action entail, how these activities can change a victim's relationship with, inform and mobilize health-promoting competencies within the larger community that assist in the healing from trauma. Included in the article are guidelines and handouts intended to be useful for service providers who are interested in incorporating advocacy into their work settings.     

Addressing Guilt within the Religious Community: Cyprian of Carthage,Reconciliation, and the Science of Emotion

This article looks at guilt, forgiveness, and “in-group” behavior using Cyprian of Carthage’s response to the third-century persecutions in dialogue with modern psychology and the science of guilt. Using Cyprian’s writings, we see the foundation of much of Christian behavior in regard to inclusion in a Christian community and the theology of penance. The broader issue of inclusivity and forgiveness connects to what evolutionary science presents on the issue regarding guilt and shame, and recent psychological work on achieving reconciliation and forgiveness between persons or in a community. By placing the Christian tradition into dialogue with these modern scientific studies, we find that a fruitful dialogue is possible which enriches both the religious and scientific communities.     

Between Baghdad and Birmingham: Minorities--Christian and Muslim

This paper deals with majority-minority relations that very much condition relations between Muslims and Christians. The first part gives some factual data about Muslim minorities in Europe and Christian minorities in Muslim countries and makes some comparisons between their situations at present. The second part questions the very idea of speaking of Muslims and Christians in terms of majority and minority, since this imposes a political scheme on human reality, neglecting existing diversities within the communities and in the relations between them. More important questions are: what have Muslims and Christians done with their religions in minority and majority situations? How can a model of participation in civil society replace the traditional Middle Eastern model of social separateness with religiously justified antagonisms? How can the positive potential of minorities be better appreciated? The author pleads for practical realism and enlightened participation instead of fixing and quantifying Muslim and Christian religious communities as closed social entities.     

Gleaning the social contract theory from African communitarian philosophy

The social contract is one of the most influential political theories in Western philosophy. Although the social contract theory is mainly associated with a number of thinkers in the broad history of social and political philosophy, I am particularly focused on the social contract theory proffered by two British philosophers, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. While the social contract theory has mainly been influenced by these British philosophers, little has been done in terms of appraising its key normative ideas from non-Western philosophical traditions. In this article, I examine how the social contract theory might be understood differently from a non-Western perspective, if values salient in African communitarian philosophy are properly understood. As I attempt to establish how the African social contract theory can be gleaned from African communitarian philosophy, I make comparisons and contrasts between the social contract theory in the African tradition and the traditional social contract theory in Western philosophy. I intend to make a novel interpretation of the ideals of the former that are implicit in the African communitarian structure. I seek to provide reasons why the African communitarian structure could be taken as the normative basis for a plausible social contract theory in the African social and political context.     

Way to capture theory of indigenous psychology

Taking Harbermas (1968) trichotomization of Knowledge in social science as a framework, this article analyzed the difficulties encountered by non-Western psychologists in their endeavor to develop indigenous psychologies on the basis of naïve-Positivism. In order to overcome these difficulties, I argued that non-Western indigenous psychologists have to construct culturally adequate theories on the basis of neo-Positivism so as to develop empirical-analytical, historical-hermeneutical and critical science for indigenous society.     

An Integrative Educational Strategy for Christian Leaders in a Multifaith World

Abstract. This paper asserts that training Christian leaders for faithful and effective leadership in religious communities, which is responsive to the reality of the diverse religious experiences of this country, requires that they learn the skills of integration, specifically the ability to integrate formation into a community within the context of a multicultural, multifaith world. The process of pastoral theological reflection, a process that seeks to methodically put into conversation the student's experience, social context, and religious tradition, holds promise in a Christian context as a way to accomplish such integration. After discussing the process of pastoral theological reflection, the paper examines a seminary ministerial formation curriculum, based on this integrative process, to discern how it might better engage multifaith realities in its formation of leaders for Christian communities.     

Prayer,Patronage, and Personal Agency in Nicaraguan Accounts of Receiving International Aid

This article examines how religious beliefs and practices influence the reception of international relief and development aid in impoverished communities. Specifically, I explain how Nicaraguan recipients’ prayers both enhance and constrain their ability to assert themselves as “empowered” actors during aid interactions. Data come from observations and interviews over a two‐year period with 81 Nicaraguans in communities that receive aid from Christian development organizations. Compared to secular constructions of aid interactions, prayers provide space for Nicaraguans to position themselves as influential actors effecting change for themselves or their families. Through prayers, recipients portray themselves as influencing the actions of more powerful parties, including God and potential donors. They also pray for donors’ well‐being, thereby offering spiritual reciprocity for material gifts. However, the same prayers that empower individuals at the interpersonal level constrain their ability to envision transformation of social structures. These findings shape understandings of prayer as aligning actions, of the moral and social dimensions of receiving care from strangers, and of the complex and contradictory ways religious practices influence discourses of empowerment and development.     

Challenges and developments: Christian‐Muslim relations in the Middle East

Abstract

After surveying the Christian period in the Middle East, this article outlines the coming of Islam and the process of conversion to Islam, before summarising the situation in Christian‐Muslim relations in 1800 and the new developments that unfolded in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The main body of the article surveys recent (that is, post‐1950) developments, focusing on challenges such as the impact on local Christian‐Muslim relations of the creation of the state of Israel and the ‘Islamic revival’, the problems of Christian emigration, conversion and inter‐community clashes, and more positive developments such as the concern for more accurate analysis and reporting of Christian‐Muslim issues, the growth of dialogue between the communities through meetings, publications and efforts to educate future generations, and the establishment of Christian churches in regions where they have not existed for many centuries, particularly in the Gulf.