Posted on by Mark Movsesian

On the Dual Role of Christian Leaders in the Middle East

At the British blog Ekklesia, Harry Hagopian has an interesting essay on recent leadership changes in Christian communions in the Middle East. In the past year, he writes, new patriarchs have been selected by Maronite Catholics, the Coptic Orthodox, the Antiochian Greek Orthodox, and, this week, the Armenian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem. These changes have more than just spiritual significance. In the Middle East, Christian leaders traditionally have important civil responsibilities as well: they are seen as representatives of their co-religionists in the wider society. This dual role–spiritual and secular–is a remnant of the Ottoman millet system, which conferred civil  responsibilities on Christian religious leaders. Here’s Hagopian:

It often seems bizarre for many Western minds that Armenians place such hullabaloo on the election of their church hierarchs. I agree that it goes against the grain somewhat, and more so from our own Western perspective where God and Caesar are kept deliberately – and at times constitutionally – apart. Perhaps we interpret the prophetic fire of our faith differently.

However, the Middle East and North Africa region also enjoys a rich but somewhat different culture whereby each community still looks generally at its religious leaders for guidance and support – no more so than in those difficult moments facing the whole region where mounting violence and discrimination or economic hardships are together challenging the quest for dignity and citizenry.

So even though this ‘coming round’ a church leader is gradually diminishing in this part of the world too, I believe that it is still part of the intuitive and cultural genes of its inhabitants and one of the prisms that many Christians, Muslims and Jews use in their daily interplay with each other and with their neighbours – consciously or perhaps even unconsciously.

It’s important to keep the dual role of spiritual leaders in mind when trying to understand intercommunal relations in the Middle East.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Awad, “And Freedom Became a Public-Square”

One of the stories we’ve been following closely at CLR Forum is the Arab Spring and its impact, often unfavorable, on Christian populations. Here is a new book from theologian Najib George Awad (Hartford Seminary) on the topic, And Freedom Became a Public-Square: Political, Sociological and Religious Overviews on the Arab Christians and the Arabic Spring, released last month by LIT Verlag (Berlin). The publisher’s description follows:

This book is an attempt at introducing the readers to some of the substantial components and pivotal ramifications of the latest revolutions in the Arab World, known as “the Arabic Spring.” It aims at offering a fresh, timely and intellectual reading of the promising “Spring” in Syria and in the rest of the “born-again” Arab world. This text is an interdisciplinary study in three parts. The first part is on the uprisings in general. The second is on the Christians in the Arab world and their view of the uprisings, with primary attention to the case of Syria, while the third part is an invitation for developing an Arabic contextual religious discourse out of the recent Arabic (deeply religious) world’s context and changes. What we have here is a book to be beneficial for both those who would like to have a general idea about what happened, and is still happening, in the Arab world, as well as those who would like to get some insightful and coherent understanding of why, how and on what presumptions the Arab Christians base their appraisal of, and stances on, the Arabic Spring.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

European Court’s Judgment in UK Religious Freedom Cases: A First Read

Today, a chamber of the European Court of Human Rights announced its decision in the highly-anticipated Eweida and Others v. United Kingdom, a group of four consolidated cases brought by British Christians who alleged that the UK had violated their religious freedom under the European Convention on Human Rights. From the claimants’ perspective, the outcome was, at best, mixed: the chamber ruled in favor of only one of the four claimants. With respect to the other three, the chamber accepted the government’s argument that important countervailing interests, including the protection of gay rights, outweighed concerns about religious freedom.

The claimants alleged that their employers had violated their religious freedom by disciplining them for manifesting their Christian beliefs. Nadia Eweida, a British Airways employee, and Shirley Chaplain, a hospital nurse, complained that their employers had forbidden them from wearing cross necklaces at work. Lillian Ladele, a public registrar, lost her job when she declined, out of religious conviction, to officiate at civil partnership ceremonies for same-sex couples. Gary McFarlane, a psychotherapist, was fired by a sex counseling service because of his objections to providing sexual advice to same-sex couples. British courts had ruled against all four claimants, who then applied to the European Court for relief.

I won’t get into the details of the analysis here, but, briefly, the European Convention provides that individuals have the right to manifest their religious beliefs, but that governments may limit that right if necessary to protect important countervailing interests, such as public health and “the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.” With respect to the first two claimants, the chamber held that Read more

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

ECtHR to Issue Ruling in UK Religious Freedom Cases Tomorrow

Tomorrow, a chamber of the ECtHR will release its judgment in Eweida and Others v. United Kingdom. As we explained back in September, when the cases were argued, the ECtHR’s ruling could have a major impact on religious freedom jurisprudence under the European Convention on Human Rights:

The applicants in these cases argue that UK courts failed to protect their Article 9 and Article 14 rights by allowing their employers to discipline them for practicing Christianity. Chaplin, a nurse, and Eweida, a British Airways employee, were forbidden by their employers from wearing cross necklaces at work. Ladele, a public registrar, lost her job when she declined, on the ground of religious conviction, to register same-sex civil partnerships. McFarlane, a psychotherapist, lost his job when he expressed doubts as a Christian about the morality of homosexual conduct.

CLR Forum will have an analysis of the judgment later this week.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Update on English Sabbath-Observance Case

An update on an earlier post about an English appellate court decision on the right of Christian employees to decline to work on Sundays. The decision was released to the public last week, and it turns out that initial press reports were a bit misleading.

The case involved Ms. Celestina Mba, a caregiver in a children’s home who wished to abstain from work on Sundays for religious reasons. When her employer told her she would have to work Sundays, Ms. Mba sued for religious discrimination. A lower court held for the employer and, last month, an  appellate court affirmed.

Under English law, employers can require Christian employees to work Sundays  if there is a legitimate need and the work requirement is proportionate to that need. Press reports, particularly this one in the Telegraph,  made it seem like the appellate court had ignored that balancing test and held categorically that Sunday observance is not a core Christian belief and that Christians could be required to work.

As it turns out, the appellate court did discuss the balancing test. The facts of the case were these. The center had accommodated Ms. Mba for two years, but had ultimately determined that allowing her to stay home Sundays put too great a strain on other staff and threatened to disadvantage the children. These were surely legitimate business needs. And the center had only required Ms. Mba to work some Sundays — roughly two out of three. This seemed a proportionate response to that need.

So where did the language about Sunday observance not being a core Christian belief come in? The lower court had reasoned that, because many Christians do not feel an obligation to abstain from Sunday work, abstention could not be considered a core Christian belief. The appellate court criticized the lower court’s language on this point, but basically agreed with the lower court’s reasoning. In determining whether a work requirement were proportionate to a legitimate business need, the appellate court explained, one had to consider what percentage of a faith community the requirement would affect. If the requirement would affect a large segment of the community, that would suggest that the requirement were disproportionate. If, by contrast, the requirement would affect only a small percentage, that would suggest the opposite. Here, the appellate court reasoned, in requiring Sunday work, the center could take into account the fact that many Christians would have no objection at all to working Sundays.

This is all a bit complicated, the way legal opinions often are. Frank Cranmer at the Law and Religion UK blog has a good description of the opinion, if you’re interested in more details. The bottom line is that the appellate court’s decision was narrower and more subtle than the Telegraph’s report conveyed.

Why did the Telegraph get it wrong? The appellate court’s judgment was announced on December 13, but the opinion was not released to the public until January 10. The Telegraph reported the story at the end of December, before the opinion was available. Apparently the reporter relied on lawyers’ accounts of the case.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Working on Sunday

Here’s an update to last week’s post about a movement to curtail Sunday shopping in Europe. In that post, I speculated that allowing stores to open Sundays might create pressure for observant Christian employees: skip church and report to work, or lose your job. It turns out this concern isn’t speculative. In England, a High Court judge recently ruled that employers may discipline observant Christians who refuse to work Sundays.

The case involves Ms. Celestina Mba, who worked as a caregiver in a government-run children’s center. A devout Baptist, she goes to church every Sunday and does not wish to work on that day. When her employer — a government agency, note, in a state with an established church — pressured her to work Sundays, she quit and sued for employment discrimination. She lost at trial and, last month, in the High Court as well.

Why did she lose? English law allows employers to require employees to work Sundays if there is “a legitimate business need.” According to press reports, though, the High Court did not rely on that principle in Ms. Mba’s case. Rather, the court reasoned that Christianity did not require Sabbath observance in the first place. Plenty of Christians work Sundays, the court noted; only a few, like Ms. Mba, see it as a problem. As a result, religious freedom was not seriously implicated by requiring her to work. Employers, the court reasoned, do not need to accommodate outliers like Ms. Mba.

Now, this reasoning is very odd. The fact that some of those Christians who work Sundays might be doing so because they have to — that is, because otherwise they would lose their Read more

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

What’s Next for Syria’s Christians?

This week, the United States recognized the Syrian National Coalition, an umbrella organization of groups opposed to the Assad regime, as the government of Syria. Now, as everyone knows, the SNC relies heavily on fighters from the al-Nusra Front, an Islamist group that the United States has designated as a terrorist organization. There is very little chance that al-Nusra and other Islamists won’t play a major role in a post-Assad Syria, and the fact that the US calls them terrorists isn’t likely to change things. Already, in fact, the head of the Syrian opposition has called on America to reconsider its designation of al-Nusra as terrorists – and this while the SNC still needs American support in a life-or-death struggle with Assad.

What does all this mean for Syria’s Christians? Frankly, nothing good. Although the Syrian opposition has pledged to respect the rights of religious minorities, the minorities do not appear persuaded. And for good reason. All Christians have to do is look to Egypt, where, in the aftermath of a democratic revolution, Islamists have pushed aside Christians and secularists to draft a new, pro-Islamist constitution. Why should Christians believe that Syrian Islamists will behave differently? The fact that the Syrian opposition has made common cause with the Islamist government of Turkey, the historical persecutor of many of the Christian communities in Syria, only makes Christians more worried about their future.

For a sense of how Syria’s Christians perceive things, it’s worth reading this article from the New York Times about Syria’s Armenian community. Armenian Christians have been in Syria in numbers since the Genocide of 1915, when they fled or were forced out of neighboring Turkey. They have integrated into Syrian society and feel that Syria is their home. Yet they worry that the religious toleration they have known will cease if Assad falls and Islamists come to power. They could stay to see what happens, but, as one member of the community tells the Times, referring to the 1915 Genocide, “We lost 1.5 million people to this mentality that it will all work out.” Armenians feel they have no choice but to leave. Many have relocated to Armenia, a place which most of them have never seen and where cultural adjustments can be very difficult.

Or watch this elegiac documentary from Swiss television about the Syriac Orthodox community across the border in eastern Turkey. In the film, a Syriac Orthodox family that fled Turkey for Switzerland in the 1980s returns to see what has become of their village. What few Christians remain keep their heads down. They explain about phony land disputes and other strategies the Turkish state has adopted to make their life difficult. “Turkey is supposed to be secular,” someone explains, “but in practice it’s not like that.” Christians who can do so have escaped – to Europe, mostly. If this is the model for the future of Christian communities in Syria, it’s no wonder Christians are trying to get out while they can.

According to the New Testament, the followers of Jesus were first called Christians in Antioch, in Syria. It is hard to escape the feeling that one is witnessing the end of one of the world’s oldest religious civilizations in the place of its birth.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 1 Comment

The Civil Rights Issue of Our Time

There are many reasons why America seems to be moving inexorably toward legalizing same-sex marriage. The Sexual Revolution that has swept American society since the 1960s is probably the main explanation. There’s plenty of evidence that Americans, especially Americans below a certain age, accept the Sexual Revolution’s basic premise that sex is a harmless pleasure without much moral content, at least when it does not involve coercion or, sometimes, adultery. Divorce, once seen as a traumatic, though perhaps necessary, last resort for very troubled marriages is no longer regarded as an exceptional event. People speak without irony of “starter marriages;” fewer and fewer people marry at all. And these cultural changes are not limited to the Secular Left. An Evangelical pundit got in trouble recently because, he said, he didn’t realize that being engaged to one woman while simultaneously being married to another was frowned upon in Christian circles.

Given their views about sexuality and marriage, SSM seems to many Americans a non-issue. But there is something else at work, too. Much of the success of the campaign for SSM has to do with supporters’ adoption of the language of civil rights. In our national discourse, the phrase “civil rights issue of our time” immediately suggests SSM; last week’s NYT editorial is a good example. As a rhetorical device – and I don’t mean to suggest that SSM advocates are being insincere – this is a brilliant strategy. In American politics, a group that can successfully appropriate the language of civil rights is bound to win.

That’s why I was struck recently when I saw that Rick Warren, perhaps the most influential Evangelical pastor in America today, has adopted this language on behalf of conservative Christians. In an interview about the ACA’s Contraception Mandate, Warren called religious liberty “the civil rights issue of the next decade.” He was echoing, among others, the Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has also emphasized the civil rights aspect of resistance to the mandate. This is a very shrewd rhetorical move – and, again, I don’t mean to suggest anyone is being insincere. If religious conservatives are going to prevail on issues like the Contraception Mandate, they can’t hope to persuade people on the merits of traditional sexual morality, much of which the American public now finds incomprehensible. They will have to persuade people that they represent the advance of civil rights.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Conference on the Status of Iraqi Christians

The Interdisciplinary Program in Law and Religion at the Catholic University of America will host a conference, “The Status of the Christian Communities in Iraqi Kurdistan: Challenges and Opportunities,” on Wednesday, December 5, in Washington, DC. Panels will address the history of Christian communities in Iraqi Kurdistan, their present condition, and the legal challenges they face. Details are here.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 4 Comments

Lecture on Christians in the Middle East

This Thursday, November 29, I’ll be giving a lecture, “Equality for Christians in the Middle East, Yesterday and Today,” at the Armenian Orthodox seminary in New Rochelle, New York. My lecture will discuss the precarious state of Christian communities in the Middle East and the reasons why the goal of real legal equality has proved so elusive. Details are here. CLR Forum readers in the neighborhood, please stop by and say hello!