God’s REAL Christian Warriors

Some of you may have watched Christiane Amanpour’s three part documentary on CNN this past week, but for those of you who haven’t it was entitled God’s Warriors and dealt with Christians, Muslims, and Jews who are “at war” for their faith. Thursday night was the third and final installment and dealt with “God’s Christian Warriors”, but unlike the installments of the previous two nights, which talked a little about the various sects or groups within Judaism and Islam, there was no talk of the various sects among Christians. It focused solely on right-wing, fundamentalist American Christianity. Many out there in the blogosphere have commented that this was mainly to separate fundamentalist Christianity from the real Christians. While I am glad that traditional Catholics were not equated with wacko, illogical, touchy-feely, fundamentalists (and I am most especially glad that this program exposed the dangers and evils of Christian Zionism), I feel that they missed a very important group in the Middle East—God’s Real Christian Warriors.

In Lebanon, in the Palestinian Arab Bantustans, and in the Zionist nation-state calling itself Israel there are thousands of Arab Christians living among their Muslim and Jewish neighbors. They are often persecuted by the other two groups, but they have the support of millions of Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Monophysite Christians and have bravely fought to continue living in the land of their ancestors amid ever-worsening conditions. They have been a part of the fabric of the land for two thousand years and, God willing, they will continue to be.

"I know, it is disagreeable to see the Turks in possession of our Holy Places. We simply have to put up with it. But to sanction the Jewish wish to occupy these sites, that we cannot do... The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people... If you go to Palestine and your people settle there, you will find us clergy and churches ready to baptize you all."
--Pope St. Pius X to Theodore Herzl, founder of Zionism


PALÄSTINALIED

In the Palestinian Territories and in the Zionist nation state, Christian Arabs have an uphill battle on their hands. Abused by the more extreme of the Muslims who want them to convert and mistreated by the Israelis who lump all Arabs together, the Palestinian Christians live a life constantly on the offensive. They are subjected to job and travel restrictions, as well as discrimination in general from both Jews and extremist Muslims. The majority of the Palestinian Christians are Eastern Orthodox, however the Catholics (of various rites—Latin, Melkite, Maronite, and Syrian) place a close second. The current Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is a Palestinian and has been very outspoken against the Israeli mistreatment of the Arabs in the Holy Land. Thankfully, the many Catholic and Greek Orthodox charitable organizations have been able to give considerable aid to the Christians of the Holy Land, but alas, many are leaving the country in droves to find a better life elsewhere. I wonder how much longer there will an indigenous Christian presence in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth... Here is a very good article from 2004 in The American Conservative on the Arab Christians of the Holy Land: Forgotten Christians. I highly recommend reading it.


THE CEDARS OF LEBANON

Before the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), roughly half of Lebanon was Maronite Catholic, a group which can trace its history back to the 5th Century. In 1936 a group of these Catholics was formed to help fight for independence from France, which had taken over the country following the First World War. They took the name Al-Kataeb (“The Brigade” or “The Phalanx” in Arabic) and the motto, “God, Country, and Family”. The Kataeb was loosely based upon the Catholic Falange (Phalanx) party that came to power in 1930s Spain and which fought off an anti-Christian communist takeover of that country. After Lebanese independence was gained, the Kataeb found itself facing an increasingly radical Muslim population intent on establishing Sharia, or Muslim rule of law, in Lebanon. It soon aligned itself with the more moderate Muslim factions to obtain a balance of power. However, in the wake of the Six Days’ and Yom Kippur Wars, many Palestinian refugees began streaming across Lebanon's borders. These refugees were mostly Muslim and began siding with the more radical Muslim factions in the country. Eventually, tensions in the country escalated into a civil war, lasting 15 years, that decimated the Maronite population. The Syrians soon entered the war on the side of the extremist Muslims. When the war started to spill over into Israel, the Israeli government entered the war on the side of the Maronites. The war was finally ended after the Maronite president of the country was able to broker a cease-fire and a universal amnesty for all involved in the conflict. In any case, the Kataeb Party still exists to-day in Lebanon as the voice of right-wing Maronite Catholics. Their website can be found by clicking here. It is almost entirely in Arabic, but the intro video is well worth viewing.

Et in TERRA SANCTA pax hominibus bonæ voluntatis...