The Lost Message of Jesus London Oct 2004

The Lost Message of Jesus

Steve Chalke

I attended what was jokingly referred to as ‘Chalke-gate’. Put on by the Evangelical Alliance at Emmanuel Evangelical Church in Marsham Street (London SW1), it was a “public debate on the issues raised by Steve Chalke’s controversial book, ‘The lost message of Jesus’ ”

Joel Edwards; chairs the Evangelical Alliance (EA) and like me is an ex-Probation Officer. He set some helpful ground rules for the evening, as he called for ‘robust love; truth and grace’. The format was simple enough (if somewhat lengthy). Opening statements from each side, Steve Chalke vs. Simon Gatherall with responses and then further statements from 2 other guest speakers: Stuart Murray Williams vs. Anna Robbins. A break and then questions from Joe Public, closing statements, conclusion and prayer. It was chaired by Derek Tidball of LBC Steve Chalke is the founder of the charity Oasis and a popular broadcaster. He is able to communicate with passion and conviction. His theology is forged in everyday encounters with people on the margins. He is a practitioner who gets his hands dirty and has to find answers to the man in the street who questions the very roots and foundations of our faith.

His emphasis on ‘original goodness’ rather than ‘original sin’, on orthodoxy and ortho-praxis together - His is an 'applied theology', not just an academic one, although he is well read.
The bone of contention is what has been academically termed ‘penal substitution’, which has become the dominant evangelical understanding for the cross. Chalke has termed it a form of ‘’cosmic child abuse’, which he claims is a popular accusation found in any pub discussion on Christianity. This is what has riled so many, causing accusations of heresy and withdrawal of support for his projects.

Karl Barth once accused British Christianity, with its emphasis on God’s creation, man’s freedom of choice and a practical faith, of being "incurably Pelagian”. I wondered if PELAGIUS 355-435  had had similar treatment as he was accused of heresy, by Augustine and others. 

Stuart Murray Williams, author of ‘Post-Christendom’, and a Mennonite, summarised part of his book. Christians were initially a powerless deviant minority, a counter-cultural community, which concentrated on the incarnation and living out the message of Jesus. Post-Constantine the Church became the centre of power, ‘Christendom’. It became violent, coercive, more doctrinal (cf. ecumenical creeds), and the emphasis became ‘the birth to death of Christ with nothing in between’. Christ's life had become disturbing, pushed to the margins by the empire. The radical message of Jesus was lost 400 AD and needs to be recovered. Amen to that!
(Stuart Murray William’s statement)

I was left with a question. Does an emphasis on ‘penal substitution’ lead to an evangelical jugmentalism? This has been evident in a lot of what has been written in the Christian press, as well as some of the comments in the hall. A form of graceless Christianity.

Steve was awarded an MBE for ‘services to social inclusion’ His theology also seems more socially inclusive than most.

I noticed two scripture texts above the stage:

John 10:10 ‘I have come that they may have life’

Matt 1: 23 ‘Emmanuel, God with us’.

Maybe God was trying to tell us something.

Your way move forward Oct 2004

I have been asked a number of times where I get my Nusreddin stories from. Well I bought my favourite book ‘Nasreddin Hodja’ in Turkey for about $10. This particular book has wonderful images. An Amazon search will come up with the goods.   

But I  have also collected a number of other books In Turkish, Arabic, Urdu, Persian as well as English. I can’t read them all, but I do collect them (I’ve heard there is a video cartoon in Russian which I’m on the lookout for). And he goes under many names including Gohar, Hodja, Joha, Effengi, Mullana &/or Mullah Nusreddin. His stories have been related and embellished for centuries, from North Africa to China, from Siberia to Samarkand, in Caravanserai all along the Silk Route. There is something timeless about them.  

And if you can’t get hold of the book this website - http://www.cs.biu.ac.il/~schiff/Net/front.html - seems to have electronic images of every page. Nasreddin would approve,

So why does he sit on his Donkey backwards?
Well I have heard different explanations:

One day, Nasreddin Hoca was riding home from the mosque on his donkey, and th

ere was a large crowd behind him. Suddenly, he got off, and got on again backwards, facing the animal’s tail. The people naturally asked him what he was doing.
He replied: ‘I thought about it, and decided to ride my donkey like this, because I have no time for disrespect. If you move ahead of me, then you will be turning your back on me. That would be terrible disrespect. If I go on ahead, I will be turning my back on you, and that is also quite unacceptable. This way, I can go on ahead of you and you can follow behind, and we can still keep looking at each other! That is the logical way!’

But there are other explanations …….

One day Nasreddin was riding his donkey backwards.
- Nasreddin the people said, you are sitting on your donkey backwards!
- No, he replied. It's not that I am sitting on the donkey backwards, the donkeys facing the wrong way

Or alternatively

-No, he replied. My friend here wanted to go one way and I wanted to go the other, so we are compromising.

Or perhaps most appropriately:

No, he replied. It's not that I am sitting on the donkey backwards, I'm just interested in where I have been coming from more than where I am going, my friends.

The picture of Ahmad Shah Masoud on the poster at Kabul Airport is there to inspire people. ‘Your way move forward’ he suggests. The Maoris of New Zealand talk of the past being visible and therefore in front of us, whilst the future is hidden and therefore behind. So we should walk backwards into the future with the past in front of us…………… That, as Nasreddin would say, is the logical way!


Nasreddin Hodja:Net Books ~Alpay Kabacal¸
Milet Publishing Limited 
Paperback January 1998

Buzkashi: The Great Game Oct 2004

Rudyard Kipling immortalised it in Kim. The Russians called it the ‘Tournament of Shadows’. But it was Captain Conolly of the Bengal Light Infantry who first coined the term ‘The Great Game’ to describe the shadow play of British and Czarist agents across Central Asia as the Russian frontiers pushed closer to India. Peter Hopkirk describes it well in his book of the same name, as well as his ‘Setting the East Ablaze: on Secret Service in Bolshevick Asia’ (OUP)

The area known as the Northwest Frontier of Pakistan is steeped in history. The Khyber Pass is lined with Regimental shields commemorating those who have fought and died in 3 Afghan Wars. This is where Churchill (as recounted in ‘My Early Life’), a war correspondent took pot-shots at Hill Tribeman at the end of the 19th century. Untamed by the British Raj, it was a final outpost of the Empire before the Durand Line, running through Afghanistan along the line of the Oxus River (now the Amu Darya) separating the ‘British Lion’ from the ‘Russian Bear’. The Great Game has been played throughout this Central Asian playing field. Full of romanticism, adventure, treachery. Boy’s Own country.

Now the Americans are involved. But it is not romanticism but a ‘war on terrorism’. They are even talking of a ‘Game Plan’ in Afghanistan. The wealthiest and most powerful nation against one of the world’s poorest. The McDonald’s Empire versus the local chai-khana (Central Asian tea shop). Or maybe more appropriately Baseball league versus Buzkashi.

Buzkashi : ‘the wildest game in the world’

Afghans don’t play baseball. They have their own game, Buzkashi, which literally means ‘grabbing the goat’. Afghanistan’s aggressive national sport is played widely in Central Asia. Usually 20 –50 horses and riders take part in a wild kind of rugby on horseback.

G Whitney Azoy, a US foreign service information officer in the 1970s, studied the game and eventually his PhD was published ‘Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan’ (Univ of Pensylvania, 1982). His is one of the best descriptions:

‘Horsemen struggle over a mutilated calf carcass. Great clouds of dust rise from the ground as powerful horses lurch and rear, kick and bite, in a frenzy of charges and counter charges. Whips clenched in their teeth, the riders lean down and grab at the calf, wrench it clear and determine who can control what may be the wildest game in the world’

Originally introduced by the Mongol hordes of Central Asia, it evokes images of Genghis Khan, who swept throughout the region, decimating the population. The historian Louis Dupree, writes that these nomads ‘used prisoners of war instead of goats, dismembering the hapless creatures and reducing them to a mass of hominid jelly during the play’ Nowadays it is the carcass of a goat or calf, soaked in water for a few days to toughen it .

His wife, Nancy Hatch Dupree in her classic Tourist guide to Afghanistan (1970) writes more poetically

‘The tremendous skill and electrifying excitement engendered by daring riders atop glistening horses, sometimes galloping flat out, sometimes rearing with flailing hoofs above an opponent, make the game irresistibly compelling’

Irresistibly compelling it certainly is. I first saw a game being playing in Khorasan refugee camp in Peshawar in 1995. It was wild, exciting, chaotic, exhilarating, uninhibited, engaging, incomprehensible, uncontrollable, mystifying. A world apart from the rules of the familiar ‘west’. It belonged to another time and place.

Play, Parable and Paradox

Buzkashi is foremost a game played enthusiastically by the wild horsemen of Central Asia. But it is also a sort of a parable. According to Afghans ‘If you want to know what we’re really like, go ands watch a Buzkashi match’.

Roland and Sabrina Michaud have managed to capture magnificent images of Afghanistan. Perhaps none more so than their ‘Horsemen of Afghanistan’ ( Thames & Hudson 1988)

‘But is game the right word?’ they ask ‘It is a ritual, a celebration, a test of courage, strength and skill on the part of both man and horse. It is the culmination of years of training, a symbolic struggle that has all the power of drama and all the heart-stopping excitement of athletic prowess . It is a sport of individuals not teams’

It symbolises much of what it means to be Afghan, with the elite riders, or chopendoz, enjoying the status of national heroes .

It has therefore become a favourite metaphor both for the Afghan character and for the present power struggle inside Afghanistan. Afghanistan is the Buz, the goat, that has been torn apart by teams from Britain and Russia in the Great Game in the 19th century. By Russia, America, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia during the latter part of the 20th century. And now, yet again, by America and Britain in the ‘War on Terrorism’, the so called ‘first war of the 21st century’.

Sir Alexander Burnes (Cabool, 1834) around the time of the first Afghan War, observed

‘The rapidity with which the goat sometimes changes masters is very laughable; but the poor animal is occasionally torn to pieces in the scuffle’

As in Buzkashi, individual actors struggle for control and gain it only for as long as they can hang on. So with modern Afghanistan, individual commanders and regimes have held on for periods of time. The problem is it has been destroying the country. The current allied bombing is completing the job.


Power struggle
Although the game may appear like an anarchic melee, George Arney, the journalist, writing at the time of the Russian withdrawal, suggests

‘Buzkashi does have rules, not least of which is that there are 2 teams of roughly equal size, whose players are all invited to participate. After 10 years in which Afghanistan itself has become the headless goat, torn and ripped apart by contending foreign powers, it is time for the Afghans to be left to play out their own power-struggle and their own national destiny according to their own rules’

‘Afghanistan: the definitive account of a country at a crossroads’ (Mandarin 1989)

Indeed they were left to play, more deserted, by the west after the end of the cold war. This has been a bone of contention and a source of some of the Taleban’s current enmity with the West. Another 10 years on, after the Russian withdrawal, Afghanistan is again at a crossroads. The power struggle continues. Afghanistan must be left alone. Afghanistan needs help. That is the paradox. Assistance not interference.

Whatever form a government takes, post America’s ‘War on Afghanistan’, the Afghans themselves need to ‘play the game by their own rules’. Buzkashi not Baseball.

Damascus Tears September 2004

Barbara negotiating Frisky’s release from Damascus

Their youngest child had left his pet dog, ‘Frisky’ in a hotel when they transited Damascus. Many tears had been shed and emails sent. Our mission (‘should we choose to accept it’) was to rendezvous at the hotel in the Kurdish quarter and make the exchange. Numerous phone- calls and a mad taxi ride took us to our destination. Frisky was there in the reception, hanging tortuously by his collar.The hotel owner released Frisky, but then whisked out a calculator and forced him to calculate the cost of his own prolonged stay. ‘Another week and we would have made him a Syrian citizen’ quipped his guard. But now he was, at last, free to go. You can imagine the relief experienced by all, when Barbara later reunited him with his owner back in UK. ‘When I see that child, and the look in his eyes, that’s all the thanks that I need’. It brings a whole new dimension to understating the vital work of ‘setting captives free’ !

Damascus is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world and we went on a walkabout to get a ‘feel’ of its oriental delights. We were travelling with Aziz, one of our regional advisory group, who himself originates from Mosul in Iraq, a near neighbour. We met some fascinating (and literate) people. In a local Kebab restaurant, the gregarious owner quoted Freud among his many jokes and later the night-watchman, in the Orthodox hostel we were staying in, confessed to reading Nietzsche and Shakespeare, which seemed to feed his own internal angst. Aziz spoke to him for hours in Arabic, whilst I spoke with him briefly in English and left them to it.

A street called straight 

We went on another trail – a sort of church crawl – in search of the lost Anglican church. It was definitely on the wall-map I spotted in the Franciscan Church of Anayas. But our search revealed there is no such church. But we visited many on the way, down narrow cobbled streets – St. Mary's Greek Orthodox, on the Street called Straight; the church commemorating Paul being let down over the city walls in a basket; a mass in a Chaldean Catholic, presided by a priest we also met in the mosque; the Syrian Orthodox (where everyone knew Aziz); an Armenian church with an erratic mass of cables overhead; and finally the 'Injeeli' Presbyterian (which the map makers had confused with Anglican). Mind you, the Bishop in Jerusalem does have plans to build a church in Damascus, at the invitation of the president. Possibly on the commonwealth war graves commission lot, between another Franciscan church and a mosque. 

We certainly had an ecumenical feast that day.

But it is the old city itself that is magnetic. The covered bazaar, street vendors, restaurants and cafes. Lots to distract and tempt even experienced travellers. The Old Souq is a shoppers delight. Good prices are to be had by a persistent barterer.

Saladin's statue, outside the city wall, dominates the area and commemorates the ‘liberation’ of Damascus, his victory at the Horns of Hattin and subsequently Jerusalem in 1187. Whereas there was unmitigated slaughter of Muslims, Jews and Orthodox Christians, accompanying the Crusader’s capture of Jerusalem in 1097, Saladin retrained his men at its recapture.

Saladin liberating Damascus and triumphing over his enemy King Richard. Their relationship is explored ‘Warriors of God’ by James Reston (Doubleday  2001) the more civilised Saladin comes out streets ahead of his ‘barbaric’ rival.

Through the Souq itself, is the Omayyad Mosque, built in 705 on the site of a Cathedral. It contains 2 tombs for Saladin – one commissioned by Kaiser Wilhelm II after his visit in 1898 for whom he was something of a hero. There is also a large tomb inside the mosque – the mausoleum of Head of John the Baptist. A group of pilgrims from Gujarat was visiting with a tour guide. I chatted with them in Urdu and suggested to them that John the Baptist pointed the way to the Christ. 

The Old Damascus mosque also has what is called the Jesus Minaret. According to the shopkeeper in the ‘Jesus Minaret Souvenirs’, who Aziz spoke to, this is where Christ will return ‘and the first thing he will do is destroy all the crosses on the churches’. The cross remains one of the biggest stumbling blocks to Muslims.

We met with Eldon and Jane, a Mennonite couple from Kansas and Cairo who are a seeking to be ‘faithful presence’ in Damascus, supporting the ancient through church teaching English at the seminary. and peace-making and bridge-building. In their charming house in the Old City, with its courtyard in middle - facing inwards, we sipped tea and cookies.

He introduced me to the Lebanese writer Amin Malouf: ‘The Crusades through Arab Eyes’ (Saqi, 2004). He talks of the ‘tears of Saladin’, his response when confronted with the news of the death of a friend and also when faced with a widowed ‘Franj’ (the generic Arabic name for crusaders) who had lost her baby. He comes over as compassionate, as well as a brilliant military strategist.

But the book also indicates just how deep rooted are the feelings and how alive the ‘Crusades’ are as a metaphor: 

Today on the eve of the third millennium the political and religious leaders constantly refer to Saladin, to the fall of Jerusalem and its recapture In the popular mind, and in some official discourse too, Israel is regarded as a new crusader state’ (265)

Over the centuries, many tears have been shed by widows and orphans in this part of the world. Manouf concludes: ‘

The Arab East still sees the West as the natural enemy. There can be no doubt that the schism between these two worlds dates from the crusades, deeply felt by these Arabs, even today as an act of rape.’ (266)

From your own correspondent

September 2004

Constantinople and the Crusades March 2004

Constantinople and the Crusades

‘so much courage, so little honour’

I have been reading around the Crusades as I have been travelling – they hold a fascination for me - Umberto Eco’s latest novel ‘Baudolino’ about the forth Crusade, under Barbarosa and the Frankish invasion of Constantinople (1204) 

This  weakened the city and contributed to its collapse and paved the way for the eventual Turkish / Selcuk takeover, under Sultan Mehmed II (the Conqueror) on 29 May 1453.

The determination of the westerners to conquer and colonise the lands of Byzantium was disastrous for the interests of Outremer. It was more disastrous still for western civilization. Constantinople was still the centre of the civilised Christian world. In the pages of Villehardouin we see reflected the impression that it made on the knights that had come from France and Italy to conquer it. They could not believe that so superb a city could exist on earth; it was of all cites the sovereign. Like most barbarian invaders, the men of the Fourth Crusade did not intend to destroy what they found. They meant to share it and dominate it. But their greed and their clumsiness led them to indulge in irreparable destruction….

Georges Tate ‘The Crusades & the Holy Land’ (1996,Thames&Hudson)

The Crusades that initially were meant to be all about liberating Jerusalem from Islam, in the complexity of the Middle East, became a pretext for the occupation of a ‘Christian’ city – Constantinople. It is a challenge that feeds into the current context, a sobering warning with Bush’s current ‘crusade’ against Terror, and those nations that harbour terrorists. Saddam Husein was seen by many Muslims as modern day Saladin. And Israel is perceived to be a crusader state. There is a real danger of polarisation, Crusade and Jihad. And a need for much wisdom and openness to dialogue.

The triumphs of the crusade were the triumphs of faith. But faith without wisdom is a dangerous thing. By the inexorable laws of history the whole world pays for the crimes and follies of each of its citizens. In the long sequence of interaction and fusion between Orient and Occident out of which our civilization has grown, the crusades were a tragic and destructive episode. The historian, as he gazes back across the centuries at their gallant story, must find his admiration overcast by sorrow at the witness that it bears to the limitations of human nature. There was so much courage and so little honour, so much devotion and so little understanding. High ideals were besmirched by cruelty and greed, enterprise and endurance by a blind and narrow self-righteousness; and the holy war itself was nothing more than a long act of intolerance in the name of God, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost’

Steven Runciman ‘A history of the Crusades’ vol 3 (1954)

Mission is also in the mind. It is about right attitudes as well as right action. But we need a ‘crucified mind, not a crusading, or coercive mind ‘ Mission is about ‘crossing boundaries, not crushing them.’ It is about serving, not sacrificing people.

Kosuke Koyama (1974) What makes a missionary ?

In the words of the protest song: ‘when will we ever learn, when will we ever learn?’

From your own correspondent

March 2004

The Royal Academy of Arts has an Exhibition running from 22nd Jan – 12th April 2005 called
Turks: a Journey of 1000 Years - 600-1600 AD

Teen Challenge Kazakstan Almaty Sept 2002

Teen Challenge Kazakhstan (TCK)

Everything you have seen here has been built by God. When Jesus went to Jerusalem the crowd shouted Hosanna and the donkey thought ‘they really love me here’. I now realise ' I'm the donkey'. 

Doug, TCK Director

In my office, I have many invitations from students. It is exciting to see invitations sent by students for marriage. What is success percentage? It doesn’t matter! If just 1% success it is enough. Human life has no price. This is not just our work, but it is for the whole of Kazakhstan. Go to real lives and make leaders good quality. People who did not desire to go to school; they will go to university and get good profession. Our children will continue this work. When I think like this I cannot sleep'

Chanzi, Treasurer

TCK is first and foremost a spiritual work. It has grown out of the Teen Challenge movement started by David Wilkinson and developed internationally. TCK is an independent organisation, registered as a Humanitarian Fund in Kazakhstan

Doug described the general philosophy in terms of humility, obedience (respect) and Holiness. James 1:21 ‘in humility receive the word implanted which is able to save your soul’. Like many other Christian Drug programmes, TCK is founded on the Jesus’ Nazareth Manifesto (Luke 4:18-20). Setting the oppressed and captives free (Is 61:1) who are called: ‘Oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord (61: 3). But unlike many other rehabs TCK goes on to do the rest - ‘rebuild ancient ruins…. raise up former devastation… repair ruined cities’ (61:4) and ‘strangers will pastor …. and foreigners will be farmers’ (61:5); they will be ‘called priest of the Lord, Ministers of our God’ (61: 6) It is all there in TCK: Detox & Rehabilitation, counselling and discipleship, building and renovation work, foreign leadership, and church mission and ministry.

Doug shared a dream of steering a big ship. He had tried to avoid rocks and beached the ship. Later whilst driving the interpretation hit him - a revelation from God. ‘I have given you a ministry; your job is to steer it. You can’t control its size; you can’t avoid problems, just keep on course. The ship can go over rocks, so don’t avoid them.’ He added that on the beach when he looked up ‘it was a huge container ship some 9 stories high’

TCK has seen remarkable growth! It has grown exponentially over the past few years, so that now there are 9 different programmes serving some 200 recovering addicts. Men, Women and Children, Detox, Rehab and Vocational training, prison ministry, awareness a sports club and other prevention activities And even a School. In all there appear to be roughly 2000 direct beneficiaries and 150 staff. This growth is due to the political and economic environment in Kazakhstan, as well as the vision and drive of Doug and staff. And of course the ‘hand of God’.

It is well respected as the oldest Therapeutic Community (TC) in Kazakhstan. It is therefore positioned to exert great influence. Baroness Cox’s arrival was a great political coup d’etat in that it increased credibility, and demonstrated some political muscle. This appears to have had positive results so far.


I joined the programme in 1996 a drug addict for 15 years, thinking ‘what for am I living?’ One day, sister introduced me to programme. I felt so empty. I was told that in 1½ months, I would be free from drug addiction. I met others who said ‘we are free’. Trust God, trust us, you will change! God came into my heart. My life was empty and hopeless – useless, no joy. I felt I could never change, but now I am happy and have hope I have everything. I have found life and can see a future and have hope. I am so grateful to the programme, to these men.

 

Yerbo, Farm Manager 

I realized, through visiting, that TCK is not a subsidiary of TC-USA International, the MacDonalds of the Drug Rehab world. But TCK is much more autonomous. Although it does use the TC International materials, it is not dependent on the mother organisation. In fact is operating fairly independently. Not so much the MacDonald of the drug rehab world, more a Central Asian ‘Shashlik’

*******************

I was able to attend the Graduation at the end of my visit - a moving affair, opened by children of New Beginnings School singing the National anthem. Kazak and Kyrgyz dancers also preceded the presentations of graduation certificates to various groups. The women’s rehab, refuge and workers. Boy’s and Men’s rehab and workers. TEFL teachers. And more Kazak songs - around 90 people receiving certificates Presided over by Doug with Baroness Cox as the chief guest, brought by Sam, an Iranian from Surrey. She was in Kazakhstan to make representation on behalf of Teen challenge to the President wife and the Mayor of Almaty concerning 3 buildings. Teen Challenge was fighting a court case over the 3 buildings.

Besides a Baroness, they were presented by a local councillor who has supported the programme, a member of the Drug Committee, The Assistant British Ambassador, a representative from British Council (for the TEFL). And I was representing CMS, Tearfund and ISSAC! Certificates were presented to all who were 2 years drug free and also staff who had been through an 18 months training course. It was the ‘piece de resistance’ and the support offered by Baroness Cox was very tangible and timely. Expressions of support have been made by the Kazakh government, for example for the orphans in the Beginnings School. The event was carefully orchestrated - but not ‘over the top’.

It was very helpful for me to get a fuller grasp of the extent of their programme and the high regard with which it is held. Local government was well represented by a man who genuinely supported and appreciated the work. (I spoke to him afterwards). 9 projects were presented - 9 parts of the overall programme in all I wondered if the 9 programmes corresponded to the ship ‘9 stories high’ in Doug’s vision.

I travelled back on KLM with Baroness Cox and Sam, not VIP, or business class, I was pleased to see, but economy class, full of normal, crowded humanity. Lord Longford called her a ‘Christian champion’. Andrew Boyd, in his biography, highlights

‘her concern for the oppressed, the repressed and the vulnerable – those least able to articulate their needs and their rights. Caroline Cox strives with a passion to be a voice for the voiceless, whether on the home front in the United Kingdom or abroad, speaking for the forgotten peoples in forgotten lands’.

Andrew Boyd ‘Baroness Cox: a Voice for the Voiceless’ 

Lion 1998 Pg 435

Addicts, street-kids and battered women in Almaty now consider her such a voice, their very own Baroness. They also have a couple on the ground in Doug & Anna.



From your own correspondent

Amati Sept 2002

Back to the Frontier: PESHAWAR Sept 2001

Inhabited by fierce warlike tribes, the region that became known as the North-West Frontier has always guarded the western border of the sub-continent. The hilly, arid region that is now south eastern Afghanistan and north-western Pakistan has since ancient times been the Pathan’s homeland’ (Pukhtoonkwar)
The Pathans are one of the world’s great warrior races and yet the ‘jirga’ system, upon which their society is based, is one of the oldest democratic systems known to man.
The independent spirit of the Pathans was behind the immortal words uttered by the 17th century Pathan Poet, Khushal Khan Khattak when he resigned from the Moghul army: ‘So long as I was an officer, I was a servant; the office gone, I am a King!’

Imran Khan’s ‘Warrior Race: a journey through the land of the Tribal Pathans’ (Chatto and Windus, 1993) The Pakistani international cricketer getting in touch with his Pathan background.

Introduction & Overview 

The North West Frontier Province (NWFP) is the wild-west of Pakistan, part of the untamed, semi-autonomous FATA areas (Federally Administered Tribal Areas). Pathan culture is one of the oldest democracies, with the ‘Shura’ (village elders) system, and a strong tribal code ‘Paktoonwali’ with its emphasis on honour and shame, relationship and revenge, hospitality and hostility. Women are closely guarded and cocooned behind ‘chadar and chaar diwaar’ (cloth covering and 4 walls)

Steeped in history, this is where Churchill as a war correspondent took pot-shots at Hill Tribeman (as recounted in ‘My Early Life’). Untamed by the British Raj, it was a final outpost of the Empire before the Durand Line, running through Afghanistan along the line of the Oxus River (now the Amu Darya) separating the ‘British Lion’ from the ‘Russian Bear’. This is where the Great Game was played immortalised by Kipling’s Kim. Full of romanticism, adventure, treachery. Boy’s Own country.

Since the Russian Invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Peshawar has been also been ‘deluged’ with over a million Afghan refugees. It has been a hot-bed of intrigue, drug smuggling (Afghanistan is the World’s No. 1 producer of opium) and guns (Darra Village where any weapon can be copied and Kalashnokovs sells for a few pounds). This is all symbolised by ‘The Khyber Pass’, connecting Afghanistan and Pakistan.

35Km from the Khyber Pass lies Peshawar . The first Afghan refugees began trickling in, in mid 1978 and it soon became a deluge. As a result of the war, Peshawar began to establish itself as a principal humanitarian centre and launching pad for ‘diplomats, reporters, intelligent agents, war junkies, smugglers, drug enforcement officials and various travellers’. By the late 80s some 200 international agencies and NGOs had established operation bases in the town. ‘It had returned to some of the exhilarating frontier flavour of Kipling’s India’ Even today when the number of NGOs have been greatly reduced, ‘Peshawar will remain a Pakistani-Afghan commercial centre whether for licit or illicit trade’Peshawar is in effect a three-in-one town, the traditional Old City with its colourful and chaotic bazaars, the tranquil and clean Military Cantonment, with its gardens, sports centres and Institutions and University Town, the International expatriate and NGO hub.

Crosslines Guide to Afghanistan, op cit, pg 361

I spent 12 years in Pakistan, so I feel I know it well, maybe too well. But my time was spent mainly in Karachi in the South with nearly 3 years in Peshawar in the North. But the NWFP and the Afghans got into my system in a significant and powerful way.

Every time I return something strikes me. This last time it was the Red Mountain, which has sprung up in urban centres, a grotesque, luminescent model of the mountain nuclear test site, which enthralled the Nation on TV, as it glowed an angry red in response to the Indian atomic challenge. An effigy to Pakistan as a Nuclear Power.

Return of the Prodigal The hermitage St Petersberg April 2001

The Return of the Prodigal 
Harmensz van Rijn Rembrant (1606- 1669)

‘He painted father and son, God and humanity, Compassion and misery in one circle of love’ (pg7)

‘The younger brother allows himself to be held in a forgiving embrace (found) The elder brother stands back, looks at his fathers merciful gesture and yet cannot step over his anger (lost)’

‘Here is the God I want to believe in : a Father who, from the beginning of creation, has stretched out his arms in merciful blessing, never forcing himself on anyone, but always waiting, never letting his arms drops down in despair, but always hoping thatb his children will return so that he can speak words of love to them and let hs tired arms rest on their shoulders. His only desire is to bless’ (p 95/6)

Ever since I read the book, I have wanted to take the opportunity of visiting St Petersberg, and to do a ‘Henri Neuwen’. He had spent hours contemplating Rembrant’s painting and he wrote his spiritual treatise – The Return of the Prodigal Son - as a result.

There was long queue outside the Hermitage, but as always a fast track entrance was available. Once inside, I made a beeline for the Rembrant collection.

‘My heart leapt when I saw it …After my long self -exploring journey, the tender embrace of father and son expressed everything I desired at that moment. I was indeed the son exhausted from long travels. I wanted to be embraced. I was longing for a home where I could feel safe. The son-come-home was all I was and wanted to be. For so long I had been going from place to place: confronting, beseeching, admonishing and consoling. Now I desired only to rest safely in a place where I could feel safe at home.’ (pg 5)

The Hermitage acquired the painting in 1766, from the Duke of Amezune’s collection Paris. It is based on the story of the ‘prodigal son’ in Luke 15: 20-24. The light focuses on the kneeling son and stooped father in gentle embrace, who embody repentance and forgiveness. Three other dark characters look on indifferently from the shadows. The older sons stands aloof -

‘I never had run away from home…. Never wasted my time and money in sensual pursuits and never gotten lost in ‘debauchery and drunkenness’. For my entire life, I had been quite responsible, traditional and homebound. But with all that, I may in fact have been just as lost as the younger son. I suddenly saw myself in a completely new way. I saw my jealousy, my anger, my touchiness, doggedness and sullenness and most of all my subtle self-righteousness. I saw how much of a complainer I was and how much of my thinking and feeling was ridden with resentment. For a time it became impossible to see how I could ever have thought of myself as the younger son. I was the elder son for sure, but just as lost as his younger brother, even though I had stayed ‘home’ all my life’. (pg 20)

The father has prominent hands: Neuwen suggests a strong male left and softer female right, resting on the sons back, capturing the androgyny of God. The bare head and calloused foot of the son, clothes, torn and filthy, suggest hardship and exposure. The rich red cloth on the fathers shoulders, paralleled by the elder son on the right, suggest opulence. This is reinforced by the size of the painting, maybe 10’ x 6’, in its rich gold frame. Groups stop, English, Japanese, Russian, Italian, German and spend a few minutes, with commentary from their respective guide - and then they move on. There are lots of other paintings to see. Individuals sit and read the explanation and contemplate.

It is indeed a wonderful painting, rich in biblical meaning. Neuwen expresses its message and mission so well:

‘Whether you are the younger son or the elder son, you have to realise that you are called to become the father. The time has come to claim your true vocation - to be a father who can welcome his children home without asking them any questions and without wanting anything from them in return. Not a good friend or a kind brother… a father who can claim for himself the authority of true compassion.’ (pg 22)

From your own correspondent

The Hermitage,
St Petersberg, April 2001

Jerusalem - the divided city Oct 1999 and Feb 2001

‘Jerusalem the Golden’


It was over 20 years since I first visited Israel. Then as a student, I was full of Leon Uris’s ‘Exodus’ and the Kibbutz dream. My views have changed over the years. Everything seems a lot more complicated.

Jerusalem is a divided city, with the Jewish ‘New Jerusalem’ next to the old walled city of Jerusalem. And the old city itself divided into quarters: Muslim (Arabs), Jewish (Israelis), Christian (Palestinian) and Armenian. All three major religions of the book, consider it theirs. Jerusalem the Golden, the City of Peace.

For me the Old city starts at the Damascus Gate, entrance to the Arab quarter, and on through the maze of streets, into the heart of Jerusalem along the ‘Via Dolorosa’: the Way of the Cross which leads to the Church of Holy Sepulchre, ‘the centre of the earth’ as it has been called. Emperor Constantine’s mother, Helena, found the ‘rightful site of the Crucifixion and Resurrection’, as well as relics such as wood from the True Cross, ‘with miraculous aid seldom now vouchsafed to archaeologists!’  

In many ways it is a shabby centre of Christianity. I was appalled when I saw it the first time. In those days, like all good evangelicals, I preferred the simplicity of General Gordon’s Calvary: ‘The Garden Tomb’.

Bettina Selby in ‘Riding to Jerusalem’ calls the Church of the Holy Sepulchre a

‘thoroughly unsatisfactory building’

This was at the end of a long and arduous bike ride across Europe, Turkey, Syria following the route of the Crusades It was obviously an anti-climax

‘chopped up as it is into so many chapels, with a different branch of the Christian Church jealously guarding each portion. As for peace - that was in sort supply – with flash bulbs going off in constant burst…… even in the Holy Tomb itself!’

It seemed to hold a lot more charm for me now. An Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Priest inviting me to touch the sacred stone, a Catholic Priest preaching the love of God, a Korean Anglican Communion: ‘Do this in remembrance of me’. Now such diversity speaks to me much more of the church universal.

I had promised to light some candles and pray for some Pakistani brothers, recovering addicts, in the Sepulchre itself. Something they could never contemplate doing for themselves, since Pakistan does not recognise the State of Israel. So I found a moment of quiet and lit three candles and prayed that they would be ‘lights shining in the darkness.’

I must also admit to taking some photos ‘in the Holy Tomb itself’, flash an’ all!

CMS at the Wailing Wall

From Your own correspondent

October 1999
& February 2001