Zionism,  Anti-Semitism and the Bible.   

June 24th 2015

Rev. Dr. Duncan Macpherson presented this paper to us on June 24th. Duncan has an impeccable pedigree academically and theologically in a discussion of this topic. He was a personal friend of Michael Prior who was a scholar who tackled head on the legitimacy of a modern Israel founded on the biblical promise of land and, of course, one of the founding members, like Duncan, of Living Stones of the Holy Land Trust. Duncan too has an informed interest in the growth of quasi-political religious movements arising out of the historical, sociological and economic drivers in recent centuries.

Who better then to track the various ambiguities around the notion of return to a ‘promised land’ by European Jews and its relationship to interpretations of the responsibility of ‘Jews’ for the persecution and death of Jesus Christ and for persecution of the early Christian Church?  Who better to explore the synergies that from time to time bolstered relationships between Zionism and Semitism and Zionism and anti Semitism?

Averred to  are the political intrigues that established the State of Israel and the vested interests of the protagonists in the First World War and the Second World War in the growth towards the reality of a nascent state.  With a serious look in are the Christian Zionist enthusiasts who would have Jews return to biblical Israel to hasten the second coming.

So who are the anti Semites, the Jew Haters and the pro Zionists and where do the Palestinians fit in to a world history which does not seem to care much for the person of the Palestinian or the Jew in the historical, political, social, economic and religious argument.

This was the stuff of the lecture presented to us and it led to a stimulating and thoughtful debate about many issues including the role that a State plays in delegitimising and marginalising groups of people  that it sees as a problem in its own society.

Colin South

Modern History of the Maronite Church

Wednesday 22 April 2015

Joelle Richa, a research student of the Centre for Eastern Christianity, Heythrop College spoke on the modern history of the Maronite Church especially concerning the development of spirituality among the laity since the Second Vatican Council.

Joella provided an introduction to the history of the Maronites from their origins in the Levant to the contemporary period. Of especial importance to Maronite identity were the links maintained with the Holy See and Latin church communities in the medieval period --- such as during the Crusades --- and the Syriac liturgical and spiritual traditions which informed the lay and monastic Maronite communities.

Today, although there is a general awareness about the Maronite spiritual traditions and the monastic life this is not necessarily well understood either within or outside the Maronite community with the need for greater sources of information to increase knowledge and practical engagement with the spiritual heritage. As the Maronite tradition retains significant examples of eremetical and coenobitic religious life it is something with which other Christian traditions should engage.

As the Maronites have incarnated their faith in the Lebanon and through the use of Arabic and Syriac languages for much of their history so this faith has also spread further throughout the Maronite diaspora to South America, the USA and Europe. Joelle noted that in this international context that not only do vocations to the eremetical life come from the Middle East but also as far afield as Columbia.

This is important towards a sense of maintaining the particular spiritual life of the Maronites in a globalised environment which is not always welcoming to local traditions. The hermits offering an example of how to live a complete Maronite Christian life giving oneself entirely to God. As they are perceived as such examples the ``people" seek to a strong bond with them: evidenced strongly in the retreats which Christian political leaders make to the Qadisha valley in the Lebanon which are facilitated by the hermits.

Maronite social and religious contributions should not just be seen in and for their own communities, however. Through establishing schools throughout the Lebanon Maronites strongly supported the modern Arab renaissance in concert with the Druze, Sunni and Shia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This process of building up the Lebanon arguably resulting from their access to Western ideology and philosophy through their long standing links with the Holy See. Yet into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries the ease with which the Maronites engage with the West has complicated the direction of the Maronite Church as whole as many young Maronites travel abroad to pursue business opportunities and to gain higher and further education. Whilst many return many also choose to stay in their new location and continue their entrepreneurial efforts.

The trend for migration expedited in many instances by the effects of the Lebanese civil war and the wider instability which has affected the Middle East especially since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The difficulties of conflict causing often physical and mental scars to the population but also creating opportunities for people to rise above and out of their comfort zone obliging them to reconsider their faith and as to how they can contribute to wider society and the Church through becoming peacemakers.

Joelle concluded her paper by noting the very active engagement with the spiritual life which many young Maronite laypeople pursue. This considered to be a very important hope for the future development of the Maronite church as a whole and to the broader recognition of the Maronite contributions to Christian spiritual life through the recognition of the saints in the global Christian community especially through the mediation of the Holy See in encouraging such a procedure in the Catholic churches.


Summary prepared by Kristian

Being there/Being with: Reflections on interntational accompaniment in Palestine.

Thursday 22nd January 2015
It was good to have the reflections of Alwyn Knight on ten years of association with Hebron in the West Bank with visits to the small village off At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills. Alwyn first visited through the accompaniment programme of theWCC Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme for Israel and Palestine and then more substantially through many sustained tours of duty with the Christian Peacemaker's Team.

Many readers will be familiar with the political situation in Hebron and the South Hebron Hills . Both communities have experienced the general effects of prolonged occupation but also the particular effect of living in close proximity to Israeli settlements.20% of the settlers in both places could be described as 'ideological' as opposed to 'economic' settlers. With the ideology of the minority comes a propensity for violence, protection by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), and almost total impunity.

The World Council of Churches' EAPPI and CPT programmes both provide 'accompaniment seeking to provide an effective presence whose functions are three fold; deterrence by 'being there as a witness' and thus inhibiting or constraining abusers from carrying out attacks, encouragement by encouraging civil society's capacity to protect itself non violently and influence by supporting progressive voices inside abusive or negligent institutions.

Accompaniers live in the Old City of Hebron.  IDF soldiers are posted on the roof of derelict buildings opposite. CPTers seek to respond quickly with news of house invasions by the military, arrests,especially of children, clashes at vital checkpoints and protests by Palestinians which invariably result in the use of tear-gas and percussion grenades, oftne escalating inot the use of rubber-coated bullets, and even live ammunition. All of this taking place in an urban setting where children are trying to go to school, and adults are tyring to go about their everyday lives.

CPTers used to live in a simple block built, tin roofed dwelling in At Tuwani drawing water from the well, relying on no more than  four hours of electricity a day and accompanying  children from Tuba and Maghayir al-Abeed to shcool, spending hours on the hills with Palestinian shepherds - eyes and ears alert to the ever-present threat of attack by masked and armed  setlers usually carrying heavy wooden staves, or stones. CPT no longer has a presence there but this description is not untypical of similar situations in placements with EAPPI or CPT.

Such is the stuff of accompaniment. Mennonites provided the intiative in the founding of CPT. A characteristic of Mennonite spirituality is non resistance. Historically  they had suffered persecution by other Protestants and Catholics in the 16th Century. Thousands were killed and some burnt at the stake, drowned or beheaded. Many died in prison. This was the seed corn to a rejection to all forms of force or coercion and of military service...indeed many Mennonites had historically as little to do with the 'world' as possible.

John Howard Yoder in publishing 'The Politics of Jesus' in 1972, helped address the theological challenges faced by Mennonites as they adapted to the world of the twentieth century. Jesus was characterised as ' a model of radical political action' amd this was endorsed by the Mennonite community as the model that they felt they had practiced for some time. This activist stance now owned and celebrated could be considered to be a driving force behind the foundation of CPT. Dianne Row, CPTeer, accompanying Paelstinian children to school in Hebron a those very first beginnings in 1995, in response to settler violence experienced by herself and her colleague, Wendy Lehman,  created a banner depicting a pair of sandaled feet walking along the barbed-wire strewn path with the slogan 'Getting in the Way'. This declared that their witness was travelling the path Jesus trod, given that Jesus' ministry was increasingly understood as non-violent restistance to the powers-that-be, religious and political, of his own day. John Vincent of the Seffiled Urban Thology Unit said 'Christian discipleship is mainly a question of what you do with your feet!' Get your feet moving in the right direction and heard and head are bound to follow.


Liam Mahony in 'Protective Presence: Field Strategies for Civilian Protection' published in 2006 points out that 'every decision is affected by a series of calculations and perceptions' and that a field mission 'can influence these decisions by creating circumstances in which perpetrators recalculate the consequences and make a different choice'. International presence moves the border and tends to shrink the space in which the perpetrator feels he or she can 'get away with' his or her actions.

The being there and seeing and sometimes experiencing first-hand what is happening, is a vital resource for what Mahony calls the most traditional tool of protection; advocacy. ' 'Public exposure is a political cost to an abuser' he suggests. So one of the tasks of the accompanier is to monitor and report violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

The second function of effective presence, Mahony suggests, is encouragement by encouraging civil society's capacity to protect itself. One of the most impressive facts of the experience of accompaniment is illustrated by the arabic word 'samud' or steadfastness. In the face of oppression, Palestinians have many strategies for keeping safe without accepting the normalisation of the occupation.  The decision to 'stay put' regardless of the intimidation to do otherwise. The determination to find a way around senseless barriers and a determination to lead as normal a life as possible despite the obstacles to that put in their path.  So Palestinians are no inept by any means at protecting themselves but as the head of a village council stated ' Harassment has decreased...the reason is that foreignoers are in the village. The presence in Yanoun of people from peace groups is what changed the situation'.

The third function was influence by supporting progressive voices inside abusive or negligent institutions.  CPTees and EAPPI both concur with a statement made by EAPPI of principled impartiality, ' we do not want to take sides in this conflict and we do not want to discriminate against anyone, but we are not neutral in terms of prinicples of human rights and international humanitarian law. We stand faithfully with the poor, the oppressed and the marginalised. We want to serve all parties in this conflict in a fair and unbiased manner, in word and action.'.

Alongside the work of many progressive individual voices within Israel and especially within Israeli organisations seeking reform, CPT and EAPPI ask both sides to do a reality check seeking to stimulate public debate about the price paid for a reality in which young soldiers face a civilian popuation on a daily basis, and are in engaged in the control of that population's everyday life.

The Sermon on the Mount provides many a proof text, some of which have become proverbial such as 'turning the other cheek', 'going the second mile' but also 'love your enemy', 'pray for those who persecute you', and perhaps more controversially 'do not resist the evildoer'.  When you have just seem an eighteen year old Israeli soldier humiliate a seventy year old Palestinian, it is difficult to just 'pass the time of day' and ignore what has happened. It's at times like these that it is worth remembering what the founder of the Religious Society of Friends, George Fox, said about 'answering that of God in every person'.

CPT's challenge is to 'devote the same discipline and self-sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war' Its members are now drawn form many Christian traditions. There are Muslim and Jewish members and those with no religious faith but who are committed to CPT's values.

The Dhimmi - Dhimmi and Dhimmitude in the Ottoman Empire

Robin presented his paper to the Theology Group on  Tuesday 14th January, 2014. The paper and the ensuing discussion were both challenging and excellent contributions to our understanding of the status of a non muslim within the long heritage of the Ottoman Empire. The sweep of the Ottoman empire is from the beginning of the 14th Century through to the foundation of Modern Turkey in 1922. England, Scotland and Wales in the 14th Century were much preoccupied with the struggle for power and control among themselves.

The legacy of the Ottoman Empire is alive and well in the 21st Century and still colours and, in many places, controls the relationship between Muslim, Christian and Jew in muslim majority lands in the Middle East. There is a contemporary tendency to see the three faith relationship within the Ottoman Empire through rose tinted spectacles both in academic circles and in popular culture and the time has come for a more factual and less romantic view of the realities of these relationships. There has been a tendency too to censure the record of Christian Europe with regard to Christian- Jewish relationships and to make a negative comparison with the the Muslim - Jewish relationship within the Ottoman empire. Robin's paper served to challenge these broadly based assumptions and to introduce a more nuanced and critical analysis. Robin has the intention of developing this paper and the Theology Group hopes to see such a paper published in the Living Stones Yearbook in autumn 2014.

Robin discussed the dhimmi and dhimmitude. Words are used differently in different contexts but the focus here is of a dhimmi people and an attitude to the experience of being a dhimmi people as 'dhimmitude'. The dhimmi are those peoples that were subject to a particular legal construct that defined the relationship between the Dhimmi and the muslim majority. The relationship should be understood in the context of jihad as the intention of an  imposition of Islam on a subject people either by assent or by conquest.The rapid conquest of the peoples of the Middle East through relationships with people of other faiths into a sharp focus in the light of jihad. The Dhimmi relationship was a structured response to a recognition of other faiths as a subject people, a lesser people in that they had not yet recognised Mohammad as the last and final Prophet of their God. A Dhimmi people did not enjoy the rights of full citizens, had to acknowledge Islam's domination and pay a poll tax unique to the Dhimmi people. Certain aspects of government were denied access to a Dhimmi people in this theocratic state i.e. religion and the law. Access to employment in stagecraft and bureaucracy was possible and sometimes welcomed.

Robin also discussed Millet system which identified particular faiths as belonging to self governing groups within limits. For example the Greek Orthodox community were granted millet status which meant that the community would be allowed to practice its religion in peace but the election of the Patriarch was supervised by the Sultan. The Patriarch would then be responsible 'for collecting the poll tax, for hearing court cases, imprisoning criminals and other legal activities'. The Patriarch became an instrument of the State. The Jewish community in Istanbul formed another millet and a third broader cluster of faith communities under the Armenian millett.

Another aspect of being a Dhimmi people was the Devshirme and Ghulam systems. In the divershirme system, there was a levy of Christian boys who were enslaved into the Sultan's service Such boys were taken between the ages of 14 and 18, forced to convert to Islam and then used for a variety of purposes at the Sultan's pleasure. Some were made eunuchs protecting the Sultan's harem; some drafted as soldiers, some children treated as prostitutes. The Janissary were an elite group which were given hereditary rights. This system eventually collapsed before the Ottoman Empire itself collapsed.

The evidence contradicts statements that the Christian community were complicit or agreed with devshirme being seen as a way of social advancement for their children. This is denied and there is documentary evidence to demonstrate the resentment and opposition to this practice.

There is much work to be done but essentially the difference between Christian understandings of evangelism as support in recognition of the Kingdom of God present within you as well as among you compared with jihad as political conquest and submission to the Prophet is seminal to the discussion.

Dhimmitude as an attitude of mind born of years of discrimination is intriguing and is seen too in the rose tinted perspectives of some Westermn politicians and theologians on Ottoman relationships to their non muslim communities.

Zoughbi Zoughbi founder and director of WI'AM, Bethlehem 8th January 2014

Speaking to an audience of about 100 people at Heythrop College, London, Zoughbi spoke at the invitation of Living Stones about the role of the Palestinian Christian Community today in Palestine/Israel.  Zoughbi spoke as the Director and founder of WI'AM, a centre for conflict transformation and was well received and followed by an informed discussion among people representing many different UK charities concerned about the situation. Zoughbi was in England as a guest speaker at the Christians Aware conference following later that week.

The Palestinian Christian and Muslim communities recognise that the solution to the present impasse is to end the Israeli occupation of  the West Bank including
 East Jerusalem and its control over Gaza. Jerusalem should serve as the capital for two states and spiritual capital for all lbrahamic religions.It is understood that this is in the interest of all parties including the Jewish and Arab Israelis of Israel itself. The Christian community has played a major part in the lives of all indigenous peoples of the West Bank and historic Palestine since Jesus was born in Bethlehem. They are recognised as the leaven that has made the loaf whole and relationships between the three faiths has been generally positive over the years only today the strains are showing as a direct result of the social  upheaval caused by the occupation. The Christian comunity is dwindling largely through outward migration as a consequence of the economic situation and the continuous Israeli occupation.The Christian community that remains still plays it part as the salt of the community offering a sign of diversity and pluralism essential for any future development. They are part of the transformation of the society and offer a necessary, different and sometimes contrasting view.

In general the Christian community promotes assertiveness and not aggressiveness in the face of the occupation. They seek justice but restorative and not punitive justice. It is clear that the occupation needs to be challenged by the international community through, for example, Boycott, Divestment and Sanction to help the State of Israel face the reality of the situation. The Truth as experienced by the Palestinian community should be spoken out clearly and loudly. Political progress in the UN and among other institutions needs to be made in recognising Palestine and its legitmate rights and there should be a greater insistence on the observance of UN resolutions. Negotiation is important but without compromising the dignity of those people who have been victims in this situation over many years since 1947. Institutions need to be built and established to give greater stability to the Palestinian and Israeli communities as they find themsellves today.

Above all we need to stop blaming each other but begin to accept our collective responsibilities for the situation that exists today.

Challenges of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Greek Minority

Wednesday 17th October 2013
Rev'd Archimandrite Nikodemos Anagnostopoulos spoke to the group from his paper on 'The Present Status and the Challenges of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Greek Minority of Turkey int eh context of Muslim-Christian relations in Modern Turkey' It was well received and supported by some thought provoking questions and a good discussion. Nikodemos focused on the modern era from October, 1923 (the date of the founding of the Turkish Republic) to the present day.

The issues discussed and referred to during our Meeting were as follows;

The Orthodox community had to adapt to living as part of the majority Christian community in the first centuries A.D., to living within the Ottoman Empire for over 600 years with dimmi status as determined by sharia law and then to 'minority status' within the Turkish Republic.  The population of Christians was reduced by the population exchanges on the founding of the Republic between Greece and Turkey as part of the Treaty of Lausanne. Over a million Christians were forcibly transferred to Greece and over 500,000 Muslims transferred  from Greece to Turkey. The City of Constantinople in Turkey and the Province of Western Thrace in Greece were excluded from this requirement and so the Ecumenical Patriarchate  remained in Constantinople and a Muslim majority is present in Western Thrace in Greece.  Over the years under the Republic, the number of Christians in Constantinople has diminished as discrimination in employment and property rights has made it more difficult to live comfortably and occasional anti Christian riots (e.g. 1955) have destabilized the community. Today there are about 3,000 Christians in Constantinople compared with perhaps 200,000 in 1955. As with Iraq, Syria and Palestine, we are witnessing an continuing exodus of the Christian community from the region and the region is becoming increasingly that of nation states all of one faith which historically has been to its detriment.

Modern Turkey espouses an 'active' secular society rather than a 'passive' secular society which the rest of Europe and the United States encourages. It is active in the sense that state ultimately sanctions and manages the life of the Ecumenical Patriarchate  (EP) in Turkey. The EP is not a legal person under Turkish Law and cannot therefore own property. Christian churches and other buildings have been expropriated by the State ,under a law enacted in 1935, without compensation and are placed under the direct control of a Minority Foundation outside the control of the Patriarchate.  The Ecumenical Patriarch has to be a Turkish citizen and the list of candidates for the election of the Patriarch has to be approved by the State and the State has the right to remove a candidate. Matters came to a head recently which with the diminishing Christian population in Constantinople threatening the continuity of the Patriarchate. An agreement was made with the Turkish Government.The State decided that twelve  heads of the autocephalous orthodox community in Europe and the United States that is in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate and recognises the Patriarch as the 'first among equals' within the Orthodox Community should be Turkish citizens and therefore eligible for the list of candidates to be approved by the State. Secularism, in Turkey, requires the faith communities ultimately to be accountable to the State for their organisation and behaviour as a faith community. This can be seen as a stranglehold  on the Ecumenical Patriarchate with the ultimate goal of squeezing the Christian community in its entirety from Turkey. Passive secularism on the other hand accords a much greater degree of freedom of belief, organisation and behaviour of faith communities in the nation state.

The other controlling factor of the Christian Communities is education. Although education and theological training was provided for under the Treaty of Lausanne, the Turkish authorities illegally closed the Theological Academy of Halki in Turkey in 1971 which meant that all Theological training had to be undertaken outside Turkey. The Turkish Government have required Greece to establish a mosque in Athens in order to allow the re-opening of the Halki Theological Academy. This matter is still under discussion today.

Nikodemos says that he has often heard in 'Arab' countries in the Middle East that the Turkish management of other faith communities is a model which might help them in resolving the status of the Christian communities in their situation. The justification for such a claim is difficult to justify in the light of this paper and this discussion.

Seasons of Hope and Trial for the Middle East

Revd Nadim Nassar of the Awareness Foundation spoke to the Theology Group on Thursday 20th June, 2013. His subject was the Arab Spring, the Relgiious Winter and the Summer of Hope. Huda Nassar and Nadim Nassar are by representatives of the Syrian Christian community and their helpful reflections were evidenced from personal experience.

This blog is my personal reaction to the presentations and the discussion that followed and nothing that is written below should be attributed to anyone else other than me...so any criticism of content should come in my direction.  The principle thesis was that the Arab Spring arose because of i.  lack of freedom of expression and of movement, ii. corruption, incompetence and lack of accountabiltity in local and national government, iii. poverty and unemployment particularly among the young and iv. the explosion of communications technology which allows information about comparative freedom, wealth and justice to spread globally. The Religious Winter is prescribed by Religious Fanaticism which does not believe in dialogue nor compromise, considers co-existence to be a weakness and diversity a threat to true religion. Religious Fundamentalism in Islam has its roots in i. globalisation and reaction to western and US dominance in the affairs of mankind, ii. the need to unite Islam, to link alliances and solve problems through unity under Islam shadowing an original impulse in the birth of Islam through the unity of argumentative and hostile nomadic tribes in the Arabian peninsula. The Summer of Hope is a breakthrough beyond the Apring and the Winter into the dawn of a new age which learns to listen to one another, to expect diversity and celebrate it and to respect difference. Our conversation about this analysis related to the Christian community and the Christian message in the midst of this cradle of change and pit of despair. The message of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the suffering servant who is raised from the dead as the resurrected Christ offering humanity the chance of forgiveness through grace and fulfillment through love and compassion and the assuredness of the wholly sufficient presence of the one true God now and forever...this is the summer of Hope fulfilled in our time. The blog is now open for comment and I will contribute to that as I reflect further. Do join in.