2ND Sunday in Lent Mark Chapter 8 verses 31 – 38

2^ND Sunday in Lent     Mark Chapter 8 verses 31 – 38

The Church’s season of Lent challenges us to take an honest look at ourselves in the light of the good news of fast approaching Good Friday and Easter Day. Lent offers an opportunity to take stock of our relationships with God and neighbour. Such a spiritual audit as this can be, if we dare to be strictly honest with ourselves, a quite difficult and discomforting time. For some, the prospect of such discomfort leads them to give Lent a wide berth!

Yet this honest taking stock we are asked to do in the light of God’s amazing love and forgiveness offered to one and all: he loves us and his nature is ‘to be always willing to forgive’. I think most of us realise that, in life, growth – at least growth in character and maturity - requires not only honesty but testing.

It is the same in the Christian life, in the life of discipleship. But here, in discipleship of Jesus, we have an encouragement to do so second to none; we can be honest with ourselves and we can offer ourselves to be tested – especially by our willingness to suffer for Jesus’ sake – because we are also sure of God’s love for us and that his nature is ‘to be always willing to forgive’. For us of course, the trouble is that things get in the way: other priorities, other concerns, other views - of what is important in life or what other people think is important in life, or what they think of us.

To such distractions, to the temptation not to take Lent seriously, Jesus offers his love and the challenging but liberating invitation to know him by taking up our cross and following him.

In our Gospel passage Jesus is being very open and frank with his disciples and with the crowd about what must happen to him and what it will mean for them to follow him. It’s one of many passages in the Gospels that give the lie to the popular idea that a person can be a ‘nominal’ Christian – one who shies away from commitment, especially open or public commitment. (If Wayne Rooney were to say, ‘I’m only a ‘nominal’ Man Utd player’, we can easily imagine Sir Alex Ferguson’s reaction!)  ‘Nominalism’ is out of the question, says Jesus, as V34 makes clear. Just as Sir Alex, who once said that football is more than a matter of life or death, would not accept anything less than a total commitment from his team, so there is no such thing in the Kingdom of God as a ‘nominal’ Christian. Either I am a committed Christian or I am an enquirer or I am an imposter: Jesus left us with no other choice.

In v31 Jesus refers to himself as the ‘Son of Man’, a term he used to describe himself rather than ‘Messiah’, God’s anointed one. He did this because the people, even his disciples, had some very firm but mistaken ideas about what God’s Messiah ought to be about; and so Jesus used this different term so that people would not jump to conclusions formed by their own ideas and expectations but ,instead, look, listen, and learn about him and his agenda. We can see the wisdom of this because, as vs 31 - 33 make very clear, even his closest friends were still allowing their own ideas and expectations to cloud their understanding of what Jesus needed to do.  v31 the Son of Man must undergo...’ This is the agenda Jesus calls us to buy into. This is why we need to leave our personal agendas at home on Sundays; because it is true, sadly, of the Church and of we Christians, isn’t it, that we all too easily allow the personal agendas of our ideas, expectations, tastes, politics, and frustrations even to cloud our understanding of Jesus’ agenda and his priorities, his very clear agenda we learn of in the Gospels. To such attitudes Jesus’ statement in v34 and its explanation in vs 35 – 37 are a shocking revelation. And so that we are left in no doubt, he then reinforces these heartfelt warnings about denying him with his even more harrowing revelation in v 38.

So you and I cannot claim that we did not know; that we did not know that Jesus’ suffering was necessary, that the resurrection is not only important but necessary for Christian belief, or that promoting our own agendas or giving in to the world’s agendas is wrong, or that committed discipleship is not just an option for ‘keenies’, or that self-preservation is ultimately futile, or that denying Jesus, being ashamed of him in our day, will result in Jesus one day being ashamed of us. He has made this all abundantly clear. However, most importantly of all he has demonstrated his love for us; a love that rescues, reconciles, and renews us. Presented with such love, how can we do otherwise than respond with all our heart? But do we?

That’s the question the season of Lent asks us to ask ourselves.

I think it all comes back, as all healthy Christian theology (thinking about God and us in relationship to him) does to grace, and whether or not we genuinely want to respond to it.

Simone Weil, the Jewish French intellectual who followed Christ, said that it is as if two great forces rule this universe: gravity and grace. ‘Gravity’, as she termed it, causes one body to attract other bodies so that it continually enlarges by absorbing more and more of the universe into itself. Something like this same force operates in human beings: we too want to expand, to acquire, to swell in significance. Emotionally, we humans operate, naturally, by laws as fixed as Newton’s and remain trapped in the gravitational field of self-love, preoccupied with ourselves. It is God’s grace, and only God’s grace (that orientation away from self and towards God and others) which can break the natural pull of self.

We escape the force of such spiritual ‘gravity’ when we begin to see ourselves as sinners who cannot please God by any method of self-improvement or self-enlargement. Only then can we turn to God for outside help – for grace. And as soon as we do, we realise that a holy God already loves us despite our defects. I escape the force of ‘gravity’ again when I recognize my neighbours also as sinners loved by God; all of us in the same boat. But just as there is nothing you or I can do to make God love us more; there is also nothing we can do to make God love us less. Our spiritual lives are defined and determined in the first instance by our willingness to be honest and open with ourselves, with God, and with others.

All the while we misrepresent ourselves spiritually to God and our neighbour, it is difficult for God’s grace to work in our lives; it is not possible to know him. Such honesty is vital. And it is not enough simply to acknowledge our imperfection and weakness. When the antidote of grace is freely available, we are not only foolish to refuse it, Jesus makes it very clear that we are culpable if we do not. Radical honesty and radical dependence upon God, these two will prove the most enlightening and liberating of truths this Lent as we look forward with joy and great expectation to the good news of Good Friday and Easter Day.

‘Religion – cause or convenient excuse?’ The third talk in the series ‘Making Sense of the Middle East Today.’

This evening’s talk, in which I propose to look at some aspects of the religious scene in the Middle East, I trust will help you to make a little more sense of this admittedly hugely enigmatic region: and I think must begin with a consideration of one of the issues raised during last week’s question and discussion session. ‘What is the difference between a Sunni and a Shii’a Muslim – and are there any significant consequences of it?’

It is a very good question and has flummoxed even those in politics and the intelligence communities who, one would expect, really ought to know. In October 2006, writing in The New York Times, Jeff Stein illustrated just how much a problem this was. He writes, ‘A ‘gotcha’ question? Perhaps. But if knowing your enemy is the most basic rule of war, I don’t think it’s out of bounds.’ He continues. ‘But so far, most American officials I’ve interviewed don’t have a clue. That includes not just intelligence and law enforcement officials, but also members of Congress who have important roles overseeing our spy agencies.’

Well, let’s lend our American cousins – and probably many others too! - a hand here. At the risk of offending purists or extremists at either end of the spectrum, I would say that there are only a few genuine religious differences – in prayer forms and ablution rituals, for instance, and, more importantly, in the selection and interpretation of the Hadeeth (the sayings of The Prophet). But the key issue of difference is undoubtedly that of the history and location of authority in respect of the line of spiritual succession to the prophet Muhammed. And so, of course, we immediately stray into the realm of politics!

On the one hand, Sunnis believed that any worthy Muslim could become the spiritual leader of the Islamic community after Muhammed’s death, whilst the Shii’a (originally Shii’at Ali or party of Ali (Muhammed’s cousin)on the other hand believed that only a member of the household of Muhammed, the ‘Ahl al Beit’, Ali, could be the legitimate heir. Schism resulted.

The Shii’a, who are concentrated in Iran, Bahrain, Azerbaijan, and Iraq, with strong minorities in The Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan, India, Kuwait, and Eastern Saudi Arabia, venerate Muhammed’s family (‘Ahl al Beit’) and their line of twelve Imams, something the likes of the Saudi Wahhaabis and Al Qaa’ida - Sunni extremists, for example, consider to be idolatry.

For the Sunnis, who constitute some 85% of the  Muslim world, the loss of the Caliphate following WW1 – remember, Attaturk abolished it in order to unite the Turkish people as a national, secular unity – was catastrophic, a loss seized upon by fundamentalist Sunnis but very much in reaction to Western cultural imperialism. So, Hasan al Banna, the Egyptian who in 1928 founded the ‘Ikhwaan al Muslimoon’ or Muslim Brotherhood, speaks of the ‘wave of atheism and lewdness’ that engulfed Egypt following the 1WW, and wrote as follows.  

 ‘The victorious Europeans have imported their half-naked women into these regions, together with their liquors, their theatres, their dance halls, their amusements, their stories, their newspapers, their novels, their whims, their silly games, and their vices. Their schools and scientific and cultural institutes cast doubt and heresy into the souls of its sons and taught them how to demean themselves, disparage their religion and their fatherland, divest themselves of their traditions and beliefs, and to regard as sacred anything Western.’

He also saw, in his eyes most distressingly of all, that the clerical leaders had become compromised and corrupted by their alliance with the indigenous ruling elites who had succeeded the European colonial masters. His cause was subsequently taken up many years later by Osama Bin Laden, a Sunni.

Now just to put all this in perspective, I must just make three important points. First, that most mainstream clerics in each denomination, Sunni and Shii’a, recognise adherents of the other side to be legitimate Muslims - if, perhaps sometimes, somewhat misguided. 

Secondly, the vast majority of ordinary Sunni and Shii’a Muslims get on just fine with each other – or at least until, for example, an extremist stirs things up, or there is a scarcity of something at issue – perhaps jobs or food – and then such divisions all too easily become convenient excuses for some pretty irreligious behaviour! And thirdly, if we take a particular contemporary clash between Sunni and Shii’a, in Iraq for example, we would have to acknowledge that the kind of sectarian fighting between them there is relatively recent in its genesis: it does not have a long history. Sunni and Shii’a cooperated in the 1920 rebellion against the British, whilst the riots of the 50s and 60s were either landlord/peasant or Communist/Baathist. No, it seems very much that the recent fighting was in large measure unleashed by the Americans and is to do, as I would maintain when it comes to the Sunni/Shii’a divide, all about group identity and group interests rather than, just as in Northern Ireland, anything remotely at all to do with genuine religious practise or principle.

But the Shii’a have been for hundreds of years an oppressed minority. This has given rise to a cult of death and martyrdom within the general atmosphere of the sect which, combining with a very fatalistic approach to life generally amongst Muslims – something which, to my mind, seems to generate and maintain the pretty pervasive atmosphere of fear in the Middle East - can make them a difficult people with whom to negotiate or see reason, at least as far as we Westerners are concerned.

A word or two about the Sufis, who were also mentioned briefly in last week’s discussion period. Sufism – a form of Islam which proves very attractive to Westerners because of its mystical and largely non-political character - arose primarily in reaction to the material and political excesses of the Umayyed Caliphs of the 7th and 8th Cs and also out of admiration for the lives and lifestyle of Christian monks of that period. 

Sufism, which is ‘the science of the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else except God’ may be either Sunni, Shii’a, or a mixture of both sects, or of entirely independent authority. Their apolitical and mysterious characteristics have elicited suspicion and persecution from ruling Muslim or secular authorities throughout their history. However, they do not, certainly these days, threaten existing power bases with a view to taking their place, nor are they, for the most part, irresponsibly arcane in the way that are some cult and fringe Christian groups. In contrast to these latter groups (which are often pervaded by an over-emphasis on the leader or the spirit) - and, I would want to argue, offering a healthy corrective to them - Sufi spiritual leaders advocate respect for a balanced approach to spirituality that takes regard of the teachings and traditions of Islam. I suppose a rough parallel might be the Anglican tripod of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason: however, in my experience that Anglican tripod has too often been used as an excuse to obstruct the Holy Spirit, and in Sufism such a spiritually debilitating approach would be to strike at Sufism’s very core. A Sufi teacher, whose name I am afraid I do not have to hand, has this to say in this regard.

‘When we see someone in this community who claims to be able to guide others to God, but is remiss in but one rule of the sacred law – even if he manifests miracles that stagger the mind – asserting that his shortcoming is a special dispensation for him, we do not even turn to look at him, for such a person is not a Sheikh (one held in respect), nor is he speaking the truth, for no one is entrusted with the secrets of God Most High save one in whom the ordinances of the Sacred Law are preserved.’

A sound lesson in principle, I would say, for wise and faithful Anglicans too!

Let me try to give you a current context for some of the issues we are considering here tonight. The recent and continuing upheavals in the Middle East have called into question many of the old assumptions, some considered almost axiomatic, about the nature and character of the indigenous peoples, their religion, and their politics.

The convulsions in the Arab world are neither ‘secular’ nor ‘religious’. They are in fact refusals, especially on the part of the younger generation, to act according to the old European Orientalists’ prejudices. For example: that democracy is incompatible with Islam, that they are suckers for extremist dogmas like AlQaa’ida, or that fear of the authorities is so strong that change is almost impossible.

Now it is true that fear is a big factor in attempting to explain what goes on in the Middle East, and that helping people to overcome their fears is crucial to the creation of healthy Arab as well as Turkish and Persian societies. But, as I mentioned briefly the week before last, the young have been beginning to question and even refusing to submit to the old stereotypes, the old arguments, the old battles: for example, that it was their duty to oust Israel from Palestine rather than seek a compromise position. Again, the remarkable coming together in places like Freedom Square in Cairo of Muslims and Christians allied, together with the secularists, over the broad themes of democracy and human rights to demonstrate together, dogmatically refusing to respond with violence against an oppressive American puppet regime, was pretty much unprecedented.  Christians were protecting their Muslim compatriots from the government security apparatus as they prayed, and Muslims the Christians as they celebrated Holy Communion there.

 It is almost beyond doubt that the attacks on the Coptic Christians in Alexandria at the time were not undertaken by Muslim extremists but by instruments of the Mubarak Regime intending to sow antagonism and fear between Christian and Muslim. Again, my own investigation in Turkey into a well-publicised murder of two Western bookshop missionaries a couple of years ago revealed that the lone perpetrator had been put up to it and was high on drugs at the time. And that information came from the Armenian Christian manager of the SPCK Christian bookshop in Istanbul!

Now I am not saying, far from it, that Christians are not persecuted throughout the Middle East, but simply that cases are sometimes somewhat different in reality from how they appear or are sometimes presented by interested parties. As I found on so many occasions when attempting to understand or analyse something in the region, I had always to go through the discipline of asking myself the following three questions: With whom am I talking? Where am I? (Not in the sense of my own existential angst but of my geographical location.)Who is in charge locally?

You have to understand that the reply or explanation given to a particular question  or issue will depend very much on whether I am having the conversation with a Muslim or a Christian, a peasant or a politician, in Damascus or Istanbul, and whether, for example, the local planning or police officer is at least sympathetic to the concept of indifferent justice.

Whilst our Archbishop is rightly concerned about the gradual de-population of the Middle East of the Christian minorities, whether through discrimination and persecution or simply the desire for greater opportunities for material and personal betterment elsewhere, one would have to take note of the very insular, old-fashioned, and defensive attitudes of some at least of the ancient Christian minorities. Understandable, given the history, yes; but the new underground churches are very much a sign of hope for the area; and if the ‘Awakening’ of the ‘Arab Spring’ is not high-jacked by Muslim extremists, and if its all-embracing character is not changed or stained, then a genuine pluralism might just result. One phrase, deliberately imprecise, coined to describe the new younger generation’s approach to combining political parties and religions across the spectrum has been ‘religious secularity’; this on the basis that such a deliberate oxymoron is necessary in order to convey such a miraculous fusion of interest in the fundamental human needs and aspirations for which they joined together to protest.

Rashid Ghannouchi of the Egyptian democracy movement illustrated this in this way. 

‘We have continuously defended the right of women and men to choose their lifestyle. We are against the imposition of the head scarf in the name if Islam; and we are against the banning of the headscarf in the name of secularism or modernity.’  Or again, the rapid rejection by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood no less of Tehran’s insistence that recent Arab events are a replay of the Iranian revolution is certainly very encouraging. Some commentators even speak of a ‘post-Islamist’ generation, arguing that young people have realised that Islam is neither ‘the solution’ - as the extremist placards say, nor is it the cause of all the Middle East’s ills. That this idea appeals to liberal Arab intellectuals goes without saying: just how much it positively rather than negatively stirs the ordinary working classes is, I would want to suggest, another matter entirely. What is evident, I do believe, is that because of the Arab ‘Awakening’, no undemocratic regime in the world, let alone the region, may now feel itself safe if built on lies, bribes, and violence. But the problem remains, of course, that there are plenty of vested interests around just waiting or already planning to undermine this progressive union.

Ghannouchi almost certainly made his remarks with one eye on Turkey, whose form of democracy is often put forward as a model for Middle Eastern countries. So let’s now move north to consider the case of Turkish democracy, its genesis, and the place and experience of religion within this.

1923 represents a watershed turning point in Turkish history. The Ottoman Empire had existed from 1299 – 1922. Attaturk, realising how backward the Empire had become and how powerfully advanced in contrast had become the European powers, introduces a modern secular unitary republic which replaces its multi-ethnic, multi-religious predecessor. Attaturk, privately if not publically, is convinced that whilst Islam is an aspect of what it means to be ‘Turkish’, its classical interpretation had proved a ball and chain to the Ottoman Empire and would have to be reinterpreted for the modern society he wanted to create. The notion of ‘Turkish Islam’ I’ll come to in a moment.

Attaturk’s new modern, secular and ethnically Turkish national identity was detached from any Islamic or Ottoman ties and at odds with the myriad of ethnic and sub-cultural identities prevailing in Turkish society. It really was only by force of his personality and reputation as the country’s saviour that he was able to introduce his new idea. People’s legal status was defined in terms of obligations toward the state over the rights of citizens, and the social emphasis was on duty rather than freedoms. As, under pressure from European countries and after the death of Attaturk in 39, the country very gradually began to evolve into a more democratic parliamentary system, so religious, especially Muslim, and minority nationalist agendas, especially the Kurdish, began to question the Kemalist principles and organs controlling the state. 

Although political Islam and fundamentalism – as expressed by the extremists we considered last week - is very much alien to Turkish culture (Attaturk even stated that ‘the religion of the Arab has held us back’; the Caliphate to be ‘a tumour of the Middle Ages.’), recognising the strength of religious sentiment, especially Islamic, amongst the ordinary people of Turkey, the government and military leaders become gradually, if always somewhat suspiciously, more sympathetic to this religious sentiment as an element in the new national make-up, and actually begin to promote a rosy synthesis of Turkish history, Kemalist republican ideals, and Islamic principles as a new interpretation of Islam – ‘Turkish Islam.’           

The Kemalist ideology’s core principles were secularism, i.e. state control over religion; and nationalism, i.e. ethno-cultural homogeneity and territorial unity. Attaturk had introduced these in order to unify what was then a country of enormous size and variety in many things. The problem for the Kemalists was that too much indulgence of ethnic or religious individuality they perceived, often with good reason, as being divisive and undermining of the nation as a whole. And as the republic became more democratic – under pressure from America and Europe - so the minority causes prospered to the extent that as late as 1997 there was a ‘soft’ military coup – the military, the judiciary, and the bureaucracy are the guardians of Kemalist orthodoxy – undertaken to counter and suppress, in particular, Kurdish nationalism and increasing public displays of Islam or Islamism.

As far as the Christian minorities were concerned, although they were often treated as second class citizens and any signs of growth do seem to have been treated with suspicion and the denial of, for example, permission to build buildings or open or re-open colleges and institutes, they were free to practise privately and in their churches their own religion.

When I was there last year, it was very revealing to note how even a house church was allowed to exist, its windows open and familiar tunes gently but unashamedly filling the air - and this in the hearing of local policemen. Not only that, but in the window boxes instead of flowers were tracts and Turkish translations of the bible. Again, elsewhere, where the expat Anglican congregation was dying out in the Victorian built church – 

‘It’s a shame; we’re just too old, uninteresting and uninterested,’ commented an elderly male churchwarden – new indigenous converts were growing new congregations that, within the constraints of law and culture, were actively reaching out to their Muslim neighbours. Yes, they weren’t many; and, yes, they had to be very careful: but what an example; what a genuine ray of hope – mirroring the same in the underground churches in Iran - for the survival of active Christianity in the region.

Tied to that hope, given the coming together of the religions and the secularists amongst the younger generations at least, I reckon is the teaching, example, and practice of one of the strongest Islamic groups in Turkey, the Revivalist Movement inspired by its leading figure, Fetullah Gulen.                      A teacher, educator, and preacher, his Sufi based and informed mainstream but not fundamentalist Islamic teaching - activist just as much as contemplative, respectful and tolerant of the presence of other religious groups in Turkey, and, most definitely, against the use of terrorism, centres on the principle of ‘hizmet’ or service to the common good. This form of Sufism is called NAKSHIBANDI and, in Turkey, stresses tolerance, piety, service, loyalty to government, openness to change, and secularism as not being incompatible with Islam.

They finance schools and universities, banks, hospitals, and news and T.V. channels. Fundamentalists consider such ‘liberal’ views heretical but forget, conveniently perhaps, that in the Ottoman era there never was a fully-fledged theocratic state like Saudi Arabia: it was simply assumed that truly religious Sultans would act justly and piously, whilst religion would be adaptable. Gulen would argue from his Sufi standpoint that Sharii’a Law was only for the private sphere, not the public. Public law has to be more flexible. 

This is certainly a moderate Muslim viewpoint to note when Western clergy and politicians think of making a case, on the basis of the much disputed canons of political correctness, for the inclusion of Sharii’a law within the British judicial system. Suffice to comment here that I believe there must be sensible limits to the degree to which we try to appease or include Muslim sensitivities.

The practical, activist, inclusive character of this, let’s call it for convenience’s sake ‘Sufi-inspired’, political agenda, in part at least culturally determined Turkish Muslimhood, appeals to young secularists and atheists in Turkey and is seen by an increasing number of the Kemalist hierarchy as not threatening to or subversive of the national state. It also accords with EU demands that Turkey become more democratic and solicitous of minority issues if she is to gain membership. The Catch 22 situation for her however is that as she offers greater democracy and religious freedom, so she gives a home and strength to the very Islamist Muslims not only she but the EU are so concerned about. But on the other hand, the xenophobic attitude towards Turkey on the part of Sarkozy, Merkel, and other prominent European political figures raises within Turkey, and right across the political and religious spectrum, the question of whether it is actually in Turkey’s best interests to join the EU with its lame duck Euro and fiscally irresponsible members such as near neighbour Greece.

When I was in Turkey late last year, closer ties with Syria were being implemented, closer relations with Iran being cultivated. Turkey has not fought against Iran since1638, and many in Turkey fear that membership of the EU could result in Turkey’s dismemberment along ethnic lines – something commonly referred to in Turkey as ‘Europe’s revenge for Gallipoli’. 

This shift in the national mood against Europe, disparagingly referred to as ‘The Christian Club’, results in greater pressure on the indigenous Christians in Turkey though no fault of their own. You see, it’s all very well the EU and the US presenting Turkey with a list of our demands and principles; but the actual cash value of these implemented I don’t believe was ever properly thought through before they were promulgated. Turks, who, like the Arabs, are suckers for conspiracy theories, are highly suspicious of the EU’s motivation and pretty unimpressed by the hypocritical treatment of minorities – especially Turkish – in the Europeans’ own countries, especially France and Germany. Indeed, it was fascinating to discover how much and how many Turkish Christians felt a greater affinity with their Muslim compatriots than they did with their fellow Christians in Europe!

I have mentioned before that politics and religion are very much intertwined in classical Islam, something which is also somewhat apparent in the life of the ancient Christian churches of the Middle East – some would argue, quite persuasively, out of necessity. But it does mean that such an attitude towards religion, constrained to some degree or other by the aim to survive at all costs, does result in a survivalist, insularist, status quo maintaining mentality.             A classic example of this was of course the Monks of some of the Maronite monasteries in The Lebanon who were said to be more familiar and practised with their Kalashnikovs than they were with their bibles. It took the Pope himself to make them renounce their arms and return to their studies and their service. 

And so while their future I think is pretty uncertain, pretty gloomy – there are wonderful, saintly, exceptions of course amongst traditional clergy in the region – it is, I believe, the new churches, the house churches and the underground churches, who are surely the future in the Middle East if there is to be one for Christianity.

I now come to and want to end this talk with a consideration of recent changes in Christian approaches to Islam. The March/April Barnabus Fund magazine published an excellent article on this which was not favourably received either by politicians or by the Anglican Liberal wing, or by the rose-tinted liberal Evangelical wing because it offered a considered, politically incorrect appreciation of how things actually are; which is why I want to raise the issues it raises as I look at what it says from the perspective of my own findings in Turkey and Syria.

As I have said before in these talks, Western liberals of the theological, social, and political sort tend to take, to my mind at odds with the reality both here and abroad, an all too rosy view of human nature and especially of the motives of those of a somewhat less ’Western liberal’ outlook on life.

When it comes to interfaith dialogue, such seeming generosity of spirit I consider to be too often not only naive in respect of the Muslim agenda – Sufis largely excepted; but unfortunately they are not usually the ones with whom our representatives are dealing – but decidedly undermining of orthodox Christian belief; and this to the extent that Muslims themselves – and I have very much in mind here conversations with Muslim converts – consider themselves to be being short-changed on the Gospel. In short, the swapping of truth for accommodation, and light for the decidedly grey: not so much ‘a firm foundation’, to quote the great hymn, more a woolly comfort blanket. 

Interfaith dialogue really got going on the international scene in the 1950s with the World Council of Churches but had rather petered out by the 1990s. However, 9/11 changed things considerably, bringing both the curious and the fearful to talks amid such mention of ‘war on terror’, ‘war of religions’, ‘clash of civilisations’, etc. In particular there was much sympathy for the view that the Islamic terrorists were a lunatic fringe and very much an unrepresentative minority of an otherwise peacefully inclined Islam. Indeed, in Anglican and British political circles – poorly informed but energetically optimistic! – to question the essentially peaceful nature of Islam was, as Michael Nazir-Ali discovered to his cost, to be treated as a theological and political pariah.

What is essential to understand here is that it is not that the majority of Muslims are not peace-loving and opposed to terrorism, but that there exists in the ideas and creeds of Classical Islam an approach to the world that not only accommodates but advocates violence as a means to justify the end; that end being the recovery of what they consider to have been a God-given reward - the lands lost to ‘infidels’. Certainly what to my mind is very alarming is the reluctance of some mainstream self-styled moderate Muslims both here in England and abroad to condemn unreservedly the use of violence. Of course, just like Christianity, Islam is not a unified whole that speaks with one voice: there are many interpretations. But there are, even among those who do not advocate the use of violence, those who would seek to create in non-Muslim countries Islamic or theocratic forms of government and society that many here certainly would consider quite alien. 

The Liberal myth that all reasonable people can be educated to welcome and live by Western enlightenment principles is not on any mainstream Muslim agenda I have yet come across.

But of course most governments and multinational corporations need stability in order to survive and prosper, and so not only have British government policies sought in various ways to bring the Muslim community into the mainstream of society, millions and millions of pounds, dollars, riyals, and dinars have been poured into new interfaith dialogue initiatives. Christian theologians have been encouraged as a result to reshape their theologies in order to embrace Islam, politicians using such inclusive language as the ‘Abrahamic religions’ in order to create the idea or concept of a stable – if only for political purposes – monotheistic system; the message being, ’forget about your differences - which are surely minor and ultimately resolvable, and don’t upset each other.’

But to join this particular club, in practice one has to eschew orthodox Christian claims to the saving uniqueness of Christ and instead reinvent him in his new postmodernist Liberal form. As with all heresies, it is very easy to take certain orthodox truths or elements of those truths and create not a new revealed truth but an artificial construct that satisfies the personal or political agenda. Of course, for many these days the idea even that any absolute truths exist in the realm of religion is anathema and, more importantly to politicians, such a belief is politically indefensible, indeed it would be suicidal.

Yes, it is  generally always ‘good to talk’; but in the case of interfaith dialogue with Muslims, the assumption that there is on all sides a genuine desire to seek the truth is naive; remembering of course that the very concept of truth, especially in the realm of religion, is hotly disputed.  But instability and terrorism, or at least too much of them, is bad for business; and so politicians and businessman have as a result been very energetic in their support of interfaith dialogue. For example, Western governments, through the medium of the Davos-based World Economic Forum, have founded a framework for interfaith dialogue aimed at improving relations between Islam and the West. 

The Council of 100 leaders, which became C-1 World Dialogue in 2009 is replete with high profile churchmen. Its president is Tony Blair! Concomitant with the concerns of Western governments were those of Muslim ones, such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Iran, who have sponsored conferences and issued scholarly rebuttals of Islamic extremist positions. But it would be somewhat naive to expect that all participants’ agendas were the same. The latter three, if not all, are certainly not interested in genuine dialogue

Interestingly, it was Pope Benedict’s 2006 Regensburg lecture – suggesting that Islam was violent and unreasonable - which caused outrage, quite understandably, amongst Muslims and which prompted the first Muslim reply from 38 Muslim scholars. It received no reply from the Pope. This then elicited an open letter to the world Christian community called ‘A Common Word Between Us  And You’, which looked on the surface to be a well-intentioned and urgent plea for greater understanding, its presenting theme the two great commandments. In fact, it was really a call to Christians to convert and submit, and to deny the uniqueness and deity of Christ. It was not a matter – as anyone with any sure knowledge and experience of Islam would have warned – of dialogue or even accommodation but, instead, of subordination, a reaction - again quite understandable given the history we looked at in the first talk – against what they see not as a war against Islamist terrorism but rather a global crusade by Christianity against Islam.

One of the most high-profile responses to ‘A Common Word’ was the November 2007 ‘Yale Letter’, signed by over 300 Christian leaders which, to my mind, and to put it mildly, could best be described as a misguided and  obsequious  placatory exercise displaying an alarming synthesis of naivety and disingenuousness with regard to the issues involved. It is one thing to recognise – as I hope these talks have shown you – that Middle Eastern peoples have some very genuine grievances against and fears of US economic and cultural imperialism, as too of Israeli oppression and aggrandisement;  but it is quite another to allow a misplaced albeit emotionally gratifying sense of guilt, combined as it is with theological scepticism and heresy, to produce an agenda that plays into the hands of both violent and non-violent Islamism, thus confirming their belief in the fundamental weakness (as opposed to a truly biblical vulnerability) of Western Christianity.

Most tellingly of all, I would argue – though such empirical evidence of the results of orthodox Christian faith and praxis are increasingly frowned upon and even derided by the academic and clerical hierarchies in the ‘progressive’ liberal West – is the testimony of Muslim converts themselves, who speak in terms of coming out of the darkness of Islam into the light of Christ, and of the peace and the joy this brings; all this to the extent that they are willing at great cost to themselves to be known as his followers, as ‘Maseeheeyiin’ (Arabic for Christians). Whilst Western Christians, increasingly in many instances, prefer to privatise their faith, the example of the persecuted of the Middle East is, surely, a challenging and inspiring one for those tempted to do so.

The great danger inherent in the ‘new’ socially and politically inspired ‘Christian’ approaches to interfaith dialogue is not only the inevitable reduction of Christ and Christianity to a kind of working compatibility with Islam but also the facilitating of the Islamisation of the West. (Here they directly parallel the Old Testament false prophets who cried ‘peace’.)               Of course, if you do not believe in the resurrection, then Jesus may become for you exactly what he variously was for the 19^th& 20^th C Liberals - simply a reflection of a myriad of personal, philosophical, and cultural agendas.

A Christian’s duty is to preach and to practise love for all Muslims as human beings created in God’s image and for whom Christ died. We must distinguish between individual Muslims and the religious-political system of Islam in which many more than just a few fringe groups see ‘dialogue’ not as an intellectual engagement to resolve problems, but as a bridge they can walk over to further their own goals. We owe it to our persecuted brethren and to those genuinely seeking the Truth not to bow to the idol of political and social expediency.    

‘EXAMINING THE EXTREMISTS’ - Talk Two in the series ‘Making Sense of the Middle East Today’

This evening I would like us to consider the problem of extremism as it is played out in the politics and religion of the Middle East. Blessed indeed are the peacemakers: but in the Middle East they are really up against it; not least because – if you will allow me a second quote from the New Testament – some of those, and among them some of the most influential, claiming to be peacemakers, are in reality ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’.

Last week I offered you a rather patchy patchwork of what I consider to have been some of the most significant historical factors and figures that, taken together, have constrained the region into its present shape, its atmosphere, its attitudes, and current realities. On the basis of my research and conversations, I asserted that whilst the region has often been at war within itself, the worst and most of its troubles arise from ‘Western’ interference of one sort or another. In recent years of course, that Western interference has been led by America.  Successive presidential policies, forged confidently in Washington, have been played out disastrously in the region; primarily, as 

I alluded to last week, by reason of their umbilical attachment to American domestic politics, especially in election years. 

In stark contrast to, for example, America’s cold war policies, there has been no overarching or consistent approach to the region, to the extent that, if one were to attempt to identify the American diplomatic approach to the Middle East – an area, remember, where oil, Israel, and the arms industry are so significant, the hallmark of that diplomacy would have to be described as inconsistency and discontinuity, resulting in the waste of billions of dollars and thousands and thousands of lives. Vacillation, shifting policies, misadventures, and economic and cultural imperialism together with broken promises, have fed the anti-Americanism which I encountered so frequently in the cafes and buses and trains of Syria and Turkey - to mention but two of the region’s countries.

And yet I found people wanting to trust America, wanting to believe the rhetoric about peace, democracy, justice, etc. Sadly, it was because the Shiia’ Muslims in Iraq believed that Bush could and would deliver, that they rose up against Saddam Hussein, only to be hunted down and executed; it was, at least partly, because the ordinary Iranian Muslims listened to Obama and saw in him a beacon of light that they came out onto the streets in their hundreds of thousands in 2009 to protest against their oppressive fundamentalist regime; as was also the case with the Egyptian masses just recently. The oppressed and the idealists of the Middle East want to believe that the sole power in the world which alone has the capability of bringing peace to the region genuinely wants to live up to its own proclaimed ideals – as these were first enunciated to the Arab nationalist movements immediately following the 1^ST WW - but America has been either unwilling to do so, or unable, or both.

Now of course a huge part of that inability or unwillingness has been compounded by the extremists, wherever they may be, from the mosques ad ministries of Tehran and the refugee camps of Gaza, to the synagogues of Jerusalem and the settlers of eretz Israel and the churches of the American Bible Belt. It is to these and other flies in the ointment of genuine attempts to bring peace with justice to the Middle East that I turn this evening. Again I can only present to you some of those groups and individuals whom I consider to be key players in the appalling saga of self-interest and injustice that is still the politics of the Middle East, and where the future of Palestine remains, with little doubt, the central issue, the boil that must be lanced if ever there is to be peace in the region.

Western liberals, in my experience, tend to have an overly rosy view of human nature and of what human beings are capable of, left to their own devices. Unfortunately, we inhabit a world where many fail to understand let alone live by the tenets of such western liberal optimism. And so they are often deeply shocked by the unreasonable and unreasoning stance of extreme factions in the Middle East. But as Saddam Hussein, when first captured, said to his CIA interrogator after his interrogator had listed some of the appalling crimes he had committed, ‘You guys just don’t understand; this is a tough neighbourhood’.

So in this ‘tough neighbourhood’, in order to give you a fuller flavour of their raison d’etre and their modus operandi, I have chosen the following advocates of extremism:

 At one end of the spectrum, The Iranian Regime, Al Qaa’ida, and Hizbollah: at the other, the Israeli Right Wing and in particular the Zionists, and then, most worryingly to my mind in a way, in terms of the diminishing prospects for peace, the Christian Right in America, and in particular a fast growing organisation called ‘Christians United For Israel’, whose tentacles have already reached some of the churches of Europe.

But what creates or elicits such extremism?

I think we need to start with a rough working definition of extremism for the purposes of this talk. For me, this evening, an extremist is someone or some group who adheres so dogmatically to his or the group’s perspective or agenda that they are unwilling either to face facts or to countenance alternatives. For such as these, violence is very often a means justified by the end, whether they themselves perpetrate that violence or allow others do so on their behalf. I don’t think this an unreasonable working definition for our purposes this evening, but I’m afraid it covers quite a range of key players and their supporters on the religious and political map of the Middle East.

 A couple of quotes from either end of the spectrum:

‘The black ink of the religious scholar and the red blood of the martyr: what can be more beautiful?’ Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, mentor of Osama Bin Laden.

‘Whoever thinks that Islam is a religion of mercy does not understand Islam.’ Ayatollah Mezbah Yazdi, spiritual mentor of Mahmoud  Ahmedinejad, President of Iran.

This from a Jewish journalist. ‘What shocks me is the new younger generation of Israelis that enjoys killing Palestinians. It is a settler society of hunters of Indians, hunters of natives.’

And this from an Israeli Rabbi. ‘The Israeli establishment reduces the great Jewish tradition into an excuse for persecuting others.’

So then, what creates such extremism in the Middle East?

On the one hand, for decades people were not allowed to want or to aspire to anything, and not just the Palestinians who had known only the refugee camps of Lebanon. Generation after generation elsewhere was taught by autocratic regimes, some of them, like Israel and Egypt, and at times both Iraq and Iran, bolstered by American dollars, to exchange freedom for security. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a useful pretext to impose emergency laws, ban democratic elections, smash oppositions, and violate human rights. And so it should not be  a surprise to us that Bin Laden, when he appeared on the scene, was perceived by many young Arabs as a hero; not because he gave real answers to their problems but, rather, because they saw him as fighting for what they could interpret as their dignity. In this context, the invasion of Iraq came as a slap in the face: it was shocking and humiliating for Arabs to observe the US waging war in the name of democracy even as it was befriending and propping up despotic regimes.

 On the other hand, Zionism was a distressed and oppressed people’s proud and defiant response to centuries of contempt, humiliation, and periodic bouts of deadly oppression that culminated in the systematic extermination of millions of Jews during the Nazi holocaust. The Israeli state was the would-be phoenix to rise from the Jewish embers still smouldering in the blood-soaked earth of another continent. For most Jews it was the one and only consolation to hang on to when the madness and horrific losses of the death camps finally came to an end.

One would like to think that the motive was the positive one of achieving justice and safety for one tormented people in their historic homeland, not the negative one of doing damage to another people. Yet, in effect and without any sense of shame on the part of many, especially their leaders, this is precisely what it did do. Last week, when considering the Sykes-Picot agreement and the lines in the sand drawn by the European powers, I asked you to imagine your response, as a native, to such a line being drawn through the middle of Brenchley High Street. Imagine now being forced out, if you were lucky enough to survive, at gunpoint, of the village where your family has lived for hundreds of years, never to return.

Back to the Palestinians, who, initially, did not set out to damage anyone. They merely wanted for themselves what, with considerable justification, they felt was their entitlement. While their Arab brethren were achieving independence in neighbouring countries, the Palestinians – knock-on victims of Nazi atrocities – were paying a heavy price for losing out in the geo-political lottery. As one Israeli Peace Now movement member put it to me, ’What the Nazis did to us we are now doing to the Palestinian Arabs.’

Dispossessed, degraded, and derided – something I felt the recent Channel 4 production of ‘The Promise’ captured so accurately – the Palestinian’s only fault was simply to be in the way of another anguished people’s desperate survival strategy. The difference in terms of the outcome was, again quite simply, the strength of Western support for the Jews - a combination of dollars, salved western consciences, and an eye, albeit a short-sighted one, for future strategic and economic gains.

We must not forget that to a very significant degree, the genesis of the Palestinian-Israeli clash lay in the endemic prejudices and discriminatory practices of European societies, our own societies, made worse by the double-dealing and contradictory pledges made to Arabs and Jews by Britain and France as they carved up the post-Ottoman Middle East between them. Then, when initially honest broker America turned into far from disinterested backer, the dye was well and truly cast.

The Israel Palestine issue cannot be compared, as it often is, to other struggles, such as South Africa or Northern Ireland. The crucial point here is that Israel behaves like occupiers behave, and Palestinians behave like the occupied behave. Ending the occupation is the only way to change both behaviours: but, sadly, there are powerful extremists whose dogmatic agendas prevent such a thing happening.

Let’s take a brief look at Iran: I think there may be a few surprises for some of you. The present Iranian Regime, now over 30 years in existence, lost any kind of moral or social legitimacy when it violently suppressed the Iranian Green Movement in 2009. The Greens were protesting because there had been no significant improvement in Iranian life since the deposing the Shah in 1979, and the elections had just been rigged, yet again, in favour of the Hardliners.

The Shah had been deposed because life was miserable for all except the rich: the revolution had brought everyone together in common cause. But Khomeini and his supporters were better organised than anyone else – a hugely important factor in attempting to discern where the Egyptian and other ‘Arab Awakenings’ will go - and won control in a referendum offering one simple choice: ‘Islamic Republic – Yes or No?’ Khomeini then literally wrote himself or new role into his new Islamic Constitution as Rabah (supreme) Ayatollah (spiritual leader) – even though none of the other Ayatollah’s supported him. Hardliners remained in power even though there were frequent protests and a growing, of necessity underground, opposition. But in 97 and 2001 the Reformist Khatami was elected president, endeavouring to bring in democratisation and a reducing of tensions in the region by forming closer ties abroad. 

But this was a step too far for the Hardliners, who thrived on Iran’s insularity and opposition to the West in general and the US and Israel in particular. And because the Hardliners held most of the posts in the organs of government, the duties of which were to protect the Islamic Republic, they were able to influence the election by determining who was allowed to stand and who was not!  Consequently, in the 2005 parliamentary election, following their overwhelming success in the previous 2001 election, 2,185 Reformist candidates (including 76 sitting members and the President himself) were prevented from standing on the grounds that they were not sufficiently loyal to the revolution.

What we have to realise is that Iran is not a one man dictatorship but an oligarchy of Shii’a Fundamentalist clerics and laypersons who operate within a complex system with inbuilt safeguards to ensure the continuance of the fundamentalist Islamic character of the regime. Islam has many interpretations but through force of will, good organisation, and the unashamed use of violence, the Hardliners seized and continue to hold power. Yet it is in fact a very unstable oligarchy characterised by ruthless in-fighting between the three rival fundamentalist elites - Hardliners, Expedients, and Reformists, and even amongst the Hardliners themselves. A lot of the differences between them can be explained, as is so often the case in the Middle East - and as we see playing out in Syria even as I speak - by personal, family, and tribal rivalry. In the ‘tough neighbourhood’ of the Middle East, once you gain power, you do not cede it lightly. 

Although Khomeini’s Constitution had given executive, legislative, and judicial power to the Supreme Leader, it also created an elected President, an elected Majlis (parliament), and an elected Assembly of Experts. The President and his Cabinet who run the government are part of the Regime headed by the Spiritual Leader. The unwritten rule is that the President must defer to the Spiritual Leader; but Ahmadinejad, president in 2005 and again, controversially, in 2009 has recently been contesting this unwritten rule. It will be interesting to see how long he lasts.

The election of the Supreme Leader is itself an interesting process. Let the Chairman of the Assembly of Experts himself explain it to you. ‘God appoints the Supreme Leader, but because the people do not have the ability to discern, the people choose the clerical experts to find the Supreme Leader whom God has already chosen, and then they will introduce him to the public.’ Not so very different then from selecting senior posts in the Church of England, if perhaps a little more transparent.

The Supreme Leader holds sway because he alone appoints the head of the Judicial Branch (a kind of watchdog on any criticism of him) and also appoints 6 of the 12 clerics to the ‘Council of Guardians’ – the other 6 being appointed by Head of the Judicial Branch, whom of course the Supreme Leader has appointed. This Council of Guardians has a veto over all candidates for the presidency, parliament, or the Council of Experts. Indeed, the Regime can abrogate any legal agreement with the people if it is seen to harm Islam. Khomeini, in setting up the constitution, even directed that the Regime is allowed to suspend or violate any Sharii’a Law, even including the Five Pillars of Islam, if doing so is deemed necessary to preserve and prolong Fundamentalist rule. 

The Supreme Leader also appoints the head of the police, the army, and the Iranian Republican Guard Corps, the official coercive apparatus of the state.

Considering what they are up against, that there even exists a Green Movement in Iran, is a miracle on a par with the existence of a growing underground Church there, which numbers over a million and which has been facing so much persecution in recent years – largely of course because many are converts from Islam and have joined the evangelical network of house churches which are seen as and publicly attacked as tools of Western imperialism. That these churches have attracted so many converts speaks volumes about the amazing faith and courage of their members. Repression has certainly increased generally in Iran since the 2005 election in which not only was Ahmadinejad elected but also some very canny female candidates who got in on a Reformist ticket only to announce their real agenda after the election, declaring themselves against Iran signing any one of the four variations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – including those versions accommodating Muslim demands that the UDHR be subject to Sharii’a law -  but for polygamy, segregation in education, compulsory wearing of the hijaab (wider meaning ‘modesty, privacy, or morality’ : the word in the Quran for head covering is ‘khimaar’ or ‘jilbaab’), and the execution of apostates, dissidents, prostitutes and homosexuals.  Obviously a branch of the sisterhood not to be messed with! 

Former IRGC members now hold nearly half of the parliamentary seats and believe that large scale massacres of the population are legitimate tools to preserve Fundamentalism. They fear collapse through reform and assassinate Reformists both inside and outside of Iran. For them Israel is not only a convenient but a vital bogeyman in order to remain in power – as of course is the case, reciprocally, with the Iranian bogeyman in Israel for the Zionist right wing to remain in charge.

A quote, the source of which I cannot trace, is pertinent here. ‘Perhaps nothing proves the untruth of the Islamic Republic’s promise of Utopia than the Tube footage of the bloodied faces of Iran’s guiltless young people asking merely for their votes to be counted.’

The Hardliners have grown in strength, especially since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. They were able to play upon people’s fears of the US on their doorstep and effectively sealed the fate of the Reformist elements amongst the Fundamentalists. But it is not all doom and gloom in Iran. More and more people are not only fed up with hardline Fundamentalism, more and more young people are educated and have access to the internet. 60% of students are now female when 60 years ago there were practically none.  The hardline Regime is fearful of dialogue and rapprochement with the West because the young – at least those not part of the Regime and its various organs - see the West as being reasonable. But if we want to weaken Iran and support the Greens, we must solve the Palestinian problem. An ‘awakening’ in Iran similar to Egypt is possible but it will require disinterested help from the West. It would also weaken Israel’s case for continuing its oppressive policies in the Holy Land; and there’s the rub. Meanwhile, Iranian Hardliners are happy to export their revolution; so I turn now, briefly, to Al Qaa’ida and Hizbollah.

1979 was indeed a watershed. Not only had Khomeini come to power, there had been a fundamentalist insurrection against the Saudi regime at Mecca itself, and the Russians had invaded Afghanistan. Sheikh Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, a Palestinian Sunni Muslim scholar and theologian, was expelled from Jeddah and went to Pakistan where he set about organising a jihaad against the invading Russians. He was soon joined by the wealthy young Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden, who financed Azzam’s jihaad movement, which soon grows into a global concern with a global agenda. (Ironically, at one point in Brooklyn, New York, there existed one of Azzam’s refugee centres actually funded by the Reagan administration.) Azzam, who was certainly involved in the founding of HAMAS, the Sunni Palestinian organisation, saw Afghanistan as the perfect training ground for his global jihaadis. Their experience against the Russians, he believed, would strengthen their TAWAQQUL (reliance on God) and prepare them for jihaad in lands eternally belonging to Muslims, lands theirs by divine right because God had given those lands to the Muslims in conquest – including Palestine but also Spain, which of course explains the bombs at the train station in Madrid. Eventually in 1989, with the Russians gone, he is assassinated following intra-group rivalry about the next stage in the global jihaad. Who killed him and why is hotly disputed but in the same year Al-Qaa’ida comes forcefully onto the scene. (Qaa’ida means ‘foundation’, possibly here in the sense that this movement was what it was the global jihaad was to be ‘based’ upon.) Also known as the ‘International Islamic Front for Jihad against the Crusaders and the Jews’, this Sunni Muslim organisation regards all other Muslims as heretics and bumps them offer whenever expedient opportunities arises. This is why, with so many enemies, we cannot be certain who assassinated Azzam. My own guess was that it was either Israel or, since Azzam had made Palestine the next objective (also Israel’s good reason), Ayman al-Zawahiri, the present new head of Al Qaa’ida, who favoured Egypt as the next objective, and in fact has always been the brains behind the figurehead Bin Laden. To my mind, things are only going to get worse with Al Qaa’ida; but they would have done so anyway, regardless of the assassination of Bin Laden. They are fatalists and they do not care how long it will take them to recover those Muslim lands lost to infidels. Al Qaa’ida is of course Sunni and not aligned to Shiia’ Iran, but Azzam was discovered to have had some at least temporary hatchet-burying association with Tehran.

Turning to Hizbollah, this Lebanese Shii’a organisation, founded in 1980, is respected not only by the Lebanese for making a stand against Israel and for providing extensive social services, but also by the Israeli military itself as a potent threat and for its staying power. Militarily successful, politically astute, and strategically flexible, it has wide support in the Shii’a Arab world. Hizbollah receives political support from Syria but Iran is by far and away its greatest benefactor, from whom Hizbollah receive, weapons, explosives, training, and funding ($400m in 2010). Its ideological leadership is clerical and modelled on similar lines to the Iranian regime. It now plays a very significant part in Lebanese politics. It will be very interesting to see just what happens if there is a significant clash between Al Qaa’ida (Sunni) and Hizbollah (Shii’a). My own view is that they will largely avoid each other for the time being.

Before we move to the other end of the spectrum of extremism, I think we need to consider the root causes of terrorism at this end of the spectrum. For Al Qaa’ida, the cause is almost entirely religious; as it is for the Iranian Regime, albeit that they act largely through surrogates. But for Hizbollah (the Iranian surrogate in the Lebanon), Hamas, and Islamic Jihad in Palestine, it is primarily a reaction to the utter despair and hopelessness of their situation under Israeli occupation, exasperated by increasing land-grabbing by Israeli settlers. This was compounded by what they saw as Western double standards. Not only did sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s cause the deaths of thousands of children, but also US companies were bypassing the sanctions and doing business with the Iraqi elite through third parties - much, I have to say, to the dismay of elements of the CIA attempting to undermine Saddam Hussein there at the time! They also argue that the US war against terror is both counter-productive and morally reprehensible because it focuses on the symptoms and not the causes. They see, up until now at least with Obama’s recent statements, that US goals in the Middle East up until the ‘Arab Spring’ have been simply: to ensure Israel’s regional dominance – remember that every incoming US President has to sign a document confirming that he will uphold the State of Israel’s right to exist; to ensure the stability of oil production in Iraq and the Persian Gulf through the bolstering of local despots;  and gradually to incorporate the Middle East into America’s growing economic empire in the face of increasing competition from the Far East. For them the question is, ‘Is Israel simply a criminal ‘protegee’, or is the US in thrall to international Zionism?’ Now some of that may sound ridiculous to us, but it is how so many Arabs, Persians, and Turks, from professor to peasant, see things and why they react and act in the way they do.

Incidentally, while in Turkey I watched a film by a Turkish producer which was a modern day metaphor of just how things are in the Middle East today. At one point in the film, the Turkish policeman sent to New York to extradite a terrorist to enable a ‘proper interrogation’ in Turkey, is on the receiving end of a great eulogy from the head of the FBI about the spread of US democracy in the world, to which he responds with a question that receives no answer. ’Why is it that you Americans only want to bring democracy to oil-producing countries?’

What is more, when an admittedly embittered former CIA operative – this is not in the film, by the way - raises the same issues and question, one does start to wonder. Certainly, for example, the White House was properly briefed before the second Gulf War about weapons of mass destruction, but it was just not politically expedient at the time – nor would it ever have been - to accept such unpalatable truths. Actually, I do believe the US missed a trick there, one which would have released a number of trump cards for them: if the administration had been willing to depose Saddam and then make an early exit, the US would have won back so much of the ground it had lost.  

          Salim al Hoss, former Prime Minister of Lebanon, writing prophetically in 2005 said this,’ US policies will sow the seeds of popular revolts against oppressive dictators, unleash resistance movements, and stir up feelings of opposition to modern colonialism and exploitation.’

And if I may just make this point before moving on to the other end of the spectrum. Liberal politicians and liberal churchmen in this country who believe that the Fundamentalism we see in Islam is merely peripheral and a travesty of Islam – because they happen know some very nice Muslims in Beirut or Blackburn – have not read their history books nor walked the streets of both those towns with open eyes. It is not social or economic hardship and exclusion here, as is the case in Palestine, that is the cause of extremism but education or, rather, the wrong sort of education. That extremist Islamists see and use this country as a haven for freedom of speech is truly worrying. Theresa May is not far wide of the mark by any stretch of the imagination.

I would like to finish this evening’s talk – and when a clergyman uses that phrase you know there is still some way to go! – with a look at Zionism and at the Christian Right in America. But I think it’s time for a break.

In 2006 Jimmy Carter published his book, ‘Palestine: peace not apartheid.’ He was shunned as an anti-semite for some time, even though his book was on the NYT Best Seller list for some months. In the same year, Mearsheimer and Walt, respectively professors at Chicago and Harvard, published their book, ’The Israel Lobby’, in which they dispassionately exposed the massive power of the pro-Israel lobby and their associated organisations and individuals that secure US support for Israel in a manner, they argue, that is contrary to US national security interests.

They further assert that the resulting conflation of US and Israeli interests encouraged by the Israel lobby has led the US into foreign policy decisions, including the war on Iraq, that have proved disastrous, and that the US might not have taken in the absence of the lobby’s influence.

As the Arab point of view has begun to be heard more in academic institutions in the US, there have been increasing attacks on academics with threats, preventative sit-ins, and loss of tenure of posts in private colleges. The Peace Now movement in Israel has also suffered but opposition in both countries to the status quo has grown, largely due to the amount of information now available from increasing use of the internet. It is difficult for states, not only in Iran and Syria, but also in Israel and America, to conceal the truth. In a 2009 poll of adult American Jews, 47% said that they were sometimes ashamed of Israel and 39% that they felt alienated. That is a phenomenal change. Younger American Jews are saying that Israel is not the centre of global Judaism, the US is not its periphery, they are not ashamed to be diaspora Jews, and, some, that the time is not yet right to return.

The 2008’9 Gaza War was undoubtedly a turning point in people’s attitudes and sympathy towards Israel both within and without the country. Whatever one thinks of Goldstone’s UN Fact Finding Mission’s report on the Gaza war in which both sides were accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, some aspects of which he, a South African Jew, has since retracted, the sheer disproportionality in the use of violence is the thing that has most shocked those usually sympathetic to Israel. Hamas, who undoubtedly used the incursion as an excuse to assassinate a number of Fatah opponents and Palestinian Authority personnel in the pay of Israel, simply refused to co-operate with the UN; Israel only subsequently. The whole reporting process was , as most observers acknowledge, a mess.

But the document issued by 30 Israeli soldiers entitled ‘Breaking the Silence’ certainly gave substance to the claims that disproportionate violence was used. It was a fairly fatal dent to Israel’s righteous self image. And yet General Gadi Eisenkot, Commander of the Gaza incursion, supports the so-called ‘Dahiya Doctrine’ –‘we will yield disproportionate power and cause immense damage and destruction’ - justifiably applied, he argued, to areas of Gaza on the basis that all Arabs should be accountable for their leaders’ actions. 13 Israelis were killed: 2 civilians and 11 soldiers, 4 by friendly fire. There were 1434 Palestinian deaths, of which 960 were civilians including 121 women and 288 children.

Since the Gaza War, not only has the questioning of the use of such disproportionate violence increased both inside and outside Israel, but US policies and its lack of serious intention – at least until now perhaps with Obama? – to resolve the Palestinian issue are seen across the globe as perpetuating a cycle of violence and political instability.

In Israel the extreme right exercise such power that former Knesset Speaker Abraham Burg was last year forced to raise questions about the very nature of Israeli democracy. 

But the Right – I must add that extreme nationalists also operate on the left of the Israeli political spectrum - have succeeded in turning the questions round. For example, that it is not the Israeli occupation that causes terrorism but that terrorism in Palestine necessitates the occupation. There is of course a long and seamless history of such attitudes stretching back to Yitzak Shamir’s Lehi or ‘Stern Gang’ and Menachim Begin’s Irgun. Begin boasted that it was his massacre of the Arab civilians at Dar Yasin in 1948 that prompted thousands of Palestinians to flee their homes.

Eretz Yisrael or Greater Israel has always been a non-negotiable with the Israeli Right, and they have sought to ensure this by a gradual takeover of the Israeli Defence Force. The national religious community in Israel is 15% of the population. In 1990 just 2% of the officers of the IDF were religious Jews. But in 2007 this had grown to 30%. The combat infantry units have become increasingly religious-led and increasingly religious-manned. 

The army was once a bastion of secular Jews: no longer. Why is religious Zionism marching into leadership of the army? Answer – so that the army cannot or will not evacuate the settlements. Such West Bank colonisation is not only the greatest threat to any peace deal, it would create chaos and anarchy at home. The chant of the Peace Now movement ‘Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies’ is heard less and less as the Right, especially the new young immigrants become increasingly violent towards any opposition.

It’s all pretty scary stuff and does not augur well for the future; and yet there have been some really healthy signs and actions recently from more moderate voices within political, religious, military, and intelligence circles which give some hope that extremist views and policies will not automatically prevail. But the extremists in Israel receive some of their most ardent support from the final group I am going to talk about this evening, ‘Christians United For Israel.’

 CUFI was founded in America by Pastor John Hagee in 2006 and immediately attracted 9000 members. In 2009 it had 300,000 members, by 2010 428,000 members, today over 525,000. They are both politically and financially influential.  The issue of their extremism pretty much boils down to this: when people take one verse of the Bible, take it out of context, fail to interpret it by comparing it with other or subsequent relevant verses, and build a whole theological edifice on it, what is produced is a very unstable entity. 

Think of it as an inverse pyramid. 

This essentially is what CUFI have done with the case of their blind support for Israel, based as it is – it’s their principal watchword or reference – on Genesis Chapter 12 verse 3, or at least the first half of it.  God is speaking to Abram before he becomes Abraham –the one blessed by God – in terms of the promise he is making him to him if he and his descendents will remain faithful to him.

 V2 ‘ I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. V3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’

Now quite apart from the fact that Pastor John Hagee (who has made personal millions of dollars from his ministry, despite a number of scandals) fails to point out that the promise is actually to Abram and his seed, foreshadowing the covenant God makes with him and which is dependent, as the prophets keep having to remind God-less Israel, upon their faithful choices – such as being true to him and practising true religion - and which, though not annulled, is superceded by the covenant inaugurated by Jesus, he conflates the earthly Jerusalem with the Heavenly Jerusalem, a distinction held by the prophets and Jesus and many orthodox Jews to be of the utmost significance with regard to whether or not Israel will be blessed. 

Nothing about swords having to be beaten into ploughshares before the Heavenly Jerusalem can come. Nothing about the plight of Palestinian Christians. Hagee takes his very narrow interpretation and asserts from it that those who do not bless the State of Israel, as she is today –remember, with a Jewish religious, as opposed to secular or atheist, element of 15% of her population – should be cursed.

Of course it’s very easy to find a biblical principle or quote in order to justify the latest plan, just as the use of certain catch words and phrases – which CUFI use in remarkably similar fashion to their opponents at the other end of the spectrum (The Ikhwaan, for example, ‘Islam is the solution’ – with that you really don’t need an Arab Alastair Campbell to spin it!) such as ‘chosen by God’. It takes one back to the old confrontations between the Crusaders and the Saracens, and the pithy cry from both sides whenever something, however terrible, was proposed ‘’God wills it!’

Or again, the use of Deuteronomy Chapter 7 to justify driving out other nations. But what about Deuteronomy 8 and God’s warning about what will happen if pride, unfaithfulness, and irreligion take hold? Conveniently side-stepped!

There is an ‘end of the age’ tradition in America going back to the 17^th C when the New World of America was seen as ‘The New Jerusalem’, ‘The New Israel’. With CUFI the subtext is theology but the purpose is overtly political. And so the ‘special interest or break out’ groups at last year’s annual CUFI conference were mostly on issues such as: terrorism, the danger of Iran, Israel’s economic miracle, the new settlements (one supported by CUFI members to the tune of $6million), etc. But most groups apparently usually ended up talking about Iran with whom CUFI seem fixated. There was a live link to Bibi Netanyahu, and one of the main speakers was Elliot Abrams, formerly ’Special Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy in the Bush Administration.’

Everything at the conference was delivered; question and answer forums or challenges were not encouraged or even provided for: the expectation was that all would agree with the party line. As for ‘peacemakers’? Such are to be cursed, not blessed. Last year Pastor Hagee published his book, ’Can America Survive? – 10 prophetic signs that we are in the terminal generation.’ And due out in October 2011 ‘Earth’s Final Moments – powerful insight and understanding into the signs that surround us.’

Now we can laugh or we can cry; and yes, he personally has been plagued by scandals with women and money, etc. But what he delivers obviously appeals to and motivates what one academic attending the 2010 conference described as, ‘not ignorant bible-thumping stereotypes; more, middle-class, better educated; more Tea-Party people with CUFI serenity instead of Tea-Party outrage.’ They also have Kidi, teenage, and university campus programmes which teach that you cannot be a proper Christian unless you love the present State of Israel.

The irony of course is that just as American Jews are really beginning to question, not Israel’s right to exist, but her policies in sustaining and extending that right, so an increasingly powerful Christian lobby pledges to stand with Israel, right or wrong. And it is remarkable how ordinary people in every land can be lead to speak ‘with one voice’ (another CUFI slogan), if reminded that they are following the divine plan, that God is on their side. 

The trouble is of course that extremism breeds counter-extremism. Where it will all lead to and to what degree the recent ‘Arab Spring’ will be able to deflect it amongst the Arabs, and whether Obama, if he secures a second term, will be willing and able to stifle it sufficiently both at home and in Israel are questions we will consider in the fourth talk. But next week, my title is ‘Religion – cause or convenient excuse?’