Page 1711 – Christianity Today (2024)

NEW YORK (RNS) – When blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng made a daring escape from house arrest this spring and found refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, he instantly became a popular hero in the West and a rallying point for human rights activists everywhere.

For abortion opponents in the U.S., however, Chen was much more than that: he was an icon of the pro-life cause, a man whose campaign against forced abortion in China made him a potent champion in the fight against legal abortion in America.

Anti-abortion groups in the U.S. regularly cited Chen in their press releases and fundraising materials, using Chen’s plight – and the slow pace of the diplomatic negotiations that eventually brought him to safety in New York – as fodder for promoting their cause and galvanizing opposition to President Obama.

Conservative media critic Terry Mattingly even detected a secular bias in the news coverage, complaining that reports were ignoring the fact that Chen “is actually a pro-life activist” and a “Christian activist who sees China’s often brutal one-child policy as a violation of human rights as well as religious liberty.”

[Mattingly later walked back his criticisms, saying “It appears that we can strike the word ‘Christian'” from Chen’s biography.]

But the reality differs significantly from the scenario laid out by Mattingly and others: for one thing, Chen Guangcheng is not a Christian, and, more notably, he may not even be what most abortion opponents would consider “pro-life.”

That’s because Chen’s cause in China was not an effort to halt legal abortion per se, but to make Chinese authorities comply with their own laws against forced abortions and sterilizations, a position also advocated by the Obama administration.

“If it’s not forced abortion, I don’t think he’s necessarily against that,” said Bob Fu, a Chinese-born Christian and close friend of Chen who heads Texas-based China Aid, which lobbies for religious freedom in China.

Chen would not oppose “voluntary abortion,” Fu said, since Chen’s focus is on “the rule of law” – on making China a society that respects its own laws, which are routinely flouted, and on promoting the human rights and dignity of its citizens.

Indeed, in Chen’s two principal public statements since arriving in New York on May 19 – an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper and an op-ed in The New York Times on Wednesday (May 30) – Chen himself did not mention abortion. Instead, he repeatedly stressed that the “fundamental question the Chinese government must face is lawlessness,” as he wrote in The Times. “China does not lack laws, but the rule of law.”

Chen was initially targeted by Chinese authorities in 2005 after he filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of poor, rural women who said they were subjected to forced abortions and sterilizations as part of China’s one-child policy. That landed him in jail until 2010, and he was then placed under house arrest, which he escaped on April 22, injuring his foot but still managing to reach the U.S. Embassy.

That prompted an international crisis that was only resolved when Chen and his wife were allowed to travel on student visas to New York, where he has pledged to continue speaking out for the rule of law in his homeland.

“In the U.S., ‘pro-life’ connotes opposition to abortion, per se, so Chen isn’t an anti-abortion activist in the U.S. sense,” as Lindsay Beyerstein wrote in the online magazine Religion Dispatches.

Fu echoed that point. “It’s very hard to place him (Chen) in a category here.”

Still, that hasn’t stopped some abortion opponents from trying.

“Obama administration abandons Chinese pro-life activist Chen,” ran a headline at the Right Wing News site at the height of the diplomatic standoff in May. “Chen is not the kind of activist that American authorities would have wanted to help,” blogger Julio Severo wrote at LifeSiteNews. “Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are shamelessly pro-abortion, while Chen is pro-life.”

The National Right to Life Committee has cited Chen in fundraising appeals, telling supporters that nothing they contribute “will cost nearly as much as what brave activists like Chen Guangcheng have been forced to give.” And Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council welcomed news of Chen’s flight to New York by hoping that “Chen’s influence extends to his new home, where the inhumanity of abortion is so often ignored.”

Whether Chen can avoid being swept up in America’s culture wars and election-year battles is unclear. Marjorie Dannenfelser, head of the Susan B. Anthony List, told The Washington Post that she is unsure of Chen’s general views on abortion, adding: “What we will not do is take his suffering and his family’s suffering and use it for a cause he doesn’t believe in.”

Chen’s advisers have also been counseling him on how to avoid the political pitfalls, especially as he continues to recuperate from his foot injury and from the toll taken by years of confinement and abuse.

But he has already been asked to tell his story in Congress, and friends say Chen has been swamped with invitations to speak at anti-abortion rallies and to churches and religious groups.

“In the end, though, he’ll have to decide what he’ll want to say,” Jerome A. Cohen, co-director of New York University’s U.S.-Asia Law Institute and a friend and adviser to Chen, told the Post.

Chen may even wind up being more supportive of religious groups and abortion opponents than his record so far indicates. Fu noted that almost all of Chen’s friends in China were Christians who faced government repression, and said Chen himself might be considered a believer in “natural religion.”

“He’s sort of a natural pro-lifer,” Fu added. The question is whether that will be pro-life enough for American pro-lifers.

KRE/LEM END GIBSON

Three evangelical leaders have recently announced departures from prominent ministries.

Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary for the past two decades, will retire at the end of the 2012-2013 academic year. Mouw, who recently released a much-discussed book on evangelical engagement with Mormons, plans to take a year-long study leave and then continue teaching at the Pasadena seminary.

Shane Hipps, teaching pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church, will leave once the Grand Rapids church selects a replacement. Church elders, seeking to shore up Mars Hill in the wake of celebrity pastor Rob Bell's departure to Los Angeles after releasing the controversial Love Wins, wants the teaching pastor to preach 40 Sundays a year and report to the church's executive director; Hipps explained that he "knew instantly my internal shape did not fit the role they created" because it would "dramatically reduce my service to the broader church which is an integral part of my sense of call." Hipps has two new books in production and plans to start a leadership development company.

Darren Whitehead, teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church, will leave the suburban Chicago megachurch by the end of the year because he feels called elsewhere. The announcement was made during the May 19th and 20th services.

Mouw and Hipps have regularly appeared in Christianity Today's pages.

Style: quirky piano alternative, compare to Fiona Apple, St. Vincent, Tori Amos

Top tracks: “Firewood,” “All the Rowboats,” “Small Town Moon”

Regina Spektor’s fifth album is an endearing, unpredictable show. The collection juxtaposes slick singles (“All the Rowboats,”) with sparse ballads (“How”) and operatic in-character experimentation (“Oh Marcello”). Spektor’s not afraid to use her emotive voice in unusual ways, from mimicking trumpet to uttering visceral grunts. Her piano sprinkles classical flourishes, and her witty lyrics hint at Broadway-worthy storylines (“Open,” “Ballad of a Politician,” which uses the a-word). The Russian Jewish immigrant doesn’t tackle God or the Bible as directly as she has in past work, but her poetic perspectives carry a universal intimacy that reaches the soul. Careful listeners will feel the tension between humanity and spirituality in the heartbreaking optimism of “Firewood.”

Copyright © 2012 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

The first free election in Egypt’s history has captured headlines worldwide with its unexpected runoff between a Mubarak regime figure and a Muslim Brotherhood leader.

Less known is that 17 Coptic evangelical leaders met with five Muslim Brotherhood counterparts at the Brotherhood’s headquarters on February 28, and crafted a joint statement of common values, which both sides agree the new Egyptian constitution and government should uphold. Evangelicals comprise a minority of Egyptian Christians, almost 90 percent of whom are Coptic Orthodox.

The 10-point agreement touches on historically controversial issues, including citizenship, religious freedom, the construction and repair of churches, equality of opportunity, and the application of Shari’ah law.

Christianity Today probed these issues more deeply with representatives from both parties in order to create the explainer below.

Andrea Zaki is vice president of the Protestant Churches of Egypt and general director of the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services.

Mahmoud Ghozlan is the official spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Did Egyptian evangelicals signal agreement with Shari’ah law?

Yes, though it is more complicated than that. Article Two of the pre-revolutionary Egyptian constitution stipulated that Islam is the religion of the state and the principles of Islamic Shari’ah are the primary source for legislation.

Almost no Egyptians—liberal, Christian, or otherwise—call for the cancelation of this article. Debate surrounds the word “principles” rather than the more restrictive “rules,” and whether or not the article should be amended to allow non-Muslims to rule on personal and family affairs according to their scriptures.

Zaki: “There is a major difference between the principles of Shari’ah and the rulings of Shari’ah. This is because there are differences in Shari’ah interpretation according to four judicial schools, some of which are very conservative while others are very open.

“If you stick to the principles of Shari’ah, then they can be applied well according to consensus; but if you go with the rulings of Shari’ah, then you must choose a particular school—and who will make this choice?”

Ghozlan: “With the principles of Shari’ah we can extract that which most suitably applies to the circ*mstances of reality. In terms of rulings, there has been great debate among scholars over each and every issue—some of which are contradictory. If we use the term ‘rulings,’ we have to determine whose rulings to apply.

“What [Christians] are requesting [a special amendment for non-Muslims] is already guaranteed in the Shari’ah, but we have no objection to adding this clause if they insist upon it to make them more comfortable.”

What about religious freedom, especially to evangelize and convert from Islam? Isn’t this restricted under Shari’ah?

This section of the agreement is both encouragingly clear and elusively vague. “Respect for beliefs and sanctities is obligatory” is followed by “prevention of any contempt of others’ belief or incitement of hatred is a compulsory social responsibility of loyal citizens.” How much limitation does the word “contempt” impose on religious freedom?

Zaki: “Evangelism and changing one’s faith is a very problematic area. I want the Westerner to understand that Muslims think of changing faith in the same way one thinks of changing gender—that is, it is never contemplated.

“[Muslims] often see freedom of religion to be the freedom of interpretation, guaranteed to all within their faith, and to hold that faith. This whole area is still under discussion between us. This is the first step toward recognition of the freedom to change your religion, but we did not go into that much detail.”

Ghozlan: “We say one who speaks [contemptuously] against either a Muslim or a Christian must be held accountable and put before the law. If there is no judge to solve this issue, each person will take the issue by his own hands.

“It is not allowed for a Muslim to leave his religion. If on his own he desires this and does not publicize it or seek to sow strife, this is his own matter. But if it is a public or media matter, this will sow social strife. We must respect each other’s religion and not seek to evangelize the other, so as to preserve security and social peace.

“I will not doubt the heart of anyone. If someone adopts Christianity, it is fine. But for him to go and promote his faith is forbidden. This will sow strife within society.”

What about the right to build churches? Is this similarly vague?

No, but this does not necessarily mean all will be well. The agreement clearly supports the right to build and renovate religious buildings “in light of the law.” The problem throughout Egypt is that the law is inconsistently applied. Church building has needed the approval of state security, which took the local reaction of Muslims into consideration. Will this be the same under the new Islamist administration?

Zaki: “We focus on the issue being ‘according to the law’ in order to move away from being ‘according to the mercy of people’—happy also that it is not in contradiction with Shari’ah.”

Ghozlan: “I have said from the beginning that if you need a church, come get a license and build it. If you have problems, we’ll protect you and convince those around you that this is your right.”

But doesn’t Shari’ah treat Christians as second-class citizens? Can there be equality between them?

In this regard, the agreement could not be clearer. It states all Egyptians have “full citizenship, based on equality, [as] the foundation of this society.” Furthermore, all Egyptians have “the same rights and responsibilities” while “efficiency is the only criterion to hold a public position.”

Zaki and Ghozlan disagree over an exception for the presidency, which can only be held by a Muslim; but agree on equality within the military. This is significant because many are afraid that Islamist rule might bring back the practice of ji*zia, in which Christians paid a special tax to have Muslims protect them.

Zaki: “We agreed there is equality in all positions, but they stated the president is only for Muslims and males. We do not agree, but we did agree to stay in dialogue about this. Yet all other positions are open for all—up to the vice presidency.

“The deepest meaning of citizenship is military participation. We both insisted upon including this clause. The era of ji*zia is over.”

Ghozlan: “The only exception to this is the president of the republic, because the president is the symbol of the nation and the nation by its nature is Islamic. Vice president, government ministers, prime minister, ambassadors, governors, university professors—all of these positions are open to Christians.

“ji*zia is over. It applied to a situation when Christians were not in the army and did not fight with Muslims, while Muslims defended them. ji*zia was taken in compensation.”

This may be a significant agreement, but does the Muslim Brotherhood actually believe it? In the early days of the revolution, the Brotherhood promised not to field a presidential candidate. Now one of their candidates—Mohamed Morsy—is in the runoff for president.

Mistrust of the Muslim Brotherhood surged after they reneged on their vow not to field a presidential candidate.

“I am nervous about [the Brotherhood] changing their decision about fielding a presidential candidate,” said Zaki, “because they clearly stated they would not run for this office.”

Another evangelical co-signer was more explicit. “We talked about the real values we must stand on together,” said Makram Naguib, pastor of the Evangelical Church of Heliopolis. “They speak very good words but it must be applied, and this is the problem. We have doubts concerning their actions.”

Naguib said that evangelical leaders met in April to discuss the situation. “We decided we must wait to see their next steps before continuing this dialogue,” he said. “If there is not something positive from them, I think we will not continue.”

Ghozlan sought to explain. He described the Brotherhood’s fear that the West would stamp out the revolution if it appeared the Brotherhood was riding on its back. Now, however, the Egyptian people have clearly expressed their confidence in Islamists, but the revolution is stalling because parliament has no authority to actually execute its laws and fulfill the people’s demands, said Ghozlan. So the Brotherhood seeks the presidency to serve the democratic transition, not their own interest.

“There is a difference between the principles of documents and the taking of decisions,” said Ghozlan. “If you want religious justification [for changing our position on running for president], the Prophet said: ‘If someone swears by his right hand, saying “By God this or that,” but then sees something better, he may atone for his right hand and take that which is better.’ Where benefit can be accomplished—if there was detriment in the beginning but it changes to benefit—then change accordingly.”

Are Egyptian Christians satisfied with this answer?

Definitely not. Many are up in arms over the Brotherhood’s reversal on running for the presidency. But in terms of this agreement, among evangelicals there is general positive acceptance.

“Most of the people in our churches welcome this initiative,” said Naguib, “[though] some say we should wait and see first what [the Brotherhood] is like.”

Youssef Sidhom, the Orthodox editor-in-chief of the popular Coptic newspaper Watani, was ecstatic.

“I was very encouraged and deeply enthusiastic for this initiative, and I published this in our newspaper and spoke about it frequently on television,” he said. “It was a courageous decision by the evangelicals to engage [the Brotherhood], due to the deep doubts most liberals have about [them].”

The primary criticism of the agreement concerns evangelicals acting alone. “These are not good meetings,” said Hani Labib, a Coptic political writer and researcher. “It should have been between all churches so not to give the impression the churches are divided. Furthermore, the meetings took place while both the Orthodox and Catholic churches are going through leadership instability, especially with the illness and death of Pope Shenouda.”

Egyptian Christians do not express much trust in the Muslim Brotherhood. Nevertheless, the agreement with Protestants is the latest in a series of documents extolling liberal values which the group has affixed its signature to and announced publicly. As these principles deepen in the public consciousness, the Brotherhood will be hard-pressed to escape from them.

Is the Muslim Brotherhood committed enough to these principles to resist the extremism of Salafis and other Islamists?

Zaki: “The questions about trust are old ones and these will continue for some time. It is part of the negative image of the Brotherhood.

“How far will they implement this agreement? We will see in terms of the constitution, the laws passed in parliament, and how they run the government. We will see if there are practical steps that go beyond trust.”

Ghozlan: “There is no doubt. Those holding strict interpretations [of Islam] were isolated before the revolution, speaking only to each other. They have emerged now with what they have.

“When we interact with them now, they change gradually. It is a matter of time, but we are helping them refine their discourse. But if they take a strict position on one side, we will stand with the other side over matters of tolerance.”

Jayson Casper is a writer with Arab West Report and blogs regularly at A Sense of Belonging.

Copyright © 2012 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Other recent coverage of Egypt includes:

The Fight for Egypt’s Future | Coptic leaders, at the front lines of compassion, win new respect for the Christian community.

Egyptian Christians Back to Square One Ahead of Election | After a year of new forms of political engagement, why do Copts still face the same ‘bitter choice’ of old regime vs. Islamists?

What Egypt’s Leading Islamist Presidential Candidate Thinks About Christians | An exclusive interview with former Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdel-Moneim Abol Fotoh.

To see how Egypt’s revolution has changed the lives of its 8 million Copts (Egyptian Christians), walk one block from its epicenter: Tahrir Square.

Pass between the effigies hanging from street lamps, past the ramshackle tents of demonstrators, and turn right at the graffiti-covered concrete blocks barricading the newly elected parliament and loathed police headquarters.

Here sits the largest evangelical Arabic-speaking church in the world—6,000-member Kasr El Dobara (KDEC). The sturdy white sanctuary, lined with tall stained-glass windows depicting New Testament stories of Jesus, is half full on the Sunday evening before the first anniversary of military dictator Hosni Mubarak’s February 11 downfall. Attendance is low. Four days earlier, more than 70 soccer fans were massacred in the coastal city of Port Said. A short distance away, angry demonstrators clash with police.

Flanked by two Egyptian flags, head pastor Sameh Maurice preaches from 2 Peter. Just beyond the sanctuary’s heavy oak front doors, volunteer doctors treat a wounded demonstrator on a metal cot. Church members used to share coffee and conversation in the open air of the tiled courtyard. Now KDEC runs a 24/7 field hospital for the wounded.

The service ends with the Lord’s Prayer and instructions for members to exit through the church’s back entrance—tear gas is in the air in front. A short time later, a wailing ambulance arrives, delivering six young men. One clutches his wrist; another reveals a back peppered with birdshot. Another will probably lose his eye.

Violence Strikes Home

The following night, the violence touches the church family. A KDEC teenager is shot near Tahrir. News spreads that someone kidnapped the daughter of a church member. Another member is found dead, murdered on his way home from the airport.

“Lord, let this be the pain of childbirth,” prays Maurice. “Let the suffering bring life.”

The graffiti covering downtown Cairo chronicles the elated optimism of the Egyptian revolution’s early days. Spray-painted pairings of crosses and crescents abound. But today’s headlines belie that peace and prosperity are near at hand.

A report by the Maspero Youth Union, a leading religious advocacy group, documents six violent attacks against Copts during the first year of the revolution, compared with fifteen during Mubarak’s entire 30-year reign. The front page of Egypt’s only Coptic newspaper, Watani, regularly reports incidents of “collective punishment” in which Christian families in rural villages are ordered to leave town in order to preserve the peace after an individual Christian’s transgression.

Last week Copts protested in Cairo after a state security court in Minya sentenced 12 Copts to life in prison while acquitting 8 Muslims for their roles in a deadly April 2011 fight that killed several Muslims and destroyed dozens of Christian homes and businesses. And today Copts are facing blame for “betraying the revolution” after the first free presidential election in Egypt’s history—despite more than a year of revolutionary activism—resulted in a runoff between two all-too-familiar choices: the old Mubarak regime vs. the Muslim Brotherhood.

Are Christians fleeing Egypt? Some, yes. Nearly every church can name a family that has emigrated. Many more families desire to follow suit but cannot.

But the closer one looks, an irony emerges. Coptic leaders report that a significant number of Christians, especially in rural or poor communities, do fear the future. But many of the most ardently Christian—former Muslims who now follow Christ and have the most to lose under an Islamist government—are the most eager to stay. They hold to their love of country—and to their belief in God’s promise in Isaiah 19: “Blessed be Egypt my people.”

One case study is a Muslim-background believer turned human-rights activist who fancies himself the Christian version of Che Guevara. Bleary-eyed from demonstrating in Tahrir until 2 A.M. the night before, he is realistic about the increasing risks facing converts as Islamists gain political power.

Counting the Cost: In Cairo, Copts mourn the deaths of more than 25 Christians in the so-called Maspero Massacre last October. To date, no one has been charged in the killings.

“We [converts] could be the first people to be killed,” said the activist, who asked for anonymity. “We are the rust in Islam that is corroding the walls. We are the threat.”

But rather than seeking the first opportunity to leave Egypt, he and others like him choose to stay and exert influence behind the scenes. “Doctors stay in medicine; politicians stay in politics; advocates stay in advocacy,” he said. “The salt put in warehouses will just go stale. The salt needs to be in the food.”

Thus “Che” sees a silver lining in Egypt’s lack of progress to equalize conversion laws. “Maybe God meant that our ID cards were not permitted to change because we can never be forced to leave—our IDs say Muslim not Christian,” he said. “I believe this is the grace of God. I would be feeling sorry if I had changed my ID; I would have lost many opportunities [for influence].”

A host of new Christian movements have sprung up since the revolution. Their strategies to not merely survive but thrive in the new Egypt are not clever political schemes, but rather foundational Christian principles: engaging society, growing the church, loving neighbors and enemies (often the same), and seeking church unity.

Church Beyond the Walls

Egypt’s Muslim majority has historically known very little about Copts beyond media stereotypes. But many Coptic leaders say the revolution brought the Egyptian church outside of its walls—both literal and metaphorical.

As a result, Copts enjoy a newfound publicity and respect among Egyptian media and institutions. Days before Mubarak resigned, 50 evangelical leaders issued a strong public statement supporting the revolution. “We were the only church to do this,” said Andrea Zaki, vice president of the Protestant Churches of Egypt. “This gave us [evangelicals] strong credibility with Islamists.”

Copts have also earned newfound respect at street level. Mina Daniel, an Orthodox youth killed during last October’s Maspero Massacre, has become an iconic figure among revolutionary youth. More than 25 Copts died in front of the state TV station as they protested church burnings. Many who died were killed after military vehicles ran over them. “Mina Daniel” is chanted during street protests, and red flags bear his likeness. “I never thought I could love a Christian guy,” says a Salafi activist in a YouTube video. “[But] I learned that not only Muslims are ready to die for their country.”

KDEC evangelist Fawzi Khalil represented Coptic Christians in Tahrir Square the Friday after the “Day of Rage” that ignited the revolution on January 25, 2011. For one hour before the regular noon call to prayer, he led a massive crowd of hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Christian songs and prayer. It was an extremely rare televised public display of Christian faith in Egypt.

‘If Christians would like to continue in this country, they can’t remain in the churches.’—Andrea Zaki, Protestant Churches of Egypt

“Fear shot through my body because … the government or someone might shoot me if they don’t like what I say,” said Khalil. “But I thought, For such a time as this … the church has a chance to speak.”

He used the public pulpit to spread peace and blessing. “I pressed the boundary little by little,” said Khalil. “First I mentioned God; then I mentioned Jesus.” He felt many biblical statements would resonate with the crowd. He focused on the promise in Isaiah 61 of freedom for the captives.

Khalil said KDEC now engages with Muslims every day. The church hosted a memorial service for martyrs of the revolution, and invited thousands of Salafis to enter the church to cleanse themselves before prayers in Tahrir.

The church’s field hospital is not only the revolution’s largest; it also serves as a powerful symbol of unity, with evangelical and Orthodox doctors working alongside Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood colleagues. “This changes [Muslims’] minds as to what a church is,” said Khalil. “They see that Christian people are good. We smile. We are human.”

A Muslim ophthalmologist volunteering at the field hospital explained how she had seen dozens of patients with ruptured eyes, instead of her usual one per week. “These patients need psychological care, but we doctors need psychological care too,” she says. “We are traumatized. I feel we are here not only to take care of the patients, but to take care of each other.” A nearby pastor offers to pray with her. She is shocked but assents, and starts to cry through her red-rimmed glasses.

“The revolution has pushed local churches outside their walls to engage society in a wider way,” said Zaki. Today, a Heliopolis church works with families of the revolution’s martyrs. A Nasr City church hosts joint breakfasts and garage sales with a nearby mosque. A church in Nag Hammadi formed a coalition of Muslims and Christians to run for parliament. He says there are hundreds more examples.

“If Christians would like to continue in this country,” said Zaki, “they can’t remain in the churches.”

Erasing Fear

Copts compose about 10 percent of the 80 million Egyptians crammed into just 5 percent of the desert nation’s land—the narrow arable stretch along the Nile River and its delta. Thus, growing the church through evangelism is not just a biblical mandate but also a survival strategy.

Tending the Injured: At Kasr El Dobara, volunteer professionals treat pro-democracy demonstrators in February. During the 2011 revolution, 846 Egyptians were killed and 6,000 were injured.

Yet the greatest obstacle to sharing the gospel with Muslims is not government restrictions on religious freedom, said Tharwat Wahba, missiology professor at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo, the largest and oldest seminary in the Middle East. Instead, it is the heritage of fear created over 14 centuries under Islamic rule.

“The greatest obstacle [is] the wall of fear,” he said. “We need to break this wall.”

More religious freedom is not the first item on Wahba’s wish list. “We have yet to stretch ourselves to the [existing] limit,” he said. When prisons opened after the revolution, thousands released were Salafis or Muslim Brotherhood members jailed because of their faith. “How many Christians were jailed because of evangelizing their faith? None. We didn’t use the freedom we had because of fear,” he said. “The pressure inside the church is more than the pressure outside the church.”

Wahba, whose seminary is hosting 250 students this year, sees three strategies to meet the evangelism need in Egypt:

• Empower and encourage the nearly 100 rural churches unable to afford pastors because younger generations keep moving to Cairo or Alexandria in search of better opportunities. “The church is not dying—it is moving.”

• Plant churches among these urban transplants. Wahba knows of 150 groups that need help finding leaders, organizing legally, purchasing land, and building churches.

• Plant churches intentionally in areas where Christians are not but should be, such as the Red Sea coastline. “If we don’t start a church today, we will never have one.”

Today mass media—whether televangelist Father Zakaria Botrus or influential Christian satellite broadcasting—and dreams in the night produce far more converts than personal evangelism. Few are willing to risk the consequences, said Khalil. Others have trouble loving their Muslim neighbors after years of mistreatment.

“If we go one by one, we will evangelize Egypt in 80 million days,” said the KDEC evangelist. “If we focus on mass media and dreams, we have to rely on divine intervention.”

Today’s converts meet weekly in cell groups. KDEC gathered more than 60 such groups last Christmas. “We are able to do this today with hundreds,” said Khalil. “The question is, what are we going to do when we have thousands? That day is not far away. Revival is coming regardless of what is going to happen with the revolution.”

Love First

In the interim, Copts live with the daily reality of their minority status. In Upper Egypt, south of Cairo, this situation exposes Copts to sectarian clashes.

One solution to these tensions may lie in the approach of Father Yu’annis, an Orthodox priest in the Upper Egypt village of Maghagha. He said his family tree has produced priests for 27 generations. He has 33 years under his own belt, with a beard and belly to match. Training and experience have led him to one strategy for peace: love of neighbor.

Yu’annis says his village of 200 Christian families living among 1,200 Muslim families enjoys harmony. “The Muslims where I’m from love us because we have loved them first,” he said. He visits them for holidays. He donates bags of cement when a mosque needs building. He even helped a Salafi sheik campaign for parliament this spring.

Yu’annis says he has successfully built or expanded 32 churches over his career. The secret: Don’t start by pursuing government permission or sufficient funds. Both are moot if neighbors are not on board. “Love the Muslims first and then they will stand with you in building the church,” he said. “Nothing else will work.”

One longstanding approach by Copts to demonstrate Christian love of neighbor has been providing social services such as education. The evangelical Synod of the Nile’s General Secretariat of Schools celebrated its 100th anniversary last year. Today, it operates 22 kindergartens through high schools nationwide, educating more than 30,000 Christian and Muslim students.

Many graduates now hold positions of influence in Egyptian academia, business, media, and government. “The attitude of our [Muslim graduates] toward Christians is totally different from many other Muslims’,” said general secretary Mohsen Mounir Rizkalla. “They see Christians are not enemies.”

The synod has partnered with Zaki’s Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services to create a colorful children’s curriculum that teaches concepts such as equality, citizenship, peace building, and conflict resolution. The hope is such training will balance any rising fundamentalism in homes.

“Children are the future,” said Rizkalla. “We can’t change the parents’ minds, but we can change the kids’ minds.”

Unity from the Bottom Up

All Copts trace their heritage to the apostle Mark, founder of the first-century church in Alexandria. But for two centuries, the Orthodox—who number 90 percent of Copts—have dismissed Coptic Protestants as sheep stealers. (Most initial converts came from Orthodox families.) In turn, Protestants have dismissed the Orthodox as self-preservationists. But today, more Copts thirst for unity.

‘Revival is coming regardless of what is going to happen with the revolution.’—Fawzi Khalil, church evangelist

This ecumenical movement is driven not by clergy but by laypeople. “The Lord is using the people of the congregation more than the leaders,” said an Orthodox evangelist who requested anonymity. He talks eagerly about how interdenominational prayer meetings that laypeople initiated climaxed last November, when an estimated 50,000 Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholic Copts gathered at Cairo’s famous cave church, St. Samaan the Tanner. They prayed until sun-rise.

The service, broadcast on Christian and secular TV channels, is believed to be the largest public gathering of Christians in Egypt’s history.

“Many churches criticize us, but we see it as a divine mandate,” said the evangelist. “We denominations had moved away from each other …. We [should be] different fingers, but one body with the same lifeblood.”

Even tragedies have furthered the desire for unity. An evangelical Copt who survived the Maspero massacre describes how fellow protesters next to him were crushed by military vehicles. The experience traumatized him. But he sees a silver lining. “Maspero minimized the distance between denominations, because who was targeted was not denominations but us as Chris tians,” he said. “[And] if the country keeps going in an Islamist direction, this will unite us more than ever before.”

There is another, less visible example of emerging Coptic unity in Cairo’s largest slum. Past the famous City of the Dead, where the poor live in mausoleums, and below the Citadel fortress towering upon the sandstone cliffs on the city’s eastern edge, lies Manshiyet Nasr.

This maze of ramshackle brick and concrete canyons is home to the zabbaleen: descendents of Christian subsistence farmers who emigrated from Upper Egypt in the 1940s. For generations they have made their living recycling Cairo’s trash.

Winding through the narrow dirt streets lined with tiny shops, pedestrians, and dumpster-sized bundles of trash, one reaches the former site of a large compost factory, now a garden of rare Egyptian trees. This is the set piece of the Association for the Protection of the Environment (APE), launched by wealthy Orthodox Copts in 1984 to help the zabbaleen improve their commerce, health, and education.

The zabbaleen, still reeling from a forced government culling of hundreds of thousands of pigs—a key source of income—in 2009, blocked the nearby Autostrad thoroughfare last March to protest a church demolished in Upper Egypt. This angered Muslim drivers and led to fighting which killed 13 and injured dozens. Women trained by APE in first aid treated the wounded.

Many zabbaleen are anxious about their future, explains Syada Griess, a former parliamentarian who today serves as APE’s president.

The Coptic business community is working through APE to teach the garbage collectors their rights, register them to vote, and get them to the polls.

Griess, wearing a red wool jacket and colorful scarf the day before Valentine’s Day, estimates 80 percent of the 60,000 zabbaleen participated in the parliamentary elections. “I tell them don’t be afraid,” she said. “The worst thing you can do is to stay silent.”

Copts helping empower other Copts is the foundation of the new models being tested as Christians seek to shape Egypt’s future. Many models are youth-driven—a significant shift from the days when Copts relied on their church leaders, such as recently deceased Pope Shenouda, to mediate their needs and concerns with Mubarak’s regime.

Different Approaches

One charismatic leader of youth-oriented change is Father Philopater. Soft-spoken with a long, narrow beard and a slim frame under his black vestment, the busy priest gives an interview in his gray Hyundai sedan as he drives through rush-hour traffic from the backdrop of Giza’s pyramids to the wealthy Nile island neighborhood of Zamalek.

Philopater was confirmed as an Orthodox priest 13 years ago. But he has temporarily put aside his duties at a 10,000-member congregation in Giza in order to advise the Maspero Youth Union. “My presence is only to correct for the past,” he said. “We had taught [youth] to be quiet. Now we need to teach them to demand their rights.”

The union is one of the largest opposition movements advocating for the rights of Copts. Today it counts 100,000 members, mostly Christians ages 20 to 35, but also Muslim and secular youth.

Researchers estimate that 50 percent of Egyptians are under 25—a staggering 90 percent of whom are unemployed. Philopater advises these youth because he believes their voice is more important than the church hierarchy right now.

“The youth have taught us the lessons of age. Before we would accept [discrimination], but the youth have chosen to reject the suffering situation that we have,” he said. “I stand with them, because maybe they will find the solution to our problems.”

Another new model is Salafyo Costa, a group of primarily Salafis and Orthodox Copts attempting to build bridges from opposite ends of the religious spectrum. More than 110,000 Egyptians have joined their Facebook group and exchanged 70,000 posts and counting.

One Monday evening, the leaders met in a Zamalek cafe named No Big Deal—an apropos title given their goals. Mohammad Tolba, 33, is an observant Salafi. Bassem Victor, 35, is an observant Orthodox. They met in Tahrir Square and became friends because they have a common enemy: the military.

They share the view, common among youth, that Mubarak relied on religious conflict to maintain control. So they have been intentional to build bridges. Media images of Christians guarding Muslims during prayers in Tahrir Square, and Muslims then guarding praying Christians in turn, reflect this.

Interfaith efforts are often accused of watering down both sides in order to reach a lowest common denominator. Salafyo Costa is trying a different approach.

“We are very clear that we are not one,” said Tolba. “According to my beliefs, [Victor] is going to hell. And according to his beliefs, I am not going to heaven. We are different, and we have to learn to live together.”

Tolba and Victor would love for the other to share their faith, but feel that evangelism can be left to other venues. They focus on dispelling stereotypes through joint community development projects.

Salafyo Costa’s first event was a soccer match between Salafis and Orthodox, which mercifully ended in a 6-6 tie. The group has distributed blankets to the poor and made comedic movies. Victor has spoken on the most prominent Salafi TV channel and addressed 1,200 Salafis at a religious conference. “There should be more Christians doing this,” he said. “We are trying to make a very small model of Egypt.”

Above a busy row of Cairo bookstores, Watani reporter Nader Shukry works at a scuffed wooden desk crammed with three others into a small second-story office with pale green plaster walls. Dressed in a black wool sweater and sporting a large silver watch on his wrist, the 33-year-old journalist explains why he is staying and fighting.

“I have a visa to America; I could go to the U.S. whenever I want,” he says. “But I love Egypt very much. And as a journalist, I can’t leave these others who don’t know how to defend themselves when I have the tools to do so.

“This will be an Islamist period, no question,” says Shukry. “We just have to hope that it will pass soon.”

“Che” the convert-turned-activist agrees, but sees the coming days as a blessing in disguise. “I am glad we are moving into an Islamist era, because [Egyptians] are like Doubting Thomas; we don’t believe until we see and touch,” he said. “People believe [political] Islam is the best, but they need to be freed of this idea. Entering this era will be a chance to be freed from this illusion.”

The coming year will be critical for Copts. “The future of Egypt is not sitting in our chairs and feeling optimistic or pessimistic,” said Zaki. “We need to work very hard.

“Fourteen hundred years ago, Christians were able to adapt [to Islamic rule] and continue in Egypt. We need to adapt to our new situation,” he said. “We want to move from a survival strategy to a victorious church that is free to remain, worship, and serve.”

Jeremy Weber is news editor at

Christianity Today

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Copyright © 2012 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Previous Christianity Today coverage of Egypt includes:

What Egypt’s Leading Islamist Presidential Candidate Thinks About Christians | An exclusive interview with former Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdel-Moneim Abol Fotoh. (April 23, 2012)

Why Pope Shenouda’s Death Matters to Egyptian Protestants | The Coptic ‘pope of the Bible’ was controversial yet beloved. (March 19, 2012)

Christians Killed, Injured in Arab Spring Fallout | The bloodiest day since Egypt’s uprising was caused by a peaceful Christian protest. (October 10, 2011)

Behind Egypt’s Revolution | Away from news cameras, Christian, Muslim youth rediscover common ground. (March 7, 2011)

The Muslim Brotherhood and the Gospel of Christ | Why Egypt’s Christians might actually be safer if the Muslim Brotherhood were a part of the ruling government. (February 11, 2011)

CT: What needs does a leadership training program like RCLI address?

FK: The idea for RCLI emerged from my international travel, as the head of a Christian family foundation. I consistently heard that leadership development was the most strategic way to advance the gospel—and I met with organizations all over the world that were investing in local leaders. But I observed that in the United States and in my own city of Richmond, there are few high-quality Christian leadership development programs.

I was also discovering that the millennials—the emerging adults flocking to Richmond for its quality of life and the creative and professional opportunities here—love their cities. They are less willing than previous generations to wait until they are 40 or older to be invited into leadership—even at 25 they feel ready to lead. While that’s a little concerning, I’ve been very heartened at how open and eager they are to mentoring and cross-generational attention. So I wondered how best to mobilize that enthusiasm and energy—including their ability to jumpstart things with little need for infrastructure or resources—and infuse it with wisdom about the city, its current leadership, and its history.

CT: One unique aspect of RCLI is how grounded it is in the very particular realities of Richmond. Is that intentional?

FK: There are nuances in every city—historical, relational, spiritual, political—and there’s rarely any intentional passing on of knowledge or orientation of newcomers.

I went through Chuck Colson’s Centurions program, and it was profound and formative for me. It shaped in me a worldview perspective that was grounded and deep. But it didn’t equip me for leadership in the very complicated civic arena of my city. Many public policy ministries today educate believers on a small handful of issues—abortion, gay marriage, creation science, and so on. But there are many other issues—taxes, zoning, bus lines, immigration, hiring, economic incentives for corporations—that are profoundly moral and have implications on the heart and soul and livability of a city. And Christians have not been organized to be at those tables. It’s easy to be marginalized when you care about only one piece of the pie. The whole heart, soul, and shape of our city are being defined by people with expertise, and Christians are sometimes absent from those critical discussions.

In Richmond, like many cities, I’m sure, we are fortunate to have Christians with expertise working in all those areas, and RCLI facilitates the impartation of their wisdom to an emerging generation.

CT: How easy would it be to replicate RCLI in another city?

FK: Well, the good news is it doesn’t depend on money—our budget is scandalously low, around $100,000.We were totally volunteer during our first two years. But it does require people with convening ability and wide contacts, who are known for giving away credit, giving away fun jobs and not just the dirty work, giving away cool opportunities, and fostering friendships. That’s RCLI’s ethos—we give everything away. We own a cooler, an LCD projector, our executive director’s laptop, and a couple of easels. Any money that comes in goes directly to providing great education experiences for our participants, and to our underpaid executive director.

As we got started, we didn’t have money to rent a hotel meeting room, so we went hat-in-hand to different churches—and that turned out to be one of the most potent features of our model. Each month, now, our session is held in different churches spread throughout the metropolitan region, kind of like the tabernacle or a movable feast. In March our session was at an African American Pentecostal church 35 minutes out into the county; in April, then, we were at the downtown mainline St. John’s Episcopal Church, where Patrick Henry gave his “give me liberty or give me death” speech. When they begin RCLI, almost none of our participants have been to more than one or two churches in the region; by the end of the year they’ve been to at least nine.

CT: How are participants selected?

TH: We try to assess three general criteria: faith, leadership, and heart. Faith: You are maturing in your relationship with Christ and applying your faith in the life decisions you make and in your places of worship and employment. Leadership: You’re either in leadership positions currently, or you have the potential to play those roles. Heart: People who have demonstrated a heart for the Richmond region. We want to know what they have done to demonstrate a commitment to Richmond.

We hope people leave with all three qualities deepened, and that our participants, who often have lots of opportunities here and elsewhere, come out of this experience more committed to staying in Richmond.

CT: The diversity of your participants is striking. How do you achieve such a broad group—racially, denominationally, vocationally?

FK: Any solution which aspires to serve the whole Richmond region, with all of its needs, must be sensitive to and representative of our region’s diversity. So, when we started praying about RCLI in my living room for several years, that group was very diverse. When we created the initial Board, it was very diverse. And the very first session we had was at the largest African American megachurch in our city. It was really hard to get their buy-in, because I didn’t have existing connections there, but I just kept at it because I wanted to be certain that we were racially diverse from the outset.

We work really hard to make the extra phone call and do the extra speech at different places, in order to broaden our reach.

It’s not easy. All of us have default modes, and they are often unaware of whom we might be excluding. Striving for diversity of all kinds—racial, gender, vocational, geographic, denominational, socioeconomic—is slower, is more painstaking, and takes a lot of effort, but we think that it reflects God’s vision for his world and for our city—and we’re fortunate to be in a city that really doesn’t allow us to be otherwise.

TH: We also look at a number of other measures of diversity: churches and denominations, their locality of residence, gender, and their employment sector. For example, we aim to have at least half of the class come from the private sector. There’s nothing wrong with folks who are in ministry settings, education, or government, but finding participants from the private sector requires extra attention. They have less control over their calendars, and it’s harder for them to commit to most of a weekend each month.

CT: What range of issues do you address in the course of the year?

TH: Every year we address education, land use, and issues of race and other divides within our region. The rest of the curriculum can vary somewhat from year to year—often it includes public policy and civic engagement, crime and poverty, community health, immigration and multiculturalism (we often choose “and” topics that look at the intersection of two realities). It’s not just lectures. For many years, as part of our day on land use and housing, we visited a trailer park with which one of our churches had a deep relationship. We had lunch with residents in their trailers and learned about life in a trailer park. After the experience, some of our students remarked, “There’s more community in that trailer park than the neighborhood where I live.”

During this year’s opening session, we took a bus tour through five centuries of Richmond. We look out on the river where, in the 17th century, the early settlers planted the cross for England. When their Indian guide asked what the cross represented, he was told—of course, falsely—it represented the relationship between King James and Powhatan, a symbol of friendship. From there, literally three blocks away, we stop at the downtown mainline St. John’s Episcopal Church, where in the 18th century Patrick Henry cried out for liberty—mostly liberty codified for white, landowning males.

Next we drive down the hill and look at the 19th century, standing in the footprint of one of the slave jails and walking on the Negro burial grounds which have only been reclaimed in the last year. From there, we go into the gallery of the Senate chamber and are told about laws passed there in the 20th century that directly and indirectly influenced how our community looks today. We finish via a route through Richmond’s East End, noting the often-controlling manmade features of today (interstates, public housing, jail) that reflect the past centuries and continue to shape this century.

We emphasize that Christians were active all through those stories, influencing things for better and for worse. But we’re here present now and have the opportunity to affect what happens next.

FK: If you’re going to peel away the layers of any city, there are always mounds of junk that will challenge you intellectually, relationally, emotionally, and theologically. We often hear people say after sessions on poverty, education, law enforcement, or homelessness, “I went home just shattered. I couldn’t do anything the night after the session.”

The one thing we don’t do is to dictate solutions. Instead, we try to create problem-solvers. Class members have to cultivate flexibility and nimbleness—if they think they have it figured out after one session, usually during the next session their thoughts are dashed. And that’s great training, because they need to be flexible if they are going to be effective in our city. When we feel overwhelmed and like beginners—that’s about the right posture for getting into the fray.

We’ve effectively created a vehicle for folks to encounter the Holy Spirit’s tug for how they best should seek the shalom of their city. The Holy Spirit is palpably present at every single session, and that is because we’re intentionally poor, we are not predicated upon our power, we don’t have any specific agenda, and we are constantly adapting in order to allow our participants best to meet God in our sessions.

CT: What are the results you are seeing from five years of RCLI classes—about 150 participants so far?

TH: We’ve started to see results on three different levels. First, the personal level: someone has decided to do something differently. A change in job, or perhaps where they live. Second, the immediate sphere: others with whom they interact in their neighborhood, job, church, or broader community. Third, the broader community.

To give an example: we have an individual who grew up in one part of Richmond and was just gripped by the land use session. She decided she needed to move to a place where she, economically and racially, is a minority, intentionally engaging in the community in order to invest and learn from it. Several people have taken roles in creating or restarting or simply leading their local community association. In the suburbs that might not seem like a big deal, but in the city that role requires you to work cross-race, cross-economics, but also cross-interests.

FK: Jeremiah 29 is central for us—it says pray and seek the peace of the city. Jeremiah doesn’t only call for praying and waiting, but also constructing our lives in a way that shows to you and everyone around you that you are invested in the most concrete of ways. What is more permanent than building a house? planting a garden? marrying off your children? Is there anything that keeps someone invested in a city more than knowing that your grandchildren will live there? In an age of transience, we are doing things that show a watching world that we are bought in, we are committed—including marrying off our kids. So get jobs, buy houses, agitate for good, commit to organizations and work for them, become immersed in your city, so that the good of the city is the good of your family, and vice versa.

In the “greatest generation,” the greatest people aspired to do great things—but the mindset is different today. It’s the DYI generation, and everything is flatter, everything is viral, everything happens immediately, and everyone wants in on it. And everything I’ve seen about the emerging generation—RCLI’s participants—is that they want to be part of human-scale solutions. They aren’t daunted by their lack of expertise. The passion they bring ,the fact that they want to do it with other people, and the fact that they don’t mind being part of small solutions—those all encourage me greatly about the impact our RCLI alumni will make.

Scouring the sci-fi shelves of secondhand bookstores in the 1970s, I always kept an eye out for titles coming from Elsewhere. On one such shelf I came across Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, a novel published in Russian in 1972 and in English translation in 1977. Arkady (1925-1991) and Boris (1933- ) were brothers, and their work was very popular in the Soviet Union.

Roadside Picnic is, among other things, an unconventional story of alien contact (or the aftermath of contact), with affinities to Stanislaw Lem. Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker was inspired by the Strugatskys’ novel.

This month, Chicago Review Press published a new English translation of Roadside Picnic, with a foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin. The translator, Olena Bormashenko, a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Texas, has produced a version that is a good deal more fluent than the earlier rendering into English. I got in touch with her, and we carried on a conversation via email.

What was your first encounter with Roadside Picnic, and how did you end up translating it?

My first encounter with Roadside Picnic must have been when I was quite small. Books by the Strugatsky brothers were very popular in the former Soviet Union, so it was something I read as a child. I can’t remember exactly how old I was, especially since I tend to reread books.

I decided to translate it because I really loved the book and thought the old translation didn’t quite do it justice. I flipped through it when I bought it for an English-speaking friend of mine in college, and I thought I might be able to do a better job. So I just started translating … and then I worked on it on and off for a long, long time—there must have been stretches of more than a year when I did no work on it. Somehow, I only got serious about it again a couple of years ago. I’d never done any translating before that at all, so I’m not really sure why I thought it was a good idea! Of course, I’m really happy with how it worked out.

Collaborative authorship is probably more common in sci-fi than in other varieties of fiction, but collaboration between two brothers is rare in any genre. Do you know anything about how Boris and Arkady Strugatsky wrote their books together, how they divided the labor?

That’s a fascinating question! Unfortunately, I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of the matter (although I’d be very interested in learning the answer). As far as I know, they basically did all the work jointly and on an equal footing. That is, they’d first discuss the ideas and sketch out the plot, and then write the book together, sentence by sentence. I wish I knew more details about their collaboration, but I don’t.

Ah, well, that’s OK. (If you ever hear from someone who DOES know about this, maybe as your new translation gets read, please pass the word on to me.)

I’ll definitely let you know if I ever hear anything. (I did some Googling in Russian, and it looks like they didn’t talk much about how they worked together.)

There are so many stories of alien visitation to Earth, but Roadside Picnic is one of the most memorable. What makes it stand out from the crowd?

I think there are a number of things that make Roadside Picnic stand out. First, unlike most books in the genre, it grapples with the idea that the aliens might be indifferent or unknowable. (Solaris would be another exception.) I find that a much more fascinating perspective than the idea of green beings with three eyes or whatnot.

Another thing that makes Roadside Picnic great science fiction is that it’s just a good, well-observed book. It doesn’t only engage with science and technology; it also works as social commentary and as a character study of Redrick, the protagonist. This approach is actually very typical of the Strugatsky brothers’ works, and is one of the reasons I’m so fond of their books.

Among the other books by the Strugatskys that have been translated into English, which ones would you particularly recommend?

I’d say that question has a number of answers. I like many books by the Strugatsky brothers, but I’m not sure I’d be able to unreservedly recommend all of them to a Western audience.

The most popular Strugatsky novel in the former USSR is certainly Monday Starts on Saturday, a very amusing book chronicling the adventures of a computer programmer working at an Institute of Magic. I really enjoyed the book in Russian, and have reread it more than once; however, it is full of allusions both to Russian folk tales and Soviet realities, and as such, it might be less accessible to a non-Russian reader than Roadside Picnic.

Most of their other novels are less dependent on cultural context: some of my favorites are Hard to Be a God, Beetle in the Anthill, The Time Wanderers, and The Final Circle of Paradise. But I don’t know how well they’ve been translated—an English-speaking reader might not experience these books the same way that I did. I suppose if I was pressed, these would be the ones I’d recommend; I’m sure I could come up with some more, because I enjoy the Strugatsky brothers in general!

As a mathematician who also reads (and even translates) fiction, have you encountered some novels featuring mathematics & mathematicians that you especially enjoyed (or that seemed egregiously bad)?

I can’t say I’ve read too many novels featuring mathematicians. I’ve read a number of biographies, but that’s something different. Maybe I’m just forgetting some obvious examples—can you think of some yourself?

It’s funny: the last few years, there have been a number of novels in which mathematicians figure prominently. Most of them, to be honest, haven’t been very good. One I greatly enjoyed is The Housekeeper and the Professor, by Yoko Ogawa (translated from Japanese).

I should try reading The Housekeeper and the Professor then—there’s clearly a gap in my education! I was trying to come up with books featuring mathematicians, and I realized that I could think of lots of books where there’s a throwaway line about a character studying mathematics, but usually just as code for “this person is smart” or possibly for “this person is smart and strange.” I suppose a particularly amusing example would be Professor Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Now that Roadside Picnic is out, are you thinking of translating something else? (I hope so!)

Yes, I’m definitely thinking of translating something else. I will most likely do another Strugatsky book next, but we haven’t decided which one yet. We’ll probably choose one fairly soon, and then I’ll get started; I’m looking forward to it. Of course, Roadside Picnic is doing so well that my expectations are now probably far too high.

Thank you. I’ll be looking for the next book.

If, as I hope, you decide to check out Roadside Picnic and end up reading it, you might take a look at a related book published earlier this year: Zona, Geoff Dyer’s scene-by-scene reading of Tarkovsky’s Stalker. It’s a willful book, loaded with digressions and provocations, but it’s never boring. You might also enjoy Stanislaw Lem’s long essay “About the Strugatskys’ Roadside Picnic,” the concluding piece in his book Microworlds: Writings on Science Fiction and Fantasy.

John Wilson is the editor of Books & Culture.

Did God create the universe in six 24hr days, or was it a gradual process over eons? Were humans made from the dust of the ground, or did we evolve from earlier species of primates? Was there a literal Adam and Eve? What about the fossil record, dinosaurs, and genetic evidence?

Since I was a kid I’ve loved discovering how our universe works. Despite my layman’s appreciation for science, I have stayed far, far away from the faith versus science controversies that our society and media seem eager to engage.

It isn’t that I think these questions are unimportant, or that I don’t sympathize with those who struggle to reconcile their faith with science. And I am grateful for those seeking to thoughtfully and graciously bridge the divide between the scientific and faith communities. Some members of my own church have done wonderful work in this area. And lately I’ve been intrigued by the work of BioLogos. The group was started in 2007 by Francis Collins, the brilliant scientist who led the Human Genome Project. BioLogos’ mission is to show the compatibility of science and religion. The group’s website includes endorsem*nts by many theologians, scientists, and pastors, and it includes articles on many of the questions I list above.

Like those behind BioLogos, I share the belief that science is an indispensable, legitimate, and God-ordained vehicle for truth. It can tell us how our universe works, and these answer become the basis for solutions to many of humanity’s most vexing problems. So why do I remain hesitant to allow externally verifiable logic to always trump faith when controversies arise between science and religion? Here’s why: While science can tell us how our universe works, it cannot prove the universe has always worked, or will forever work, the same way.

A lot of science, and the worldview behind it, is predicated on one assumption–that the laws that govern our universe are unchanging. From this premise the materialist worldview believes that if we can discover the way the cosmos works now, then we can peer back in time or project ahead and accurately understand both the origins and destiny of our world. But…

What if E has not always equaled mc2 ?

What if light has not always traveled at 299,792,458 meters per second?

What if the laws of gravity, motion, and thermodynamics which accurately describe the universe now, do not accurately describe the universe that was, or the universe that will be?

What if the scientific principles that govern the cosmos are less like an eternal monarch with unending reign, and more like a term-limited president?

What if natural laws are not immutable?

If one allows this possibility, then it becomes permissible to affirm all that science has proven without dismissing all that faith affirms. Part of Christian faith is the notion that the cosmos we experience today is not the same as the cosmos God created, and it will not be the same cosmos in the future. At some point in the distant past our universe was changed, and at some future time it will change again. To begin to understand this idea (and I say begin because I don’t believe we can fully grasp it), we must look to the hinge upon which all of Christianity turns: the Resurrection.

The Apostle Paul tells us that when Jesus rose from the grave his body was transformed, and that this transformation represents the change that awaits all who will be resurrected (1 Cor 15:42-49). This transformed body of Jesus is clearly evident in the Gospel accounts. While Jesus was still recognized as himself (he still ate breakfast and retained the wounds of his crucifixion), he could now appear and disappear, move through walls, and ascend into the air. It was Jesus’ body that was raised, but this same body was utterly changed into something different than it was. Notice, however, that Scripture does not say Jesus received a new body, because a new body could not rightly be called a resurrection but rather a reincarnation. Orthodox Christian belief based upon the Gospels affirms that it was his same body, raised and transformed. It was truly resurrection.

Why is this important? It’s important because in Christ’s resurrection we are offered a glimpse of the re-creation that awaits all things. Paul says that we who belong to Christ will also experience a transforming resurrection like his (1 Cor 15), and that all of creation is anxiously awaiting our resurrection because then “the creation itself also will will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). Scripture teaches that a day will come when the cosmos itself will be utterly transformed in a manner similar to the transformation witnessed in Jesus’ resurrection. This liberated cosmos will no longer be corrupted by death or decay. The curse of sin will be no more. An argument can be made that the very physical principles of the universe we now grasp through science will be replaced with a new set of governing laws, just as Jesus’ resurrected body seemed governed by laws unfamiliar to our common experience.

This cosmic transformation is what both Peter and John refer to when they speak of a “new heaven and new earth” (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1). The Greek word “new” in these text is not neo, which means “new in substance,” but rather the word kainon, meaning “new in quality.” A misreading of these two texts has led many Christians to the false belief that God will throw away this cosmos and start over with a new one. That is not the case. Our God does not make mistakes, nor does he replace. Our God restores. John and Peter use the word kainon because they are speaking of a transformation of the cosmos so radical that it will seem like a new world–just as Jesus resurrected body behaved so differently it might be mistaken for a replacement body, when in fact it was his same body transformed.

The best analogy I can think of for what Scripture says about the future is carbon. (Keep in mind this is just a metaphor, and like all metaphors it fails when stretched too far.) Carbon is a polymorphic element meaning it exists naturally as two very different substances: graphite and diamond. Both are chemically identical; they are both pure carbon. But diamonds and graphite share nothing in common in appearance or behavior due to their structural differences. In graphite the carbon atoms form sheets of bonds resulting in a substance that is opaque, brittle, and weak. Diamonds, however, are comprised of carbon atoms in a tetrahedral structure creating a crystal that is translucent and harder than any substance on earth.

Like carbon could our universe by polymorphic? In the age to come, might this same universe with the same substance be structurally transformed in a manner that utterly changes its qualities down to its governing laws of physics? If so, then the science of this age will cease and a new science will be required to understand the remade creation that was inaugurated with Jesus’ resurrection. The idea intrigues me and seems consistent with what we know from Christ’s resurrection. But there is more…

Stay tuned for part 2.

The late lamented (or unlamented) Terra Nova, whatever its merits and flaws, prompts reflection on the relationship between science and science fiction. That relationship is complex, but one aspect of it—so it seems to me, at least—hasn’t received as much attention as it deserves.

Scientists writing about the nature of science frequently emphasize that it forces us, again and again, to give up various preconceptions. Now of course this isn’t true of a lot of day-to-day scientific work. Nevertheless, it is true—as Richard Feynman, for instance, liked to say—that the findings of science are often counterintuitive, reminding us that we have to adjust to reality (as best as we can) and not the other way around.

Science fiction sometimes accomplishes a similar service. I started reading science fiction intensely around the age of ten and did so roughly for four years. (Then began a period during which I read less and less of it; and then, around thirty years of age, a return to the genre, though much more selective.) I can remember the impact—in those early years—of stories that imagined humanity in a far-distant future. Beneath the surface, there was something frightening about the prospect, but also a sense of exhilaration.

We often think—and read—in separate compartments. When I was ten years old, it did not occur to me to explicitly compare such visions of the human future with what I absorbed at home and at church and at school. At home and at church in particular, there was an assumption—mostly not articulated—that, whether or not we were literally in the “End Times,” there was not an unimaginably vast stretch of history lying ahead of human race. (That was reserved for “eternity.”) And yet, through science fiction, I was being encouraged to consider the possibility that it might be so, just as it might be so that a Near Earth Object (so blandly designated) would strike our planet with catastrophic impact. Or a worldwide virus could decimate the human population on a scale that dwarfed the impact of the Black Plague. And so on.

As Christians, I think we are sometimes too complacent in our largely unreflective assumptions about the shape of the future. We may be guilty of projecting onto God our notions about the order of things. Suppose that instead of being near the end of human history—before the advent of the New Heaven and the New Earth—we are closer to the beginning? Is such a prospect incompatible with God’s self-revelation in Scripture? Or is it merely incompatible with what we have assumed? What would a theology of the Long Now look like?

Science fiction—a very fallible oracle, needless to say!—can usefully provoke such questions, along with its other satisfactions. And when it does so, it lives up to its name.

John Wilson is the editor of Books & Culture.

Copyright © 2012 Books & Culture. Click for reprint information.

When it comes to the enduring question of word versus deed in the Christian’s calling, the issue is always one of balance. How are Christians to think about the relative roles of words (proclaiming the gospel) and deeds (loving action) in what Christ has called his people to be and do? We need to set our scales to a balance that matches Scripture.

“Balance” may sound simple, but finding and maintaining our equilibrium on such a complex subject is never easy. It’s like walking a tightrope. Only one direction will keep us upright and moving forward, and any number of missteps could lead us to fall off one side or the other. Misguided claims abound. Here’s a prominent example.

How often do we hear these days, with passion and approval, the famous dictum attributed to Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary”? In this saying, the word-versus-deed question rears its head, stressing in this instance how important it is for Christians to “preach the gospel” with their actions. Let the gospel be seen rather than spoken, it’s implied. Words may serve a useful backup role, but our actions must take center stage if we are to make a difference in the world.

At first blush, this sounds right. Except that it isn’t.

According to those who know the relevant history well—the Franciscans—Francis never uttered these words. But more important, on its face this dictum represents a significant error. It’s simply impossible to preach the gospel without words. The gospel is inherently verbal, and preaching the gospel is inherently verbal behavior.

But perhaps we should lighten up, we may say. Let us view the phrase as a mere aphorism and avoid pressing its language too literally. According to this reading, the saying is a rhetorical trope designed to emphasize the importance of backing up our gospel words with Christ-following lives.

This is an immensely important and thoroughly biblical idea. If this is all our maxim is affirming, we should deem it useful indeed. But unfortunately, many seem to want to treat it very literally indeed, precisely because they see no difficulty in doing so. They will insist that the gospel can in fact be “preached” without words. Sometimes this is called an “incarnational” approach to evangelism whereby we “preach the gospel” by incarnating it in the world.

What should we make of this claim? Can we, or can we not, “preach the gospel” with our actions? Who’s right, and does it matter?

As it happens, it matters a great deal.

The stakes are surprisingly high in how we answer this question. This is not some esoteric debate reserved for theologians or technical Bible scholars. Faithful obedience to Jesus Christ is our goal, and that applies to all who call him Lord. Such obedience must begin with clear thinking about what Jesus calls us to be and do.

So let us say it again: The belief that we can “preach the gospel” with our actions alone represents muddled thinking. However important our actions may be (and they are very important indeed), and whatever else they may be doing (they serve a range of crucial functions), they are not “preaching the gospel.” The gospel is inherently verbal, and preaching it is inherently verbal behavior. If the gospel is to be communicated at all, it must be put into words.

Such a statement flies in the face of a good deal of popular opinion. Can it withstand the light of examination? To answer this question, we need an appropriate framework for our thinking, one that will help us understand the issues rather than confuse them.

Syntax Versus Shoulder Shrugs

The categories we require are these: verbal communication and nonverbal communication. We have been using the terms word and deed. These correspond directly to the terms verbal and nonverbal. The difference in both cases focuses on whether we are using words.

Verbal communication refers to all the ways we communicate using a linguistic code. We call the various linguistic codes languages. Each of these codes has its own grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. We study these features when we try to master a new language.

Nonverbal communication, by contrast, refers to all those ways we communicate without words: such things as facial expressions, hand gestures, head position, eye behavior, vocal inflection (“paralanguage”), touch behavior, physical appearance and dress, posture, and our use of space (“proxemics”). Verbal codes are notoriously complicated, as anyone who has tried to learn a new language can testify. But the nonverbal codes are in some ways still more complex. There are no books of formal grammar for the nonverbal codes; nor can there be. The nonverbal dimensions of our communication are too subtle and contextual to be captured so concisely.

Human communication is endlessly fascinating, and the verbal-nonverbal distinction is only one way of analyzing it. But these two categories are the most useful for our present discussion. The following insights, drawn from the literature on nonverbal communication, are especially pertinent:

One cannot not communicate. We are constantly communicating with one another, if not verbally, then nonverbally. If we say, “I will simply remain still and say nothing,” our very silence communicates.

We tend to grant nonverbal messages more credence. When they contradict, we tend to believe nonverbal messages over verbal messages because the nonverbal dimensions of communication are much more difficult to control.

Nonverbal channels are especially effective in communicating attitudes, moods, feelings, and relationships. The power of nonverbal communication lies in its ability to express the affective dimension of our messages. Whatever a speaker may be saying verbally, how she feels about her subject matter, or about her listeners, or even about herself is what tends to come across nonverbally.

The gospel’s inherent power does not fluctuate with the strengths or weaknesses of its messengers.

Nonverbal channels are inadequate for conveying cognitive content. If nonverbal channels are extremely effective in communicating moods, feelings, relationships, and attitudes, they are for the same reason largely incapable of conveying cognitive, abstract, and historical information.

This is easily demonstrated. Imagine you have been assigned the task of communicating the following idea to a particular individual: Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great at the Macedonian court between 342 and ca. 339 B.C. Unfortunately, you discover that your pupil has no previous knowledge of either Aristotle or Alexander, what a tutor is, what Macedonia is, who Christ was, or consequently, what B.C. means. What’s worse, you do not have the verbal code available to you. Your pupil does not speak your language, and you do not speak his. All you have available are nonverbal channels of communication. How would you go about your task?

Your assignment would be impossible. You cannot communicate this type of content nonverbally. What facial expressions, or gestures, or eye behavior, or actions could express information about Alexander or Macedonia or B.C.? The nonverbal code is incapable of bearing this kind of weight. You require a verbal code—that is, words and sentences and paragraphs—to convey your meaning. Without them, your task is undoable.

The Verbal Gospel

In 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, the apostle Paul offers a brief summary of the gospel he had announced to his readers. He had communicated to them “as of first importance,”

that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. (All Scripture citations ESV)

Even this summary of the gospel is impossible to communicate nonverbally. One could no more communicate these ideas nonverbally than one could communicate our message about Aristotle nonverbally. The cognitive content of the message renders this impossible. That’s why the notion of “preaching the gospel” with our deeds is foreign to the Bible. The biblical gospel is inherently verbal, and by definition, communicating it requires putting it into words.

We have stressed this point for a reason—not because we wish to diminish the importance of the nonverbal dimensions of our calling (deeds), but because it is all-important that we keep the respective roles of our verbal and nonverbal witness clear. How we talk about these issues shapes and/or reflects how we think about them, and how we think about them in turn shapes how we behave. Obscuring or conflating the respective roles of word and deed can have serious consequences.

First, it can lead to an eclipse of our verbal witness.

Westerners live in a generation that is allergic to almost any truth claim, much less the scandalous, all-encompassing claims of the gospel. Ours is a time when language itself is devalued. Postmodern culture is skeptical of words. Images, experiences, and actions hold the high ground. In such times, the verbal witness of the church will often carry a special stigma. The world may well affirm the church’s efforts to feed the hungry or release the oppressed. But we will be disappointed if we expect the world to applaud the “word of the Cross.” The vast truth claims inherent in that word cut against the cultural grain, exacerbating the already inherent human tendency to resist the truth (Rom. 1:18ff.).

In such an environment, the idea that we can preach the gospel with our actions enables us to gravitate toward those parts of our calling that receive cultural approval while shying away from the part that generates cultural censure—all without abandoning “evangelism.” We still care about “preaching the gospel,” we assure ourselves, but we’re just doing it with our deeds rather than our words. In this way, our confusion of terms enables us to deceive ourselves into a benign neglect of our verbal witness.

Second, it can deceive us into thinking the power of the gospel lies within us. Some today will claim that there is no true evangelism without “embodied action.” In fact, according to one critic, “Unless [Christ’s] disciples are following the Great Commandment, it is fruitless to engage in the Great Commission.” According to this view, the gospel is without its own potency. Its “fruitfulness” depends upon us.

But this is not the testimony of the New Testament. According to Paul—whose itinerant ministry met few of the “embodied action” criteria—the power of the gospel does not reside in us; it resides in the Spirit’s application of the message itself. “I am not ashamed of the gospel,” Paul said. Why? Because “it”—the verbal gospel, the “word of the Cross,” the Good News of Jesus Christ proclaimed—is “the power of God for salvation” to everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16). So strong was Paul’s confidence in the gospel’s inherent Spirit-infused power that he could rejoice even when it was being preached, not merely in the absence of “embodied action,” but out of overtly sinful motives (Phil. 1:12-18).

Few would deny that the holistic mission of the church is the best possible platform for our verbal witness, and that our jaded generation will be more inclined to give us a hearing if we are living it out. (Indeed, the longest section of my new book, Word versus Deed, is devoted to the crucial role of our deeds.) But this does not permit us to hold the gospel hostage to our shortcomings. When has the church been all it should be? When, short of glory, will the church ever be all that God wills for it? The church has been messy from the beginning, falling far short of living out the Great Commandment. Yet despite our failures, the gospel itself remains marvelously potent, the very “power of God unto salvation” to those who believe.

The gospel’s inherent power does not fluctuate with the strengths or weaknesses of its messengers. This truth is humbling, but also immensely liberating. In the end, my inability to answer objections, my lack of training or experience, even failures in my own faithfulness in living it out do not nullify the gospel’s power. Its potency is due to the working of God’s Spirit. Even when we are at our best, the gospel is powerful in spite of us, not because of us. Thanks be to God.

Third, it can put us out of step with God’s own modus operandi in the world.

In 1 Corinthians 1:21, Paul says, “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.” Paul is referring here to what we have been calling the verbal witness of the gospel. This is God’s chosen modus operandi, Paul says, “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (v. 29).

Jesus said that “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). Later, he claimed that when he was “lifted up from the earth” he would “draw all people to [himself]” (John 12:32). As John explained, “He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die” (12:33), lifted up as a public spectacle on the cross, drawing to himself all who were willing to look upon him in faith for healing. Our verbal witness to Jesus continues that process of lifting Jesus up. “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified,” Paul says of his preaching to the Galatians (3:1). Similarly, by our verbal witness we placard the crucified, risen Christ, displaying him for all to see, so that he, by his Spirit, might continue to draw men and women to himself. Failing to appreciate this unique role of the verbal gospel places us out of step with God’s chosen way of operating in the world.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is a verbal thing, and communicating it requires putting it into words. This verbal witness is scarcely the whole of our calling, but neither is it dispensable. Nothing can replace it.

Let us celebrate the reality that the power of the gospel resides not in us but in the Spirit’s application of the message we proclaim, the message that declares a crucified Lord and Savior. Let us rejoice in the awareness that, as water is relevant to thirst, as food is relevant to hunger, as medicine is relevant to sickness, so this verbal message—the truth that in Christ “God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Cor. 5:19)—is relevant to the deepest and most profound need of every human heart. May we never lose heart in giving word to it.

Duane Litfin is president emeritus of Wheaton College and author of Word versus Deed: Resetting the Scales to a Biblical (Crossway), from which this article is adapted.

Copyright © 2012 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Duane Litfin’s previous articles Christianity Today include:

Clothing Matters: What We Wear to Church | Why what we put on may be more important than we think. (January 11, 2012)

The Burden of 2012 | The real issue at Baylor is the relationship between faith and learning. (February 16, 2005)

Other CT articles on evangelism include:

Saving the Superheroes: Ministering to the Emergency Dispatch | Portland-based ministry Responder Life sees police officers, firefighters, and dispatchers as an unreached people group. (September 8, 2011)

Evangelism as Sacrament | Velcroed to a high-felt need: Jerry Root says evangelism is seeing how God is already working in someone’s life. (April 28, 2011)

Super Bowl Evangelism | Why Jesus did not say, “Market your neighbor as yourself.” (February 3, 2011)

Sexy Evangelism | Why our narrative about sex, dating, and marriage is a gospel priority. (June 15, 2010)