BETWEEN BABEL AND PENTECOST SERVICE OF RECONCILIATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST TODAY

Abstract

CHRISTIAAN VAN NISPEN TOT SEVENAER [*] History of diversity Diversity as a limit and obstacle to communication, and diversity as opportunity and source of richness for the communication between human beings, were both experienced by faith-communities in holy scripture. In the story of the tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9), we find the description of the diversity of linguistic communities as a divine punishment, as a curse hindering those communities from communicating with each other and being able to live together and cooperate in building a common project. The story of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-11) presents the way to overcome this curse. By the work of God's life-giving Spirit people can communicate through their differences of languages and cultures, thus called, in this diversity, to become one body in Christ, where diversity becomes enrichment and a means to build this body in the complementary nature of all its members. Both experiences of diversity are present in the Middle East today in forms fashioned by history. The Middle East -- considered by many in the past as the navel of the world! -- is the region where the three principal monotheistic religions -- Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- were born and have existed together continuously to now. During many periods these religions lived peacefully together and built a common human culture in which each one had its specific contribution and at the same time integrated elements of the other in each one's own identity. In that sense the region represents a history of deep inter-religious encounter. In other periods those religions lived their relations more in confrontation, reminding us more of Babel than of Pentecost. At the same time, each of these religions also experienced within their families the formation of different communities through which they are still present in the world of today. Various schools of Judaism were formed, as well as a diversity of Christian churches, and alongside Sunnite Islam, with its four juridical rites, different forms of Shiism, and also other minor or marginal Islamic communities. The Middle East knows the complementary character of different cultural currents within the same religion, but also the pain of mutual concurrence and even exclusion. Impact of modern developments For two hundred years this same Middle East has been an area of very deep economic, social, political, cultural and religious changes, developments, tensions and antagonisms. It had been a part of the Ottoman empire that, during these centuries, had been in a steady decline leading it to its final disintegration at the end of the first world war. This gave birth to the new, modem and secular Republic of Turkey. It was a period of increasing impact of the West, with all the changes resulting from it, but also with reactions to that impact. In this process the Christians in the Middle East had an important role: from one side Catholic and Protestant missionaries opened many schools and even universities, as well as institutions for health care and development, thereby contributing in a specific way to the modernization of the region. From the other side the different oriental Christian communities (Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant) were often the cultural hyphen between Western influences and the traditional heritage. It is probably not by chance that they played also an important role in the literary renaissance of the Arab world in the second half of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. They played an analogous role in the Arab nationalistic movements in which there were a number of Christians thinkers, founders and leaders. Generally the first half of the 20th century has seen a significant number of Christians of the Middle East involved in political life and more generally in the economic, social and cultural developments of the d ifferent countries (varying according to the respective nature of each country). …