Living the Word

Christian witness in Pakistan
by Charles Strohmer

Bishop Mano Rumalshah of the Church of Pakistan was attending a meeting of the World Conference of Churches in Geneva last year when his cell phone rang. Three thousand miles away in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, his good friend and a leader in Christian humanitarian work Dr. Regi nald Zahiruddin had just been kidnapped. The bishop, who heads the 70,000-member diocese in the large province, bade a hasty goodbye to colleagues from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Egypt and headed straight for the airport.

Zahiruddin's kidnapping took place two weeks before Christmas. Dr. Reginald (as he is known) is director of the diocese's Pennell Memorial Hospital in Bannu, a town of 50,000, just outside the district of Waziristan, the scene of ongoing U.S.-NATO military activity and the Pakistan army's fight against al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies in the Federally Admin istered Tribal Areas. It took the church nearly a month and 2 million rupees ($25,000) to secure Dr. Reginald's release.

"He was kept chained in a shed for 23 hours a day," Bishop Rumalshah told me. "His captors kept asking him who was supporting him and why he was there in Bannu. Sometimes they would bring in a man who would stand nearby sharpening a long knife. And they would end the interrogations by inviting him to become Muslim."

Eventually, word of Dr. Reginald's humanitarian work in the province reached the ears of his captors. "Then militant leaders started coming to our hospital to talk to our staff and Dr. Reginald's wife, asking if they could help. We had long talks with them. Eventually through the jirga [a local assembly of Muslim elders], we got our man back the first week in January."

It could have ended differently. With its perennially shaky federal government, fragile institutions, nuclear arms, and militant radicals who want political control over those weapons, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, founded in 1947, is considered by most Western analysts the most dangerous nation on Earth—and its long, mountainous region on the border with Afghan istan is by far the most unruly and violent area. Rumalshah and his family live in Peshawar, the capital of the NWFP and a strategic frontier city at the eastern end of the legendary Khyber Pass. Peshawar was much in the news this past summer when Pakistan's army launched offensives against Taliban who sought to take control of the city.

How do you serve as a Christian in a hostile region, where violence has become the norm, where the news for you is rarely encouraging, where you're held down economically, socially and politically? How do you incarnate Christ when you live there, in a dark night that does not seem to be ending?

Even if we've set out on the Lenten pilgrimage on Ash Wednesday and taken every step in penitence and prayer, we are still not prepared for the arrival. Neither were those who joined Jesus in Galilee and made their way up to Jerusalem. For many it was an annual pilgrimage, this Passover. Others, having to travel greater distances, saw the Holy City through the joyful tears of those who know they will never make the journey again. But in one particular year, the pilgrimage was a once-in-a-lifetime experience because it was made in the company of Jesus of Nazareth. For him too, Jerusalem was the end of a pilgrimage.

by Fred Craddock

Christians of strong religious faith and sound moral conscience often end up in disagreement. But there are certain acts that a follower of Jesus simply cannot accept. Here is one: A Christian cannot justify the torture of a human being.

by David Batstone

From The Inside Looking Out: Report-48

by Jerry Levin

People I meet still ask, why this one time completely secular Jewish American atheist and mainstream television network foreign correspondent gave up that career to become a full time volunteer member of CPT (Christian Peacemaker Teams). And I tell them it has everything to do with my kidnapping by the Hizballah in 1984 back when I was running CNN's Middle East bureau in Beirut. Up until that time, I had believed quite emphatically and unquestioningly in what you might call the efficacy of violence. In other words, I was convinced that in certain situations violence worked. Coupled with that belief was also my atheistic or perhaps only agnostic disbelief, a disdain for the entire concept of faith, which perceived no rational connection between my sometimes "yes" belief in the efficacy of violence, and my always "no" disbelief in God.

by Naim Ateek

One of the biblical texts that is often used by Christian Zionists is Genesis 12:3. I still recall the first time I heard it mentioned. It was Christmas 1989 when Archbishop Desmond Tutu came to visit us in Jerusalem. The first intifada was at its peak. Yet in spite of the worsening political situation, the restrictions on movement, and the oppressive Israeli army measures, we managed to have the festive Christmas services with overflow crowds at every event.

On the day after Christmas, we went on a courtesy visit to the Israeli minister of religious affairs. Archbishop Tutu spoke "truth to power" and combined courage with candor. He told the minister about the importance of giving the Palestinians justice and freedom. As we were leaving the government building, we were followed by a man who kept repeatedly shouting the words at us, "Genesis twelve three; Genesis 12:3." I could hardly wait to get home in order to look up the text in the Bible. It read, "I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." The message that the man wanted to communicate to us was simple and clear. For him the text meant that God blesses all those who stand with and support Israel and curses those who stand against it. Furthermore, he presumed that if we were critical of Israel's policies we were incurring God's curse and he wanted to invoke that curse on us.

By Johncy Itty

Readings for Easter 7, Year C, May 23, 2004

Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
John 17:20-26

As we draw closer to the season of Pentecost, we are constantly reminded of the power of God to change human hearts, minds, and attitudes. On the eve of Pentecost, we pray that the presence of the Holy Spirit will help to inform and direct the course of our lives as members of a Christian family.

Our meditations for the seventh Sunday in Easter include a well-known passage from the book of Acts in which Paul and Silas were imprisoned and caused to suffer a great deal because of their faith and their steadfast proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Despite their mistreatment and false arrest, Paul and Silas slowly transformed the minds and hearts of their captors and others who were imprisoned, through their deep sense of faith and, especially, their behavior. Our text notes: "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them."