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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 02 December 2010

The Church Universal (or universal Church or catholic Church) is a title or phrase used by theologians and church scholars to refer to what the Scripture calls the Body of Christ. It represents the sum total of all Christians, genuine believers in Christ, in all times, countries, and cultures.

So to refer to the American Church or the Middle East church is a way of describing a subset of the entire Body. These terms encompass Christians who live in the United States or who live in the countries generally considered part of the Middle East, respectively.

There’s much Americans don’t seem to know about their brothers and sisters in Christ in the Middle East, some of what they think they know that’s incorrect, and much more to say about what God is doing in the Church in the Middle East. To address this issue I recently wrote a column, a beginning commentary, on “What the American Church Should Know About the Middle East Church.”

The column refers to SAT-7, which is a Cyprus-based Christian satellite television ministry for whom I work. SAT-7 broadcasts daily in Arabic, Farsi, and Turkish throughout the Middle East and North Africa, and its mission is to strengthen the Church in the region.

If God chooses to bless SAT-7’s efforts and those of other Christian ministries, if he builds his Church in the Middle East, than it is truly possible for us to see spiritual and cultural transformation in the region in our lifetimes. This is our hope our prayer and our focus at SAT-7 and its support offices, SAT-7 Europe, SAT-7 UK, SAT-7 Canada, and SAT-7 USA.

I encourage you to learn more about the Middle East Church. While the Church isn’t featured everyday in the news like the region is, the Church is there and it is about the Father’s work.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2010

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Dr. Rogers or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow Dr. Rogers at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 13 November 2010

Some things learned at the Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding 25^th Anniversary and the Global Faith Forum (sponsored by Northwood Church, Keller, TX), November 10-13, 2010:

-Lifetime effort in Bible study “to rescue truth from familiarity” ~ Dr. Kenneth E. Bailey.

-Any current interpretation of the text must be held “tentatively final,” meaning we’re always open to learning more ~ Dr. Kenneth E. Bailey.

-Being “Pro-Palestinian” is not the same as being “Anti-Israeli”—Evangelical Christians need to be visible and supportive on both sides of this national-ethnic divide.

-We need to include in the dialogue the whole family of Abraham.

-We need to create a non-polarizing language about being “Pro-Jesus,” “Pro-Palestinian” or “Pro-Arab,” “Pro-Jewish,” “Pro-Nonviolence,” and “Pro-Peace.”

-Some suggested that American Christians need a primer on the Middle East – we don’t get it.

-Or we need a “Pastors’ Toolkit” for leading discussions about the Middle East.

-There are 15 million Latino Evangelicals in the United States – their issue is immigration.

-We live in the “golden age of advocacy” in that one person can reach one million instantly online.

-It’s easy for internationals to become dependent upon the West for help, but this is not always best for them or the West. Need to help develop leadership in the Church in the Middle East.

-Jesus must be the center of all our work. He means more than conversion. He is hope for the hopeless. He is the only one who can create a future for humanity that’s worth living. He can bring real justice, real peace.

-Christians need to speak up more often and more pointedly challenging fellow-Christians who advocate violence or other negative responses to people in the Middle East and elsewhere.

-God said, “Love your enemy,” so we must not ever reinforce violence in any form.

-The media focuses upon the loudest and often the most extreme voices within a movement, thus creating and perpetuating stereotypes, which can create grossly inaccurate perspectives within the public.

-Negative stereotypes foster a toxicity across divisions.

-WASP = "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant" or "Wealthy, Alienated, Separated, Protected"?

-Young people want authenticity, faith reality, living-out faith, service…they want to see real faith in action.

-“The right to believe anything does not mean anything people believe is right” ~ Os Guinness.

-“The art of after-dinner speaking is the act of speaking in someone else’s sleep” ~ Os Guinness.

-Os Guinness: Key question—“How will we live with the deep differences in the world?” – 3 corollary questions”-

1--Will Islam modernize peacefully and be a force for peace?

2--Which faith will replace Marxism/Communism?

3--Will the West recover its foundations?

-Guinness: There will never be one way fits all for relating religion to public life. Each country and culture has to figure it out, but there are three types--

--Sacred Public Square – Established churches or dominating religious participation…Religious Right, England and Anglican Church, Europe.

--Naked Public Square – Secular, all religions excluded as private or as a problem…France, Soviets, Communist Countries, Ataturk in Turkey, US leaning toward French model.

--Civil Public Square – Public life where everyone of every faith free to engage on basis of faith with clear understanding of rights, respect, and responsibility toward all faiths…Guinness’s view.

-Civil Public Square not a way to compromise faith, very different from “inter-faith dialogue,” which promotes unity over all religious differences. But there is no common denominator. There never will be; there are irreducible religious differences in beliefs and these need not be compromised in a free society in free discourse.

-Freedom of Speech is a right of believers, not a right of certain beliefs that must be protected above all others with special political correctness or tolerance measures or hate speech legislation. Freedom of conscience protects believers, not all ideas as sacrosanct or untouchable. Ironically, the Left supports restrictive, protective legislation that undermine the freedom of conscience they believe in. The Right argue in ways that do not align with the Founding Fathers and also tend to undermine a truly free society.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2010

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Dr. Rogers or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow Dr. Rogers at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 28 September 2010

It can’t get much more spiritually strategic than the Middle East. The birthplace of civilization and Christianity, the central player in the biblical prophecy of the end times, the Middle East is in the news every day.

Sure, every human being and therefore every region in which they live are important to the Lord. This we know is sound biblical theology. But the Middle East is different, special, and significant in God’s plan.

This is why SAT-7, a Middle East Christian satellite television ministry, broadcasts throughout the region around the clock in Arabic, Farsi, and Turkish.

It is a region dominated by religion, rulers, and regimes, resulting in some of the most closed countries of the world. Yet there is great spiritual opportunity.

500+ million people, 1 million added every month, some 100 million under the age of 15, 60% under the age of 25, the Middle East is growing younger by the minute. This is the now-and-future door the Lord is opening.

Young people, by definition, think new thoughts, forge their own way, want to be different from the generation before them. Youth throughout the Middle East are weary of unemployment, lack of access to economic opportunities, restrictive social codes, oppressive government and religion. They are seeking.

Every day, SAT-7 KIDS, the only channel like it in the world, beams Christian principles and teaching and lifestyle to Arabic youth in the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. SAT-7 KIDS portrays and offers a different way, actually, what Scripture calls the Way.

While the Church, churches, Christianity, and Christians are under great pressure in the Middle East, yet there is hope in Christ.

I work with SAT-7 because I believe in its vision and mission. Satellite television is accessible to most, cannot be censored, and is a perfect technological tool for reaching a population in which more than 50% are functionally illiterate. Those who could not read a verse of the Bible if you could get one to them can, nevertheless, watch and listen to Christian television. SAT-7 brings together technology, theology, and timeliness in a manner that opens doors to hearts.

I do not know if the Lord will send a revival to the Middle East in my lifetime, but I do believe he will do so. The kids are open.

"Look at the nations and watch, and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told” Habakkuk 1:5.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2010

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Dr. Rogers or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow Dr. Rogers at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 23 August 2010

Traveling to the Middle East is an experience I’d recommend to anyone. For the past ten days I visited Istanbul, Turkey; Larnaca , Cyprus; and Cairo, Egypt.

In the news virtually every day, the Middle East is the most religiously and politically strategic region in the world: 22 countries, 7 time zones, 500+ million people, 50%+ illiteracy rates, 95% Muslim, 1% of the world’s Bibles, less than 4% Christian.

Americans worry about growing political religion, yet few American Christians know much about Middle East religion, Middle Easterners as people, or how to share Christ with Middle Eastern neighbors at home or abroad (me included until a few months ago). Now I believe learning how to minister to Middle Easterners may be the defining challenge of our times. One way to learn is to travel in the Middle East.

Here are a few things I learned:

--In a nation of over 72 million people, Christians in Turkey number about 3,000 according to a recent missiological study. There are actually more Christians in Iran than Turkey. While Turkey is a secular democracy religion influences the culture. On another trip I made to Turkey a few years ago, one of our guides said, “Turkey is secular religious” meaning religion influences culture but not everyone is religious, let alone devout. Yet living the Christian life in Turkey is hard and lonely, and on a few rare occasions dangerous.

--Unity of the brethren in Turkey is very important. Consequently, “denominational-ism” is not as much of a problem in Turkey as it can be in the States. Christians need each other, so they don’t fuss as often. At the same time, Turkey has the highest turnover of Christian workers of any nation in the world, in part because it’s a fairly easy country to enter and offers certain attractions or amenities, so people come who may not really be committed. Or, people come who think it’s going to easy and it turns out to be very hard, so they leave.

--Istanbul is diverse, cosmopolitan, European in dress, food, etc, and secularized and religious but with wide variance. I saw fully covered women in all black, saw many women wearing scarves or other head-coverings, yet saw mostly Western dress, blue jeans, iPods, cell phones, teen girls as well as boys (but mostly boys) going about in packs, professionally dressed women with jobs in commercial settings. Artists and writers in Turkey make Istanbul their home. I was told that people in Istanbul focus upon play as well as work, which people in Ankara tend to focus on their government work.

--Turkey is the third highest worldwide in number of Facebook users, behind the U.S. and U.K. Internet access is good and education levels higher, including among women, more than many other Middle East countries.

--More than 300 Turkish language channels now operate in Turkey, of which maybe 110 or so are national in scope.

--One cannot fly from Turkey to Cyprus, at least not Greek Cyprus. You have to fly to the northern Turkish Cyprus because Greek Cypriots do not recognize the north as a country or legal entry point. This dates to the war between the countries in the mid-1970s. Cyprus is a divided island, and Nicosia, the capital, is a divided city.

--Cyprus probably couldn’t be more conveniently located for traveling to other Middle East and North African countries. It is a secular democracy, fairly stable, economically well-off, part of the European Union, which uses the Euro, and a Mediterranean holiday destination for many Europeans.

--In Cairo, Garbage City is a place where poor people live in squalor surrounded by foul-smelling refuse and scavenge garbage to survive. It is emotionally gut-wrenching to see. I’ve been in similar horrid places like the barrio near Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and like the infamous dump in Manila, so I’ve seen families living in hovels amidst filth. But it’s just as ugly wherever you see such poverty.

--Within Garbage City is the Cave Church, a truly amazing illustration of God’s love and grace in the midst of human suffering. The church is difficult to describe. In the late 1960s, Egypt’s President Nassser sent about 5,000 garbage collectors, many of whom worshipped as Christians, outside the city. By 1978 a fellow named Father Simon, who still pastors today, began an outreach to these people that turned into a church, schools, hospital, and more. After worshipping for some years in the open air on the rocks near the dump, they discovered what appeared to be a cave underneath. Excavation and later pew and platform construction eventually yielded an incredible “auditorium” deep into the side of the mountain. As many as 10,000 people have attended services in this unique outdoor setting and the church thrives, ministering now to the some 65,000 or so people who live in the Garbage City area.

--The Bible Society of Egypt is blessed with a beautiful facility and the General Director Dr. Ramez Atallah is a gracious host. He is a noted Christian leader not only in Egypt but across the Middle East and in the West.

--After hearing about or seeing pictures of the Pyramids all your life, seeing them up close and personal is exciting to say the least. I went inside and up a narrow passageway to a tomb near the top of Cheops, the largest pyramid. There are about 100 pyramids in Egypt, known thus far, with artifacts and other ancient discoveries still being made every week. The Sphinx is unique, smaller than one expects, but a wonder no matter how you look at it.

--The Egyptian Museum is full of statuary 4,000 years old and older, including the famed King Tut (the Boy-King who died at 18-19 yrs after nine year reign) exhibit. The beauty and intricacy of the artistry, the amount of artifacts, including several coffins within several gold-layered wooden tomb housings, his incredible mask and sarcophaguses, the variety and number of tools, clothes, adornments, religious items, throne, beds, etc, are beyond description. Incredible. So was the Royal Mummies Hall with 12-14 male and female mummies still in repose after 3-4,500 years. Most, as one would expect, looked like a mummy—dried and brown and shrunken and abnormal. But one, Seti I, looked peacefully asleep with a smile on his countenance. He literally looked like he could awaken.

--SAT-7’s studios and offices in Egypt where Arabic programming is produced for SAT-7 Arabic and SAT-7 KIDS channels are a testimony to God’s blessing upon the ministry. I met several staff members, watched part of a live program in progress featuring two pastors answering called-in questions about the Christian faith, and in general enjoyed a great visit.

--Kasr El Dobara Church is a large and thriving evangelical congregation featuring a beautiful facility near Cairo’s center. It’s an important church doing a very significant work.

--In Cairo, men dress in Western style clothing. Women dress in Western styles, traditional outfits, and various expressions of religio-cultural strictness resulting in some with head-covering, some in dress robes, some in black robes, some in dark black robes and head-coverings with only the woman’s eyes visible through slits in the covering, and a few in dark black robes and head-coverings, including hands covered and full facial coverings. Every variety may be seen in any area of the city at any time. I saw about 8 women in total covering, including an apparently young woman at the mall sitting with a young man dressed in blue jeans and tennis shoes and playing with an iPhone. Egypt says it wants to avoid extremes of fanaticism in religion. Otherwise, the country and culture are open to differing expression.

--The Kahn El Khalili bazaar is one of the oldest and largest in the world comprised of two long main streets and several cross streets with hundreds of shops. Men hawk their wares saying, “I don’t know what you want, but I’m sure I have it.” Or, “All I want is your money, brother,” anything to get your attention. I’ve been in similar bazaars, like the one along the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem and umpteen tourist traps in cruise ports in the Caribbean. This one is bigger, nicer, offers more locally-made goods, and more interesting.

--On several occasions I saw two older adult men or teen boys walking along holding hands. To Western eyes this is a jarring sight, but it’s purely cultural and does not mean anything untoward is going on. Apparently this practice is fading but still around. I remember when President Bush-the-younger visited a Middle East country, I forget which one, and was expected to, and did, walk about for a photo op holding hands with the country’s leader. Bush looked uncomfortable—of course he usually looks uncomfortable on camera.

--In Egypt, Muslims and Christians are buried in different Cairo cemeteries. Differences include not only the prayers offered, but Muslims are buried within 24 hours of death wrapped in cloth while Christians are buried in coffins. In Egypt, neither Muslims nor Christians are ever cremated. More interesting to me is that both are buried underground, inside structures that are built to look like houses. The result of this over time is that cemeteries look like abandoned neighborhoods. Indeed one of the most famous, along the highway, is one called the “City of the Dead,” a vast area of what looks like derelict one story homes or apartments. Muslim cemeteries also include some smaller mosques that are used like Christians use cemetery chapels to pray or as a gathering place for family and friends. Another difference is that Muslims are buried in layered graves while Christians tend to create family crypts underground that can be entered and where coffins are placed on shelf-type structures that stack coffins within the space. The City of the Dead once existed outside the city but is now surrounded by Cairo’s urban sprawl, which makes it stand out in contrast to “living neighborhoods,” if you will, when you drive by.

The population of the Middle East and North Africa is expanding rapidly at a rate of more than 7 million per year. Meanwhile, Christians are fleeing the Middle East, dropping an already small percentage even further.

As I noted earlier, learning about Middle East religion and people, and how to communicate love, forgiveness, and hope in Jesus Christ may be the greatest challenge of the new millennium. We should be leading the way.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2010

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Dr. Rogers or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com, or follow him at www.twitter.com/rexmrogers.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 23 August 2010

This is the inaugural column of a new commentary for SAT-7 USA called “Good News from the Middle East.”

Good News is a play on words. First, Good News signals we’ll endeavor to bring you positive feedback, edifying stories, God’s blessings in the face of adversity, accounts of actual progress of any kind in the Middle East. Second, Good News is about the Gospel, the biblical redemption narrative through which Jesus offers forgiveness and hope to all who respond to his name.

While good news from the Middle East is virtually absent in American media, “Good News” presenting a God of unconditional love is virtually unknown to the ears of more than 500 million people living in the 22 countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). That’s a disturbing fact, because it perpetuates hopelessness both here and there.

American Christians tend to look at MENA through filters: 1) cultural differences greater than the average person recognizes, 2) politics involving two wars, 3) residual anger relating to 9/11, 4) frustration with seemingly intractable problems, 5) fear rooted in physical or cultural or religious threats, real and apparent, to our well-being and way of life, 6) inclination to trust and support Israelis while withholding the same for Palestinians, and 7) difficult as it is to admit, bias, prejudice, and sometimes racist perspectives.

When I say “filters” I’m not blaming. I understand our anxiety. Nor am I implying our concerns are baseless, only that they can blur our vision for what God is doing and what he may ask of us. MENA people are either sinners saved by grace or sinners in need of grace, just like us.

So as believers who acknowledge God’s sovereignty we ought to celebrate good news while communicating Good News. In this historical moment, SAT-7 is the best way to do this. It’s an uncensored purveyor of Good News, and that’s good news for us all, because Jesus can change the future of MENA one heart at a time.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2010

Originally posted at www.sat7usa.org January 19, 2010.

This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Dr. Rogers or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/rexmrogers.