Mideast Churches Oppose Western Proselytizing

"The MECC sent a message to the Iraqi people to clarify the role of the council and its affiliated organizations, warning them of serious consequences stemming from missionary attempts carried out by a number of U.S. institutions, which come to the region under the guise of donor bodies," the Reverend priest said.

A free lance translator told IslamOnline.net that he was approached by "some organizations" to forge up a team of translators to carry out a translation job from English into Arabic, adding that "extracts I saw from the project were of a missionary nature, targeted to three countries; Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq."

Jarjour also called for more cooperation between Muslims and the Christians in the East to stand up to vociferous campaigns launched by the extremist right-wing Christians in the West, seeking to tarnish Islam and Arabs.

"All immigrants in Europe, Canada and the United States are organized save Arabs," Jarjour told IOL on the sidelines of a seminar on fundamentalism, sponsored by a Muslim-Christian team formed in 1996 by Muslim and Christian think-tanks under the title of "Coexistence."

"Muslims and Christians in the East should act in concert under one umbrella to translate their hopes and national goals into concrete steps," he stressed.

But there should be, MECC secretary noted, "Islamic initiatives," arguing that all previous ones were initiatives by Christians.

"The sea of rallies that swept the West and the U.S. to protest the Iraq war served as a clear-cut message that there are people in Europe and the U.S. who need our help and more information about our stances," Jarjour said.

‘Unique Role’

On the role of Eastern Christians in facing the campaigns championed by extremist right-wing Christians in the West, Jarjour said Mideast churches have "played a unique role in facing such campaigns.

"We rallied behind Muslims (in the Middle East) to cement the bonds of coexistence, which surprised the Western and U.S. churches," he added.

"The Eastern churches succeeded in coordinating with a large number of ecumenical churches in the West and the U.S., including the church to which U.S. President George W. Bush belongs (the United Methodist church), and winning their support against these campaigns and their spear-headers (such as Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson)," asserted the MECC secretary.

"I dare say that many were the times that European and U.S. churches took stances much stronger than those taken by some Islamic organizations, thanks to the earnest efforts exerted by the Eastern churches.

"To mention but a few, the ecumenical officer of Bush’s church, priest Melvin Talbert, faulted Bush’s stances and urged him to shun them," Jarjour said.

He added that the MECC paid dozens of visits to European countries and the U.S. to clarify the viewpoints held by Muslims and Christians in the East to all Christian clerics in these countries.

Jarjour also said the council received visiting delegations from a number of right-wing ecumenical churches in the U.S. and was able to a great extent to make them renounce their viewpoints.

‘Coexistence’

With respect to the ‘Coexistence’ team, he said it held a number of key meetings since 1996, the most important among which was the one held in Cairo under the title of "Muslims and Christians Stand United For al-Quds."

The MECC secretary added: "We also held a conference last year on religious unrest in the Middle East to tackle the reasons behind such phenomenon and means of overcoming them."

On the fundamentalism seminar hosted earlier in the week by Beirut, Jarjour said it reaffirmed the fact that "there is a Christian fundamentalism in the U.S. that leads Bush to stymie the hopes and national goals of Arab Muslim and Christians alike."

The seminar was held Saturday, June 14, and brought together a number of prominent Muslim and Christian scholars, including Salim al-Awa and Tareq al-Bishri from Egypt and Hani Fahs from Lebanon.