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Rev. Colin Chapman

Have you ever wondered why are Westerners, including Christians, so obsessed by the potential rise of Islamist regimes following the Arab Spring? And would they be as concerned by the rise of a Christian theocracy anywhere in the world? To be fair, I doubt.

A recent message sent by Len Rogers, from Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding (EMEU) discusses this issue. The respondent is Rev. Colin Chapman, a leading Evangelical specialist in Islam. Here are his responses, preceded by a comment from Len Rogers.

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Len: Muslims are the overwhelming majority of the population of Egypt! Did we expect them to suddenly forget their religion and become a fully developed  democracy overnight? Should Egyptians now understand democracy like Republicans or Democrats in the USA? Obviously that would be difficult because Republicans in the U.S. don’t agree with their fellow Republicans or Democrats with their fellow party members. Democracy takes people where they are- not where we want them be. What results from a democratic system could be something we don’t agree with, right? Does that destroy the system? If elections are fair and square, and that seems to be the case in the recent Egyptian election, which in itself is a huge step forward, should we reject the results because the results are not what we wanted? That attitude is not very democratic – it could even be called repressive or colonial.

If we used the same logic in Latin America would it be a surprise if an election there for some issue showed that most of the voters were Catholic? Would it be a shock in the USA if the majority of voters on another issue are overwhelming Christians of some kind or other?

Colin: I personally feel that these fears about Islamists taking over in every country are exaggerated. Let me give four recent examples that point in a different direction. One of our trusted colleagues in Egypt has been saying for some months that he believes that moderate Muslims in Egypt might suffer as much as Christians. Just today another one of our mutual friends in Jerusalem told me of a meeting that took place last Thursday in Beit Sahour with 140 Muslim and Christian clerics in which they discussed the future of the West Bank. In the question time someone asked if Christians are afraid of a Muslims state being established. A leading  Mufti of Nablus answered: ‘What examples can you point to of an Islamic state in the world today – Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, or Pakistan? Do you really think that we want to follow any of these examples?’

…one of the people who has been drafting the new Libyan constitution is Aref Ali Nayed. Mr. Ali Nayed has taken part in some of the Evangelical Christian – Muslim dialogue meetings. He is a very close friend of David Ford, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and I have met him several times. He is extremely open towards Christians and is strongly opposed to the more extreme Islamists in his context.  A leading Egyptian evangelical Christian has said recently: ‘Let the Islamist take over and see if they can run a country – and if they can’t, people will turn away from Islam – as they are doing in Iran at the present time.

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You may download HERE Colin Chapman’s article ‘Christians in the Middle East: Past, Present and Future’.

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