Graduating Class No. 139

Greetings from Cairo! We have just completed the graduation ceremonies for 20 students to receive their diplomas; certificates, bachelor of divinity degrees, and masters degrees. You see them pictured above along with the dignitaries who presented their awards. It was the 139th time the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo has graduated a class, showing the long term investment in the mission field here by the Presbyterian Church in America and other overseas partners, in cooperation with its local colleagues. Though still a tiny minority within this predominately Muslim country, it presents a strong witness to evangelical and ecumenical Christianity, and works with the wider Christian community in the Middle East to live as gentle and loving neighbors in this diversity.

I had written in an earlier blog that Christian church buildings are not as prominent on the landscape as you would find in the United States and Europe, but as you can see from this picture to the right, this one and a few others are of grand size, seating over 1,000 worshippers. The church was filled to capacity with family members and friends of the graduates. A few of the graduates with a divinity degree will serve as assistants in churches like this one in the center and suburbs of Cairo, but most will receive a first call to rural or small town communities throughout Egypt. Several have put off marrying until the finish of their studies. (This reminds me a little of the situation not too long ago in the U.S., when only men were called to serve as pastors and when weddings and ordinations occurred in the same year).

I will complete the administrative tasks for this first year in the next few weeks and fly to the U.S. for vacation, a conference with other missionaries, and visits with family and friends. I will also be visiting First Lutheran Church in Torrance, California on July 6th. They have been contributing support to my work here, for which I am very grateful. If you would like me to speak at your church (in the southern California area - June 22nd, 29th, July 13th and 20th are available, or during the week), please let me know. I will return to Cairo on the first of August to participate in the faculty retreat. My appointment is again for one year, while the Global Missions Division of the ELCA searches for a "younger", long term replacement. I will write again when I have news, probably in early September. In Christ, Roger Rogahn

Graduation for Masters' Students

The spring term at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo is almost concluded and we will have four students receiving their Masters' degrees in the program I have been called to administer. The picture above shows the four, about to make their presentations to the "Scholar's Seminar" last week. Behind them are three of the faculty of the seminary. The one in white shirt and tie is Dr. Atef Gendy, who serves at the president of the seminary. The students have been working with an advisor all this term and will "defend" their dissertations to a committee of three professors this coming week, before receiving their diplomas at the graduation ceremonies on May 30.
Briefly, here is some information about them and their work:
Daniel Amum (at the far left) is a pastor from the Sudan who has written an analysis of the concept of affliction (sufferings) in St. Paul, particularly in his Second Letter to the Corinthians. He has developed this so that as he returns to his Christian community in that African country still so involved in turmoil and violence he can lead his people in their faith journeys. He has written how Paul accepts suffering for Christ, and that this has been an essential part of his ministry. Daniel writes that the Christians in the Sudan have also grown in numbers and in faith during their time of tribulation.
Nashat Habi, to the right of Daniel with the dark glasses, has written abou the development and use of the "Van Dyke" Bible, an Arabic translation of the Bible done by a 19th century missionary. It is currently in use among most Christian groups in Egypt. Nashat looks at the reasons for a new translation to be developed today, using the Biblical texts in Hebrew and Greek which were not available to Van Dyke and up-dating the Arabic (since this language too has undergone significant changes in the last 150 years). Nashat works with the Bible Society of Egypt and his dissertation will help that organization in its study of the issue of a new translation.
To Nashat's left is Magdy Rida, who has worked many years as an engineer in Egypt, and has returned to the seminary to study. His topic is the study of the influence of the Evangelicals who have come to Egypt since the mid 19th century on the Egyptian Coptic Church, the church which has been the community of Christian witness here from the beginning. He shows how some positive efforts, like the Sunday school movement, have opened the Orthodox Church to a more ecumenical world view, and also provided current church leaders with the inspiration to write literature using more Biblical texts for their community. Though Evangelicals and the Coptic Church are separate identities here, they work together on many projects.
Sungmin Cho has completed her dissertation on the history and disappearance of the Nubian Church, (the area south of Egypt which for many centuries provided a stronghold for Christian communities). She cites several reasons for this, the most important being that the churches there never developed a truly indigenous expression which touched the hearts of the common people. After graduation she plans to serve as a Korean missionary in Upper Egypt.

That's all for now. The next blog will feature pictures of the graduation of students preparing for ordained ministry in the Presbyterian Church of the Nile. Blessings, Roger

Gender Issues in the Middle East

Greetings to you at the beginning of May. The seminary is nearing the completion of its spring term. Four graduate students are working frantically to finish their dissertations in time to be recognized at graduation the end of this month. I will share that celebration with you. In addition to concluding my class in the "History of Christianity until 1800", I have been researching the themes for next year's classes. A book which caught my eye, reissued this year is pictured here, and sold at the American University in Cairo book store, (also available from Amazon.com) presents essays on how the gifts and contributions of women can be identified and included in addressing issues and problems for our common humanity in this region. One which particularly caught my eye was: "Gender and the Israeli-Palestinian Accord: Feminist Approaches to International Politics" by Simoni Sharoni, a Jewish feminist working in Washington, D.C.

Since the peace process has been restarted between Israel and Palestine, I thought I would share a few thoughts with you and encourage you to read the article, others in this book, and from other literature to be better informed than what we get on the news. Beginning with a review of the Olso Peace Accords of 1993, Ms. Sharoni shows how the contributions of women's groups of Palestinians and Israelis working together have been largely ignored and dismissed. She calls for three ways to redress this:

....Include in the delegations to current talks an equal number of women.

....Listen to perspectives other than the masculine-militaristic approach - ones which include the insights and experiences of women from both sides with their understandings of peace and security.

....Review the basic assumptions about the processes, practices and prevailing power relations which have operated up until now.

Central to this discussion and a major part of the emergeance of what is termed the "feminist movement of the 20th Century"is the assumption that women can and should be freed to develop their own identities and insights which arise out of their particular origins and contexts. This also relates to the ways that women review and challenge the resources from the past and how these have been interpreted by mostly male scholars and out of a male-oriented power base.

Other examples of this are to be found in another book we will be using, (at the right) which supplies information about the stories and struggles of Islamic women within their culture. The new approach regarding the study of Holy Scriptures is the same developed and used by western feminists in the past century:

...to look again at texts, and to review and critique it in the light of its environment and cultures of that time,

- and -

...to bring the experiences of the women who study these texts to bear, and to affirm new insights and "truths" which connect and combine what God's Spirit has done in the past with what it is doing today among God's people, valuing what arises out of their own realities. This is a particularly difficult and risky task within present Islamic cultures, as you might imagine.

To say all this another way: to accept women as also created in the image of God, means to affirm and value who they are and what they can contribute for themselves and for us all. Another author puts it this way:

>Women need to be made visible again in all their realities, often

hidden and forgotten

>Women need to analyze these realities in the light of what is

wrong and describe what should be

>Women need to work with men in the transformation of existing

realities.

Lots still to learn and to share. I welcome your comments. You can use the blog or my e-mail - rogerrab39@yahoo.com.

Peace and justice to all, Roger Rogahn

Cave Churches in Cairo

Greetings! We are coming to the celebration of Holy Week in Egypt (using the Eastern Christian calendar), and you will soon be remembering the Ascension of our Lord in your churches. With a visiting professor in Hebrew, I journeyed last week to an outlying area of Cairo where mostly Christians live. As we inched our ways through narrow streets, lined with large bags of garbage and trash, pungeant aromas filled the air. (Christians have performed the job of collecting garbage for a long time, and here the garbage and trash is sorted and recycling work takes place.) But then we came to a hillside beyond the village, and to an area where the Coptic Church was permiited to develop a worship center (about 20 years ago), and this is what we saw. Because of the mostly dry climate in Egypt and the high cost of erecting buildings, the Coptic church has constructed an outdoor, ampitheatre church facility, where the entrance to a cave has been transformed into the chancel and altar area. (You can see a little of the celebrating bishop in the white robe with his back to us at the entrance to the inner cave).

The entire area seves as a gathering place for Coptic people. Here, visible signs tell the Good News of Jesus, where in the public spaces of Cairo this would not be possible. Reliefs have been carved into the hillsides and there are chapels devoted to St. Anthony (the father of Egyptian monasticism) and other holy men. The picture to the left shows a small chapel dedicated to the Ascension depicted in a mosaic on the dome. On the hillside behind is the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem which has the inscription underneath: "Blessed is he who comes....Jesus, command your disciples to be silent....if so, then the stones themselves would cry out!" There is an irony here - in this place where Christians can "display" their message openly - that the stones are called upon to help proclaim the Lord's coming.

This Sunday was set aside for baptisms and about 100 families had come to have their children become part of Christ's Church. One mother proudly held up her son (and hid behind him?) asking me to take a picture. Two things are interesting in this. You would normally not see women in public dressed in bright colors and without veils. But here in this worship center this is possible. Second, you would not normally see a display of the cross in public, but again since this is an area set aside for Christians to gather it is possible. One sign of the vitality of the Coptic Christian Church in Egypt. More on the practice of infant baptism and the impact of the "evangelicals" from the United States in a later blog. Peace and Justice, Roger

(I have formally signed on for another year at the seminary. Will be in the Los Angeles area late June through late July if you would like me to speak at your church. Contact me at rogerrab39@yahoo.com).

St. Catherine's Monastery and Mt. Sinai

Greetings from Egypt! I was privileged to join with many of the students of the seminary to visit St. Catherine's monastery, which stands at the foot of Mt. Sinai, the mountain where Moses led the people of Israel during the Exodus. The monastery was built by the first Christian emperor, Constantine I, in 333 C.E. to honor the woman who was martyred in Alexandria during the years of persecution, before the empire became Christian in the early 4th cenury. It became and has been since that time a place of pilgrimage. You can see the heavy walls which surround the church and cloister, which still is home for about 45 monks. These were built during turbulent times to protect them and the religious treasures and manuscripts housed there, which are on display to the public for about 3 hours daily.

I am learning that not only was monasticism a very significant movement and development in the life of the ancient church, but has continued to be a place where people come away from the world for a short time or for the rest of their lives. The number of people entering monasteries in Egypt is increasing. Today, monasteries are also important in the life of the Egyptian Coptic Church, for "men" from these cloistered environments are chosen to be bishops and the new Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church when necessary. The people have continued to appeal to these "holy men", who seek quiet and solitude away from the world to move closer to God, so that these "spiritual" persons may lead them in religious matters, and also serve as administrators of the church, and in its interaction with the Muslim society and the government of Egypt. Not an easy task.

This is a copy of a painting I purchased at the monastery, by the Spanish artist "El Greco". The monastery is small in comparison to the mountains which surround it, the center one being Mt. Sinai. Together with the students and faculty of the seminary, I arose early one morning (about 2:00 a.m.) and ascended the four and one half miles to the top (about 4,000 feet above), to watch the sun come up. We were not alone. Many others came, (probably a few thousand) from all parts of the world to be there, some making part of the ascent by camel. It is truly an example of a "multitude of saints" from many nations, gathered in one place. (It was also quite a traffic jam, particularly on the way down as people, tired from lack of sleep and the exertion, vied for space on the narrow, steep pathways. Fortunately, everyone arrived at the bottom safely.

I very much enjoyed sharing this informal time with the students and some faculty, and we reflected on the significance of these places. I shared that El Greco had added what seem to be faces on the mountains, and also crafted these to resemble human forms to remind us of those who had also been in this place, and appear to be watching over us, and that the same God who was present before in this place is present with us on our journeys through life.

Peace and Justice, Roger

Staying another year?

Greetings from Cairo. The Division for Global Missions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has asked me to consider staying a second year at the seminary, while they continue to search for a long term replacement. I have agreed to consider this. Though not yet final, it appears that I will return in June to the U.S. for two months and then come back here in mid August. The experience I have received and the help of colleagues here to orient me makes this possible.

I have been thinking about what courses will be offered in 2008-2009. Along with the Bibical courses which others will teach, I will be responsible for courses in middle eastern church history, from the beginning to the coming of Islam, and in the 19th century to the present.

I have asked myself what else I can contribute which comes from my background and experience.

This brings me to my first picture: a wall mural from a rural village church in El Salvador, where I served as teacher for four years. An elective course which the previous director, David Grafton (who now teaches at the Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia), developed here was an exploration of various Biblical interpretation methods which arose in the 20th century, many of them in countries in the southern regions of our globe,when they had been freed from European and North American colonial rule after World War II. The countries still received missionaries from the "First World", but more and more (sometimes with resistence and hesitancy) the indigenous teachers in these "Third World" countries have taken what they have judged to be valued (the historical-critical method of Biblical studies would be one example) and moved on to produce materials which arise out of their own context and their own studies, and which express their own understandings and "theologies".

In Latin America, the term "praxis" was used to describe how students of Scripture received the best from the past, but with a critical attitude which brings their own insights and experiences of their reality to their reflections . This has often led them to reject or modify the "lenses" of interpretation which have come from the outside, and to develop their own. Recently, this seminary received two books from our Norwegian friends, (pictured to the right)

which describe the development of interpretative studies in sub-saharan Africa. The Old Testament has been a particularly exciting area of study, because there are many similarities between the societies of the two. Back to the first picture for a moment. One aspect of Latin America Lutheran theology in El Salvador is the "wholistic" approach to life and to the study of Scriptures (represented by the phrases and examples: "peace with God". "peace with our brothers and sisters", "peace within ourselves" and "peace with the natural world"). This has become an important feature of the study of Scripture in Africa, incorporating the whole person in community and in the world, and not seeing the person primarily as individual and unconnected to other people and the world.

One study on the Old Testament Book of Proverbs can serve to illustrate an African author's approach. He cites the passages which lift up the poor and condemn the rich, and suggest this condition as not of God's plan. Though few in number in the book, he sees these references to the injustices are privotal in criticizing the "status quo rather than accepting and supporting it (the way I was taught to view Proverbs), and to lift up a cry of hope as well as pain about the way things are. One can see how the author has benefited from the fulness of the historical-critical method introduced from the west, and combined this with his community's reflections on its reality. What I hope to do if I remain here another year is to continue a main focus of the master's program: To introduce materials which challenge the students to think critically, and which encourage them to challenge what they have received from their own context to produce new insights appropriate to this place.

(More another time of what the ELCA means by a south-south strategy - but for now my bringing insights from Latin America is one part of this). Peace and justice. Roger

a lighter moment

Greetings again from Cairo. We have the opportunity here to celebrate Christ's resurrection twice (actually don't we do it every Sunday?), once by the western church calendar which you will be doing shortly, and almost a month later by the eastern church dating. The pictures I want to show you are of a "community day" held recently for students, faculty and staff, and seminary workers. Although most of the 150 students are housed at the seminary during the week, many of them return to their home churches to serve on the weekends. This event, which helps to build community was on Saturday, March 8th, the third one this year which serves as a relaxing, fun time for staff and students. The next one, in a few weeks, will be a trip to St. Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai. I am planning to attend and will comment on it in my next blog. Also, in the background of this photo are two of the three buildings of the seminary. The one on the left houses several faculty families, and the other is the administrative office building and classrooms. Classes are about half way into the spring term, and plans are being made for the fall schedule, which will begin in late September.

An additional aim of the seminary, along with the training of pastors for parish work in this context, and teachers through the master's program which I am directing this year, is to equip the faculty further for its work through providing fellowships for their advanced study abroad. Several faculty members have completed Ph.D. degrees in Europe and the United States. The girl and boy pictured to the left are not examples of this, but rather are the children of three faculty members. The young girl is one of two children in the seminary's chaplain family, (the father hopes to begin advanced study soon in Europe), and the young boy (you can guess some of the family history here) of the couple where the father is to be awarded a Ph.D. from Edinburgh, Scotland this spring. The mother is well on her way to finishing her Ph.D. dissertation at the same school. You can find out more information about the Kennedys and Chaplain Ephraim on the seminary web site (etsc@etsc.org.). The financial support of churches in the United States and in Europe is essential in this. If you are interested in more infomation, you can contact me at: roger@etsc.org. The Graduate Studies committee helps to oversee this program.

A blessed Holy Week and Easter to all. Roger.