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Note #8402 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Middle East Christians cling to hope
GA04108
July 1, 2004

Middle East Christians cling to hope

But it's hard not to lose heart, pastors tell WMD breakfast group

by Alexa Smith

RICHMOND, July 1 - Two pastors from beleaguered Middle Eastern churches
appeared Thursday morning at the Worldwide Ministries Division Assembly
breakfast to offer a message of hope.

Using the odd logic of faith, the Rev. Hendrick Shanazarian  of the Armenian
Evangelical Church of Iran and the Rev. Mitri Raheb, pastor of the Christmas
Lutheran Church of Bethlehem, said there is reason for hope. For Shanazarian,
it is in solidarity; for Raheb, in prophetic visioning.

Both men serve in churches where the Christian community is dwindling as
members leave in search of economic security.

"It is very easy to lose heart when others have already lost heart and try to
convince you that it is better to stick to the routine, to forget having
visions for the future and just try to survive," Shanazarian said. " It is
very easy to lose heart if we look only to things that are seen. But by the
grace of our Lord, who rose from the dead, and by trusting our Father who
makes the cross a source of blessing, we stop losing heart.

"When we see God working even in such difficult situations, we take heart.
When we see you, our partners, our brothers and sisters beside us, helping us
to meet some of the needs and supporting in different ways, we are encouraged
to continue without losing heart."

He said membership in the church of Iran has declined over the past 25 years,
and there are now only five active Presbyterian churches, in two major
cities, Tehran and Urumieh. In other towns, worship is held only every other
month.

He said economic hardship is pushing families to leave Iran, in hopes of
providing better education for their children and improving their job
prospects.

Raheb pushed for solidarity - plus. Left to human devices only, he said,
Christians may muddle the message, just as the first Christians did at
Pentecost. He said the temptation is to be nationalistic, to believe that God
will restore a "narrow-minded" kingdom - or to be escapist, focusing only on
the world beyond, because this world is a "hopeless case."

What is most faithful, he said, is doing the hard work of finding a third
way, in which Christians are not "restoring the first kingdom or waiting on a
second to come ... but working on something like a third kind of kingdom that
is outrageous, never thought of."

That kingdom, he said, is a difficult project, because it includes caring
about the well-being of one's enemies - which makes one vulnerable to a
charge of being unpatriotic.

Members of a recent General Assembly Council delegation to the Middle East
recognized the service of the Rev. Victor Makari, the PC(USA)'s area
coordinator for the Middle East, by buying 12 olive trees in his name to be
planted in Palestine to replace those bulldozed by the Israeli army.

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