June 5, 2014

The Great Omission: How Christian Missions Transformed the World – IMES Special Event

Event Description It has become commonplace, and all too easy, to malign the efforts of the early protestant missionary movement with accusations of colonialism and shocking examples of cultural insensitivity. Whilst there have been terrible abuses in the name of ‘mission’, Robert Woodberry’s ground breaking research has provided a solid […]
May 29, 2014

What’s Happening at IMES this June?

Without question, June is consistently our busiest month of the year at the Institute of Middle East Studies. As such, we wish to highlight a number of the projects that we have been working on as we seek to fulfill our institutional mandate: To bring about positive transformation in thinking and practice […]
May 23, 2014

Islam in the Dock

By Martin Accad Last week, on May 17, my colleague Arthur Brown blogged a compiled interview made up of the voices of three Muslim clerics, gauging their responses to the kidnapping of over 200 young Nigerian girls by radical group Boko Haram. The three sheikhs argued that the actions of […]
May 17, 2014

Speaking Out: Muslim Leaders Respond to the Kidnapping of Nigerian Girls

By Arthur Brown The kidnapping of over 200 Nigerian girls from their school by the Islamist Group Boko Haram has shocked the world. #Bringbackourgirls has become a Twitter phenomenon, with over 3.3 million tweets from across the planet. Celebrities have come out in support of the campaign, along with global […]
May 8, 2014

Not Your Normal, Everyday Conference

By Mike Kuhn It was like every other Christian conference I’ve ever attended.  It was like no other Christian conference I’ve ever attended. We met at a hotel in Chataura (in Lebanon) about a thirty minute drive from the Syria-Lebanon border.  All the attendees had crossed over from Damascus—Shem—as they […]
May 1, 2014

Celebrating International Workers Day: For Real this Time!

By Sara Obeid No matter how much you may love your job, few things are more exciting than a day off. This Thursday, May 1st, many countries across the planet celebrate International Workers Day with precisely that…a day off. In Lebanon, the first things one thinks of on International Workers’ day […]
April 24, 2014

My Inner Journey to Hell and Back

By Martin Accad Earlier this month, during a conference I was attending in Ghana, I joined a group on a visit to one of the “Slave Castles” on the Southern coast. I expected it to be just another touristic experience. Ancient castles, fortresses and temples are no rare sight in […]
April 17, 2014

Bad Theology Kills: How We Justify Killing Arabs

By Jesse Wheeler Bad theology kills. For many, the subject of “theology” invokes the image of old white men with impressive beards and antiquated ideas sitting in ivory seminary towers writing really big books that nobody reads. Yet within everything we think, say, and do can be found a variety […]