November 29, 2012

On Killing Civilians

By Rupen Das On Nov. 18th, just as another round of bloodletting between the Israeli’s and Palestinians got underway, twelve members of the Dalu family (seven of them children) in the Al Nasser neighborhood of Gaza City were killed by an Israeli artillery strike. While the Israeli military initially insisted […]
November 19, 2012

Your Rights & My Responsibilities

By Arthur Brown Your Rights & My Responsibilities:  Biblical & Islamic Perspectives on Human Rights IMES’ Middle East Conference 2013  June 17-21, Beirut. Conference Announcement This week’s post is a temporary departure from the norm, in that it is an announcement concerning our annual Middle East Conference. Each year IMES […]
November 15, 2012

Will Obama’s Second Term Be Worth Dancing For? Revisiting the 2009 Cairo Speech

By Martin Accad On June 4, 2009, about 8 months after he took office for his first term, US President Barack Obama addressed the Muslim world from Cairo, Egypt. His remarks were entitled: “A New Beginning,” and were delivered from the stage of the University of Cairo, at the joint invitation […]
November 7, 2012

Giving the Church Back to Christ

By Arthur Brown I have just come back from a week in Romania where I had the privilege of visiting a number of Orthodox monasteries in the beautiful Northern region of the country.  Within each monastery were countless icons and images depicting deep theological beliefs, in line with the tradition […]
November 1, 2012

Hope in the Midst of Desperation

Joel Taylor A month and a half ago I was given the opportunity to spend some time in Lebanon where I, among other things, was able to listen to communal narratives of both inspiration and desperation. My experience in Lebanon, from the incredible mountain vistas to the breathtaking sunsets over the […]
October 25, 2012

When the Victory of God seems like a Distant Dream

By Rupen Das As violence rocked the center of Beirut again and as I have watched the crisis in Syria unfold with all its horrors, I’ve wondered where does God fit into all of this? The fear and anxiety is palpable. The political narrative has changed from a people genuinely […]
October 18, 2012

Domesticating Slavery in the Contemporary Arab World

by Martin Accad There is an issue in our Arab region these days that has become so blatantly intolerable that most people seem to have instinctively shut off their natural capacity to see it or to talk about it: the situation of “domestic workers.” Both those responsible for this human […]
October 11, 2012

Why is it always them?

By Arthur Brown As I have looked at various news articles over the last few weeks, it has struck me, yet again, how good we all are at apportioning blame on others whilst neglecting to ask questions about our own faults. Have you ever noticed that the trouble with ‘our […]