Why the Christian Presence in the Middle East is Essential for Civilization

While the declared objectives of the “Arab Spring” include establishing democracy and freedom and improving living conditions in Arabic-speaking countries, the reality after close to two years of violence and instability shows an upheaval that threatens the survival of the original Christian people and moderate Muslim brothers in Arab lands. Pope Benedict XVI visited Lebanon in September this year and called for reconciliation between all. From there, he published an Apostolic Exhortation to all in the Middle East and made it available to all consciences in which he shows that true peace must be built upon justice (Ecclesia in Medio Oriente, 1).

The Church does not force the Eastern Christian faithful to stay in the Middle East. Decisions to immigrate belong to the individuals and families. Moses and his people escaped from Egypt when they feared a threat to their survival. This is why justice is required, but who can be judge except God himself? Who knows the future except God whose mercy and grace overflow every wicked deed and transform it into abiding peace?

The presence of Christians among Muslims as citizens of equal rights and dignity is the only guarantee that, in this vital region, a stable civilization can be preserved and nourished economically and spiritually. Today, the educated elite in the Middle East are mainly moderate Muslims and Christians who have attained high levels of business expertise in dealing with European and North American knowledge centers. Educated young Christians who graduated from Christian schools succeeded in top universities and professions and have been a solid backbone for much investment and economic activity in their countries of the Middle East. Indeed the modernization of political, social and legal systems in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and the rest of Arab countries, in the “Near East” as it was called, started only when in the 16^th to the 19^th centuries, Christian missionaries were allowed to come into these lands. These include the Franciscans, the White Fathers, and the Jesuits. They established schools which raised generations of educated Christians and Muslims who were then sent to Europe and North America for more learning and made business networks with the advanced world. But long before the 16^th century, the Christian Middle East had already contributed to the growth of scholarship. To be brief, the great Christian civilization started in Jerusalem and Antioch before it reached Rome. Origen, in Egypt’s 2^nd century, built Biblical scholarship upon the school of Alexandria which enriched the well-known Library of Alexandria. Many subsequent learned Christians came from the East. They did not shy away from using current philosophical systems to defend the Christian Patristic tradition, and for accuracy the fathers dared to use non-Biblical expressions in the Creed which is still recited today in the Mass.

The Renaissance in Europe, which sought to retrieve the good in Pagan Greek classics, was due to the education in Christian morals carried out by learned monks in Catholic orders. In spite of schisms within the Christian East, the Catholic Church never lost hope for the reunion of all Christians (See for example the Council of Florence in the 15^th century and Vatican II Council in the 20^th century). In fact the Western Churches learned from the Eastern Churches even when they were separated. The writings of St. John of Damascus, a Christian theologian under Arab Islamic rule, greatly influenced Western thought in medieval times. Divine Providence worked through the Islamic civilization in the high medieval centuries to transport knowledge from one end of the world to the other. Indeed Muslim scholars contributed to the learning from the once-famous library of Bagdad to the Moores in “Andalusia” or Spain today. To preserve Eastern Christian tradition after the Islamic Conquests, Syrian and Assyrian Christian monks, under Islamic rule, translated the writings of the Bible and philosophers from Aramaic and Greek to Arabic. The Bible and writings of the Fathers were known in Latin Europe at least since Jerome, but the writings of Aristotle were unknown except that Ibn Rushd (Averroes in Latin) translated Aristotle’s works into Latin and these in turn fell in the hands of St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest theologian in history to-date. St. Thomas, who taught at the universities in Paris and Rome, built a huge philosophical system based on Aristotle’s natural philosophy. By “baptizing” the work of Aristotle, the Church opened the way to modern scientific research in the cosmos. The key factor in the growth of civilizations is collaboration that leads to proper communication for the benefits of all.

Psychologically speaking, the only way of advancing humanity in life and after-life is through love as taught and lived by Jesus Christ our Lord. For any advancement in the Middle East, Muslims and Jews need the expansion of Christian presence.

A Social Network for the Church

With most businesses using social networks such as Linked-In and Facebook, I thought of proposing an exclusive social network for the Church.
Why?

—connect 30,000 to 40,000 Church members in Canada.

—reach out to all the faithful who are not  visible in Church Masses, services and lectures.

—establish online catechism for the young and Church teachings for adults.

—publish Eastern Christian  Tradition to new generations.

—bring Al-Macarrat and other scholarly work on-line.

—build faith in the Bible and Church Tradition and link to existing scholarly Catholic and other Christian resources.

—provide a link for young adults looking for jobs or advancement in their careers within the community.

—provide an opportunity for business exchange between members and to businesses that wish to advertise their services to members.

Tonight I will talk about this project to attendees of my lecture. This is only one of the ways of using social networks to expand the Church

On the beginnings

In my current lectures at Jesus the King parish and in my writings too, I emphasize the need for the Church - the People of God, as Vatican II proclaims – to be a witness to Christ in all nations. You and I -the Church - need to invest what we have received in our lives to serve the Lord. This year is the 50^th anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council. The Council ushered the reform that welcomes greater contribution of Christian lay persons to the building up of the Church.

First, let each one recall the good things he received from God, then see whether we can thank God for his great love. Not everyone is ready to thank God. Some of us are hurt by events that they encountered such as the death of a loved one, or the terminal disease of another. When we see innocent people die in a storm like Sandy, or worse, in a war like the one in Syria, we can’t ignore them and their families. Usually we blame God for the miseries that beset us, yet we are taught that he loves us. If you do not believe that God really loves you as you are then you need to assess your faith by asking a trusted pastor or spiritual director in Church. Second, we need to pray with the Church, discern the will of God for each one for he loves us in good times and bad, and work with the families to bring them healing and relief according to his will. The program of discerning God’s will in our lives initiated by St. Ignatius Loyola is a great program which will be introduced at Jesus the King Church shortly.

Third, The Knights of Columbus should be aware that they constitute an important organ in the Church’s mission which Bishop Ibrahim spoke about recently. In a recent interview with him conducted by Charity TV, he mentioned the need for reaching out to kids, teenagers, and young adults. Awareness should help us desire to give out of what we have whether in education we received, in talents, or in money; for everything we received was given to us as a gift by God through parents who loved us, families, schools and society that cared for us. Our thanksgiving should imitate Christ who “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”(Phil 2: 6-8).

Fourth, The Knights of Columbus at Jesus the King Council have already started a program to help the Church in need through donating for children’s education at the Patriarchal School of the Melkite Catholic Patriarchate in Jerusalem. Your donations can be given at http://www.jerusalemstudents.org - More on-line projects can be carried out with the same spirit. This is particularly important to help suffering Christians in the Middle East where our Lord was born and the Church was formed by Him. Communication is most important to speak to and listen to others in Church. Since many of us use social networks on computers, we can build a computer-based social network that is exclusive for the faithful in the Melkite Catholic Church in Canada as well as for the members of the Knights of Columbus in Canada and beyond. I have proposed such projects to the local leadership of both. The return on these projects is immense in terms of the many new people who will join us through these networks and the revenues for the Church and its servants the Knights of Columbus. We have enough talents and experience to carry out such projects from Jesus the King Church to the glory of Jesus the King. In this Christmas, may the “infant of Bethlehem” be glorified in us and the rest of the world and may the joy in the Lord fill us all.

New Insights

One of the things that I share with my pastor is the idea that people must know about everything in the world as much as they can. In order to discern what is right and what is not right, we need to examine what we are bombarded with everyday in light of the Moral Law. There are many good events but there are also evil ones. A good website that discusses educational and moral issues is the Canadian-based Catholic Education Resource Center at http://www.catholiceducation.org - Other ones are: Zenit at http://www.zenit.org and  Imitatio at http://www.imitatio.org/ which delves into anthropology of Mimetic Theory, and a fourth one is America Magazine run by the Jesuit Fathers in the U.S. at http://www.americamagazine.org A fifth one that is indispensable to researchers in Catholic tradition is http://www.newadvent.org which features an online Bible, The Catholic Encyclopedia (dated 1910 but rich in content), and readings from the Fathers of the Church in addition to articles by contemporary authors. I must add the renowned First Things at http://www.firstthings.com/ Not all articles are free but you can read the free ones to learn how contemporary Catholic thinkers think. On my blog Today's Questions at  http://www.todayquestions.blogspot.ca you will find many more websites in contemporary theology and science. None of these are infallible but we always grow in learning by opening up to everything that can conceive the good in our minds and hearts.

How to Get Others to Follow You

Last Friday I spoke at Jesus the King Church about only some of the ways to get others to follow you.  Many of these ways may result in immoral decisions but can certainly be used morally. This is why we should know about them.

 

We are all interdependent to varying degrees. The fact that new technology allows me to communicate with friends anywhere in the globe is evidence of the influence that anyone can exercise on others in the globe.

 

The most recent research this year shows that businesses are increasingly using “Big Data” from huge Internet social networks, email systems, transactions and structured databases in different forms to analyze consumer interests and sentiments and influence the decisions of consumers and other businesses in order to buy their products. Advertisements on TV, radio, and the Web are marketing new products and ideas to you and me every second.

 

In “Banished from Eden: Original Sin and Evolutionary Theory in the Drama of Salvation” Raymond Schwager, S.J. traces the origin and development of humans along the evolutionary paradigm using new findings in genetics, biology, Girard’s Mimetic Theory, the listening Audio-Psycho-Phenology Theory by Dr. Alfred Tomatis, and the work and thought of Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. and Karl Rahner S.J. Against these findings, he explores the Biblical narrative of the Fall.

Here are examples of ways to get others to follow you:

 

Mimesis (Imitation)

 

Mimetic Theory has been tested in university researches and appears to give an answer to the above question. How?

 

When I admire someone I create a model of him/her for myself in my mind. This model person, if really in contact with me, may be infatuated or attracted by the same object that attracts me. The result is that we both become attracted to the same person or thing and become rivals (Example: Rivalry between men in love of a certain woman). When my model sees that I am attracted to the same person that he is attracted to, his feelings of wanting this object get reinforced.  Imitation is a very powerful thing we use every day. I imitate persons who are peers to me yet more successful, or more handsome! Because he is my rival now, I try to destroy him through defamation (jealousy), and by showing off that I fit better. Eventually each one of us seeks to possess the object or even rape her only to feel that she is mine.   The fight can escalate into powerful races of battles and into violence. This is partly why tribes or nations attack each other.

 

But imitation can also go in the other direction if we are careful! Many saints did imitate their models and through this imitation built bigger monasteries, schools, and spent their lives learning and teaching. For example, St. Pachomius imitated St. Anthony of Egypt and built the first community of monks. St. Athanasius wrote the biography of his model St. Anthony and got it translated when he went to Rome so that in the end St. Benedict benefited from it in founding his order. The second Christian book, after the Bible, read by generations of Christians is “The Imitation of Christ” written in the 15^th century.

 

The result is that I can influence many others when I imitate what they wish to be. We always learn from each other through mimesis or imitation. If, by my example, I imitate Christ or follow one of the saints, others who come into relationship with me are influenced by this imitation and are likely to follow me. (For more info on Mimetic Theory see my post:

 http://www.todayquestions.blogspot.ca/2009/07/apocalypse-now.html )

 

Listening

Dr. Tomatis’s theory that "the voice does not produce what the ear does not hear", is the hallmark of his research and his method.

In his research and subsequent confirmation by colleagues, Dr. Alfred Tomatis found that the earliest communication in humans takes place in the womb of the mother. The fetus at the age of 4 months listens to his mother’s feelings and is disturbed if she is having an argument with the husband. In his book “Neuf mois au Paradis” Tomatis shows that the child is secure in his 9 months in the womb of his mother and that there is memory of the child from the moment that there is a cell (i.e. from conception). Accordingly begetting or conceiving of children is much more than a mere biological process; for it is a communicative process that includes the whole human person with an intensive imaging (‘in his image’). Thus Schwager writes “Because inter-human communication is disrupted through sin and procreation belongs to this communication, sin can make its home in the deepest dimension of human nature.”

 

Listening rather than only hearing is, therefore, essential in effective communication.

(For more info on Alfred Tomatis see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomatis and http://www.tomatis.com/ ).

 

The Fall

Through the mechanism of evolution God created everything including the first humans. According to the Biblical narrative:

 

The LORD God gave the man this order: You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From that tree you shall not eat; when you eat from it you shall die. (Gen 2)

 

So Satan comes to Eve. See how he speaks to her AND HOW SHE LISTENS.

First he IMITATES in a pervert way the words of God:

 

Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any of the trees in the garden’? (Gen 3)

 

Thus Satan

1.       changes the order to include all trees.

2.      When Eve corrects him “it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, or else you will die” he designates to her the fruit so that the focus is on an object. The focus is now on the fruit.

3.      At that time, reminding her of the terror of death, he lies to her saying “You certainly will not die! God knows well that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, who know good and evil.”  In other words, you will be like God!!

 

Eugen Drewermann points out anxiety in Eve because she finds herself attracted to the OBJECT but if she POSSESSES IT she will die!

 

With Satan’s provocation, Eve is lured to an object away from a relationship that constitutes her eternal life. Instead of maturing in the relationship with God, she loses her trust in God and falls in the trap.

 

Communication continues: Now Eve gives Adam some of the fruit because she loves him and wants to share the pleasure with him but also she wants to share with him becoming DIVINE in everything. If I think I can stand on my own or be my own God, then I am deceived. Hope can be false if not based on the truth. When Adam is asked why he committed his sin he blames God for the woman he was given. When Eve is asked, she blames the serpent that God created.

 

The Fall did not prevent communication and sharing but tainted them with lack of trust and an inclination to continue in the selfish path and desire of objects.  In later generations communication will continue, in spite of evil, which will be found in trade and tribal allies and subsequently in civilizations.

 

But who followed who? We followed Adam & Eve through Original Sin and actual sins that are generated from the inclination caused by Original Sin, but is there a way back to Paradise? Only in uniting ourselves to Christ through prayer, repentance and trust of his merciful love. These are practiced in the Sacraments especially the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist as well as in immersing ourselves in learning and following the Scriptures as interpreted by the Church and in practicing what we learn everyday through self-giving to others as much as each of us can. Christ is the image of God, the self-revelation of God and the fulfillment of love that lived, died and resurrected to reunite the human family with her true destiny, God.