Image: Courtesy of World Evangelical Alliance Nahdlatul Ulama leader Yahya Cholil Staquf presents World Evangelical Alliance leader Thomas Schirrmacher with a festschrift at The Nation’s Mosque in Washington, DC, during the 2021 International Religious Freedom Summit.
The world’s largest Muslim organization accepts that Christians will try to convert its members. A new partnership with evangelicals seeks to ensure this does not lead to conflict.
Last week, the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) signed a statement of cooperation with Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), an Indonesian association with an estimated 30 million to 50 million members. Established in 1926 to counter Wahhabi trends issuing from the Arabian Peninsula, its name means “Revival of the Religious Scholars.”
“Evangelicals very much aspire to proselytism, and so does Islam. So naturally there will be competition,” said NU secretary general Yahya Cholil Staquf. “But we need to have this competition conducted in a peaceful and harmonious environment.”
Staquf spoke from the stage of the 2021 International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit in Washington. On its opening day, he and WEA secretary general Thomas Schirrmacher signed “The Nation’s Mosque Statement,” along with Taleb Shareef, imam of Masjid Muhammad, the first American mosque built by the descendants of slaves.
Calling for “the emergence of a truly just and harmonious world order,” the statement seeks a global alliance to prevent the political weaponization of identity and the spread of communal hatred.
Schirrmacher called the WEA’s cooperation with NU the product of deep theological dialogue, counter to the academic tendency to downplay truth claims. And as evangelicals, evangelism is at the heart of their effort.
“We are working together for the right to convert each other,” the German theologian said. “Religious freedom does not mean that we agree, but that…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today on July 22, 2021. Please click here to read the full text.
Image: Hailey Sadler / IRF Summit Previous IRF ambassador David Saperstein speaks at the 2021 International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington.
One word floated forebodingly between parentheses throughout promotional material for the 2021 International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit:
Invited.
Following the names of Nancy Pelosi, Antony Blinken, and Samantha Power, it indicated uncertainty if the key Democratic stalwarts would participate.
As the approximately 1,200 registered attendees arrived, the distributed official program still did not include the current House speaker, secretary of state, or USAID administrator.
However, Mike Pompeo, Blinken’s predecessor at the US State Department, had a keynote address from the stage.
“There were a lot of questions heading into this summit, with a lot of hesitancy from the Biden people,” summit co-chair Sam Brownback told CT. “But we worked hard to make it bipartisan.”
Unlike the previous two ministerialmeetings held in Washington, DC (and a third held virtually in Poland), this year’s IRF gathering was organized by civil society, not governments.
Brownback, the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom during the Trump administration, was now a private citizen. He partnered with Katrina Lantos Swett, former chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, who was appointed by former Democratic senator Harry Reid.
Brownback chased the Republicans, and Lantos Swett the Democrats. Their friendship, Pam Pryor, senior advisor to the summit, told CT, is the “gold standard” in bipartisan cooperation. In the end, Lantos Swett was relatively…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on July 19, 2021. Please click here to read the full text.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
The Palace of Peace and Reconciliation in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.
Now two of “the five ’Stans” are becoming bigger fans of—or, as Gen Z would say, “stanning” for—religious freedom.
“In Kazakhstan, all denominations can freely follow their religion,” said Yerzhan Nukezhanov, chairman of the committee for religious affairs, “and we will continue to create all necessary conditions for religious freedom.”
Speaking at the 2021 International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, DC, Nukezhanov signed a memorandum of understanding with Wade Kusack, head of the Love Your Neighbor Community. It sets a three-year roadmap that will train local imams, priests, and pastors in religious dialogue, to culminate in the establishment of religious freedom roundtables in nine Kazakh cities.
“It is a front door approach in openness and transparency with the government,” said Kusack. “Mutual trust is built one relationship at a time.”
An ethnic Belarusian, Kusack is also the senior fellow for Central Asia at the Institute for Global Engagement (IGE), the American NGO which helped shepherd Uzbekistan’s efforts to improve its international religious freedom standing. In 2018, top Uzbek officials pledged reforms at the first Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, convened by the US State Department.
Later that year, Uzbekistan was removed from designation as a Country of Particular Concern for the first time since 2005. Downgraded to Special Watch List status, by 2020 enough progress was made for the State Department to delist the nation altogether.
Developments in Kazakhstan were hailed as “proof of concept” for the engagement model of international religious freedom advocacy. Not listed by the State Department, the nation has been recommended for SWL status by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom since 2013.
Nukezhanov noted 2018 as the year his committee established a religious freedom working group, specifically to demonstrate openness to American concerns. That same year, Nikolay Popov was fined $600 for sharing his Christian faith—without a license. Popov, part of the Council of Baptist Churches in Kazakhstan’s Karaganda region, also…
This article was originally published by Christianity Today on July 16, 2021. Please click here to read the full text.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
America’s “most historic square mile” got a new resident on the Fourth of July weekend. Joining the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the American Bible Society has opened a $60 million museum to highlight the role of Scripture in the founding of the United States.
“We are leveraging history to advocate for the Bible,” said Alan Crippen, chief of exhibits at the Faith and Liberty Discovery Center (FLDC). “The American story of liberty is unintelligible without knowledge of the Bible, and how it impacted our leaders.”
The new museum gives special space to William Penn and his “holy experiment” of Pennsylvania.
Alongside his Bible, the museum displays an original copy of Penn’s 1683 pamphlet, The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience Once More Briefly Debated and Defended. Informing Penn’s vision for governance, the charter of Pennsylvania guaranteed religious freedom and sought peace with the local Lenni-Lenape Native American tribe.
The FLDC’s six exhibits are more than a storehouse of artifacts, though. Interactive exhibits present six foundational American values: faith, liberty, justice, hope, unity, and love. An electronic “lamp” allows visitors to activate additional material, and store memories for retrieval at home.
The exhibits pose additional questions for contemplation or group discussion. The First Amendment section prompts: Do you agree that a just society requires freedom of religion and dissent? Another follows George Whitfield and asks: Do you agree that people can have a direct and personal relationship with God? “Exhibits are meant to be immersive, but not to proselytize,” said Crippen. “This question is meant…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on September 9, 2021. Please click here to read the full text.
Pope Francis, flanked by senior leaders of the various Christian Churches and communities of Lebanon. Kassab is 2nd from right.
Pope Francis has a message to consider from Lebanon’s evangelicals.
“We are not comfortable in our sectarian system, and thank God that we are not a part of the politics that led the country to collapse,” said Joseph Kassab, president of the Supreme Council of the Evangelical Community in Syria and Lebanon.
“We are not benefiting, and it hurts us like the vast majority of the Lebanese people.”
Last week the Catholic pontiff invited Lebanon’s Christian denominations to the Vatican for a time of prayer and reflection. Ten patriarchs, bishops, and church leaders gathered, as Francis encouraged them to speak with one voice to the politicians of their nation.
Lebanon has been unable to form a new government since its prior one resigned 11 months ago, following the massive explosion at Beirut’s port. As its Christian, Sunni, Shiite, and Druze political parties wrangle over representation, more than half the population now falls below the poverty line.
Following a default on national debt, personal bank accounts have been largely frozen as the Lebanese lira has lost over 90 percent of its value. The World Bank estimates the economic collapse to be among the world’s three worst in the last 150 years.
“We blame and condemn our Christian and Muslim political leaders equally,” said Kassab.
“We have to say this loudly.”
The nation’s longstanding sectarian system, however, works to recycle these leaders. Lebanon’s president must be a Maronite Christian, its prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and its speaker of parliament a Shiite Muslim.
The 128 parliament seats are divided evenly between Muslims and Christians, with one reserved for Protestants. But confessional distribution extends into ministerial and civil service positions, including the army, police, and intelligence services.
Each community seeks to maximize its interests, while being careful not to upset the sectarian balance.
“Positions are distributed by religious identity, not qualification,” said Kassab. “Francis called us to push our politicians toward the common good, but we are imprisoned in this system.” Closed door discussions were…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on July 8, 2021. Please click here to read the full text.
The pope asked Lebanon to pray. But also, to reflect.
To ask forgiveness for mistakes, for selfishness, disunity.
Behind closed doors the leaders spoke—the sects, but not the parties.
They shared their fears, frustrations, pain.
But will it make a difference?
God, the early signs are good—no one wants the spirit quenched.
A good will gesture from the Turks: Despite no pay the barges run.
And parliament has cast its vote: Cash assistance for the poor.
The president and cabinet add: The subsidy on meds will stay.
Investigations of the blast: Renewal of summons for elite.
But this time they agree to come: Renewal of hope for justice lost.
No peace without it, said the pope, as others preach through violent means.
A city riots, a bank is stormed—and sanctions readied by the West.
Against all powers the pope proclaimed: The interference now must stop.
And then he left the file domestic—no global conference called to help.
God, why did the pope not call politicians?
They implement all ethereal hope.
Would they agree if he stooped in humility,
Washing the feet of those he rebuked?
God, you know.
Help us reflect on religion in politics.
Help us in balance of nation and sect.
Lebanon’s clerics all came together.
Help us as people to all do the same.
To pray and seek wisdom.
To listen and think.
To act in consensus.
To labor for peace.
God, would you hear the plea of Pope Francis:
Answer the Lebanese cry of distress.
Amen.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
Image: Illustration by Mallory Rentsch / Source Images: Anthony Choren / Karl Fredrickson / Joseph Pearson / Unsplash
This year, July 4 falls on a Sunday. As American churches consider how to recognize the holiday during the service, we decided to revisit a question CT posed to American church leaders back in 2013. Here’s what their counterparts from 11 different countries have to say in 2021. Answers are arranged from yes to no.
Yes, I agree in displaying the flag of my country in the church, the flag of my country only and not other countries, as it is a spiritual and not a political orientation. The purpose of raising the flag is to keep my heart united with my people in prayer for the salvation of their souls. It’s to remember that I must stand in the gap for my people that they may know the Lord and see the light of the gospel, and to tell my country and my people how much I love them and pray for them.
Jordan: Hani Nuqul, pastor, Evangelical Free Church in Jabal Al Hussein, Amman
I strongly believe that each church building should post the flag on the building and in the sanctuary. As an elder and pastor, we made this decision a few years ago to do so in order to show our loyalty as citizens to the country of Jordan. We believe that by doing so, we are a good example and testimony to others and also following the teachings of the Bible.
As the Evangelical Free Church council, we have taken the decision to put the Jordanian flag in all local churches that belong to the council along with the church logo and flag.
This article was originally published by Christianity Today on July 2, 2021. I contributed additional reporting. Please click here to read the full text.
We lay our hands upon the nation—faith is failing, still we try.
We put our hands upon the plowshare.
We get to work at what we can.
We clasp our hands with fellow citizens.
We will not part ‘til all are whole.
Alas, oh God, our hands are empty.
Bless our nation, even so.
Amen.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
The apostle Paul put himself “under the law” to give the gospel to his Hebrew brethren (1 Cor. 9:20).
Allegedly a Gentile, Michael Elkohen did the same to reach the modern Jews most fastidiously under the law—the Haredim, often known in English as “ultra-Orthodox.”
Approximately 1.2 million Haredim live in Israel, jealously guarding their traditions.
Dressed in black-and-white garb with a hat, long beard, and side curls, in 2011 Elkohen appeared next to an Iranian Christian on MorningStar TV and prayed for a Muslim world revival.
“When Jesus walked the earth, he was Jewish,” Elkohen told the host, Rick Joyner. “The church, the non-Jewish part of the body, is supposed to stir us to jealousy.”
For more than a decade, his would-be jealous Haredi neighbors were completely unaware. To the insular community in the French Hill section of Jerusalem, Elkohen was a beloved rabbi, scribe, and mohel—performing circumcisions.
In April, the Israeli anti-missionary organization Beyneynu sent shockwaves through the Haredi world with a report claiming that Elkohen was in fact a missionary from New Jersey, whose father is buried in a Mennonite cemetery.
“Other anti-Semites attack the Jews as individuals or as a people,” said Tovia Singer, a rabbi and founder of Outreach Judaism. “But the missionaries are attacking the Jewish faith and working to erase it from the planet.”
The spiritual damage is considerable.
Though there is no evidence anyone was converted in Elkohen’s community, Singer claims that the alleged missionary’s manuscripts and religious services are all invalid. And his presence at prayer may have falsely achieved minyan, the necessary quorum of 10 adults, prompting Torah readings that to Haredi Jews now constitute speaking God’s name in vain.
The 42-year-old Elkohen first moved to Israel with his family in 2006, obtaining citizenship after presenting papers as a Jew related to a famous mystical rabbi in Morocco. Having obtained rabbinical ordination through an online Orthodox US institution, in 2014 he went on to study at a yeshiva in the West Bank.
It was then he gained the attention of the anti-missionary organization Yad L’Achim, who confronted him. Confessing his evangelistic purpose, Elkohen replied that he had since “repented” and “chose Judaism.”
A few years later, Elkohen was living quietly among the Haredim when they rallied around him as his wife—who said she was descended from Holocaust survivors—died from cancer. The community raised money to support the husband and five children in need.
But in April, Elkohen’s 13-year-old daughter told classmates about Jesus.
Beyneynu investigated and felt it had to act. There are 30,000 missionaries in Israel, the organization estimates, and 300 organizations dedicated to evangelizing Jews.
Messianic Jews were quick to distance themselves.
Michael Brown, a popular radio host, author, and apologist, circulated statements from Jews for Jesus, Chosen People Ministries, and One for Israel that deplore deception.
“I know of no Messianic Jews who support what he did,” Brown told CT. “We are open and forthright about our faith.” Tsvi Sadan, an author, stated that Elkohen was “probably…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today on June 23, 2021. Please click here to read the full text.
The 2021 graduating class of the National Evangelical School in Nabatieh (NESN) is entirely Shiite Muslim.
While certainly not the image of a typical Christian school in the United States, it is hardly an outlier in Lebanon, where 35 evangelical schools average student bodies that are two-thirds Muslim.
Located 35 miles south of Beirut, Nabatieh originally had a 10 percent Christian population when American Presbyterian missionary Lewis Loe founded the school in 1925. Based in the city’s Christian quarter, NESN drew students from all sects until the civil war drove the once integrated communities apart. From 1978 to 1982, Israeli occupation forced the school to close altogether.
When the city was attacked again during the 2006 war, the school’s bomb shelter gave refuge to frightened children. Relative peace since then has allowed the shelter to become a storage room, but less than 40 Christian families remain in the city. Even so, NESN draws from surrounding villages to maintain a Christian share of 10 percent among its 100-some faculty.
But the new crisis facing Lebanon is financial. Year-end inflation for 2020 was 145 percent, as food prices surged over 400 percent. The World Bank judged the economic collapse to be one of the world’s three worst in the last 150 years.
Teacher salaries have lost nearly 90 percent of their value.
Three years ago, NESN’s 100-foot Christmas tree was Lebanon’s largest. This year—as debt equaled the entire operational budget minus teacher salary—the school could not afford even the Charlie Brown version.
A highlight of the school calendar, Christian elements are welcomed by the local Shiite population—including its substantial number of Hezbollah-affiliated families, said principal Shadi El-Hajjar.
Since he assumed leadership in 2013, the student body of 1,400 has more than doubled.
“We teach compassion, forgiveness, and love of enemies,” Hajjar said, “but as culture and practice, not religion.
“This makes us unique, and draws people to the school.”
It was not always this way.
Decades of appreciative tolerance…
This article was originally published on June 16, 2021, at Christianity Today. Please click here to read the full text.
The American mosque increasingly resembles the American church.
New data released in the US Mosque Survey 2020 reveals a plateau of conversions, a shift to the suburbs, and a challenge with “unmosqued” youth.
“Muslims and their mosques are becoming more integrated into American society,” said Ihsan Bagby, the lead investigator, “and more adjusted to the American environment.”
Released every 10 years, the survey aims to comprehensively dispel misconceptions about the locus of Muslim community in the United States.
How might the findings guide American evangelicals?
Begin with the contrast: the increase in the Muslim equivalent of church planting.
The survey counts 2,769 mosques in the US, an increase of 31 percent since the 2010 report. The prior decade had a growth rate of 74 percent, with 1,209 mosques counted in the 2000 report.
They increasingly appreciate a nice backyard.
The share of mosques in large cities has dropped from 17 percent in 2010 to 6 percent in 2020, while the share in small towns has dropped from 20 percent to 6 percent. The survey found that 8 in 10 Muslims now live in a residential or suburban area.
“As we begin to share the same neighborhood, engaging the Muslim community is no longer just the domain of missionary specialists,” said Mike Urton, the associate director of Immigrant Mission, a ministry of the Evangelical Free Church of America.
“It is now the domain of the local church.”
The now mostly suburban Muslims also “tithe” similarly to their Christian neighbors. Including contributions toward operating expenses and the obligatory zakat charitable giving to the poor, the survey calculated…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on June 14, 2021. Please click here to read the full text.
Will you honor their efforts? Make everything right?
God, when you come, you come with your power.
But yet like a shepherd, tending the flock.
Do I want comfort? Would I rather anger?
Both are made perfect in your promised help.
When, God?
What now?
Where is that highway made straight for the king?
We cannot run, we grow too weary.
We barely walk, we grow too faint.
“Comfort, comfort.”
“Your sin has been paid for.”
Help Lebanon know this.
Help Lebanon heal.
Amen.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
Algerian Christians finally have something to celebrate.
Amid a rash of church closures the past two years, the North African nation’s Council of State returned a historic worship site in Mostaganem, a port city on the Mediterranean coast, to the Algerian Protestant Church (EPA).
The EPA loaned the building, which dates to the French colonial era, to the Ministry of Health in 1976. But in 2012, when the site’s medical clinic changed locations, the local governor gave the facility to an Islamic charitable association.
The EPA sued, and the case was decided in its favor in 2019.
That year, however, marked an escalation against Protestant churches. Three of Algeria’s largest congregations were shut down, and the Mostaganem authorities failed to implement the court decision.
Now they have.
But with 20 other churches ordered to cease activities—and 13 sealed completely—Algerian Christians remain cautious.
“Just because we have the keys,” said Nourredine Benzid, general secretary of the EPA, “doesn’t mean the case is over.”
Benzid’s Source of Life Church in Makouda was among those closed in 2019. Located in the mountainous Tizi Ouzou district, the area is home to many of the nation’s estimated 100,000 Christians. By contrast, the Mostaganem church was…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today on June 10, 2021. Please click here to read the full text.
I have life. I have breath. I have family. Friends.
The sun rises each morning.
The mountains stand tall.
Make me like them, God.
Your light, in the darkness.
Your strength, for the weak.
I am weak; my nation weaker.
Give us a government.
Give us your hope.
Amen.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
Within three decades, Muslims may comprise 14 percent of Europe.
The face of the historically Christian continent, tallied at 5 percent Muslim in 2016, may dramatically change by 2050 if high migration patterns hold.
And as Muslim families have a birth rate one child higher than the rest of the continent, the Pew Research Center projects nearly 1 in 5 people will be Muslim in the United Kingdom (17%), France (18%), and Germany (20%). Sweden is projected to become 30 percent Muslim.
And Austria, with its 20 percent projection, is on guard. The majority-Catholic nation recently published an online Islam Map, to identify mosques and other centers of politicized religion.
According to European religion experts, however, one-third of European Muslims do not practice their faith.
Conversely, this suggests that two-thirds of Muslims believe in and practice Islam. Contrast this with the median figure of 18 percent of Western Europeans (across 15 nations) who attend church at least monthly and the median figure of 27 percent who believe in God according to the Bible.
Could the fear of some European Christians be plausible: an eventual Eurabia?
Or is it Islamophobia to say so?
Or, to the contrary, should Americans look across the ocean and consider French separatism laws and Swiss burqa bans in pursuit of a shared secularism?
For concerned evangelicals, Bert de Ruiter has his own questions—about their own faith.
“If Islam is taking over Europe, is that a problem?” asked the European Evangelical Alliance’s consultant on Muslim-Christian relations. “Will God suddenly be in a panic?” Muslims will…
This article was originally published on June 3, 2021, at Christianity Today. Please click here to read the full text.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
Palestinian Boys Play Game Of Soccer. (Photo By Abid Katib/Getty Images)
Bombs fall in Gaza as rockets target Israel.
Frustrated Arab rioters are met by extremist Jewish settlers.
And in the middle of it all, Danny Kopp sent his boys out to play soccer.
Numbers were down at the Jerusalem neighborhood park frequented by Jew and Arab alike, but his 13-, 10-, and 8-year-old sons still translated between the sides.
“These encounters, as small as they are, remind belligerents that coexistence is still viable,” said the chairman of the Evangelical Alliance in Israel.
“Wholesale vilifying is simply inaccurate.”
But it is easy to do, if attached to a favored narrative.
Since the outbreak of fighting on May 10, Israeli bombs have leveled almost 450 buildings in Gaza, including six hospitals, nine health centers, and the headquarters of the Associated Press. Hamas authorities count 232 dead, including 39 women and 65 children. More than 1,900 people have been injured, and 52,000 displaced from their homes.
But 160 of these have been militant fighters, said Israeli authorities. Hamas’s indiscriminate barrage has launched more than 4,000 rockets and killed 12 people—including two children—while injuring hundreds. Israel’s Iron Dome defense system has intercepted most rockets, but Iranian sponsorship of Hamas has led to a dramatic increase in missiles able to target Jerusalem.
Such long-range weapons represent 17 percent of the thousands of missiles fired this month. Nine years ago, they represented only 1 percent.
A ceasefire is now in place. President Joe Biden pledged to work through the United Nations and the Palestinian Authority to rebuild Gaza. The US would prevent such aid from restocking Hamas’s arsenal, while allowing the replenishing of the Iron Dome’s defenses.
The weapons evolve, though the animosity is familiar.
But what has shocked and saddened a dozen sources interviewed by CT—half Jewish and half Palestinian—is the ethnic violence that has torn through previously peaceful towns of coexistence. In Lod, Haifa, Nazareth, and elsewhere, Arab rioters have set 10 synagogues and more than 100 Jewish homes on fire, while looting or damaging hundreds more.
Israel called up 7,000 reservists to quell the violence. But reports say police have been far more lenient with Jewish settlers who have responded in kind, though with less damage. Video recordings, however, depict settler attempts to seize Arab Israeli properties.
The outbreak of violence is tied to Israeli legal proceedings to evict Palestinians from their homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The families have resided there for generations, and the land dispute has alternateexplanations. Protests were met with violence, which then spread to the al-Aqsa Mosque. Hamas fired rockets in solidarity.
And amid the backdrop of this quagmire, Kopp sent out his children.
On Saturday, he preached the same message to his mixed Jewish-Arab Narkis Street Congregation in Jerusalem, asking his flock to purposefully hear both sides.
“Jesus constantly broke out of his information bubble,” he said, “engaging every kind of person imaginable and on a consistent basis.”
Across the separation wall, however, Munther Isaac’s Sunday sermon had a different tone. “What is required is not…”
This article was originally published at Christianity Today on May 20, 2021. Please click here to read the full text.Additional reporting by Jeremy Weber.
