Jerusalem Missions Journal

A Bit of Humor: Author Avatars

2007-01-25T02:26:00.000+02:00

If you have wondered how our journal authors fancy themselves, now you can laugh along with us at their Author Avatars!

In the realm of standard Avatars, below we have Aziz, Brittany, and Marie.

For a bit of extra fun, we also have these "South Park" Avatars of our writers. (Courtesy of http://www.sp-studio.de/)

Church Growth and God's Plan

2006-12-01T23:43:00.000+02:00

"Aziz"

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone! My hope comes from him. He alone in my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; He is my mighty rock, my refuge; Trust in Him at all times, O people; Pour out your hearts to Him, For He is our refuge! (Psalm 62:5-8)

Often when the church is struggling, or when the church is having a time of unprecedented growth, we can get caught up in church numbers without focusing our hearts on God. I have repeatedly heard frustrated Christians ask, "Why isn't God growing the church?" Most of the time, we look to ourselves to find the reason: maybe we don't share our faith enough, or maybe we lack faith, or maybe we don't have enough full time workers, or maybe there is a sin in the church and God is punishing us.

Some of those reasons may be correct, but regardless of who or what is to blame, in these times we must stretch our thinking to a new level. Could it be something completely different?

In the gospels, we see that Jesus' ministry was not always "doing great" all of the time in the sense of producing outstanding growth. Many people followed Jesus because of the benefits and the miracles. We see this in John 6:26-40, when Jesus tells the crowds, "I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs." (NLT)

Jesus' ministry also failed to grow when times became hard, or when Jesus taught a particularly difficult teaching. In John 6:66-67, it tells us that "At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, 'Are you also going to leave?'" (NLT). This is an important question to ask ourselves. When we make the decision to follow Jesus, sometimes we are asked what we would do if everyone left the church. However, when people do leave or the church fails to have baptisms, we are quick to say that something is amiss. Jesus would probably disagree. Many people "fell away" from his church, and many people refused to follow him at all. Eventually he was killed for trying to save them. When we are tempted to conclude that the church is "falling apart," I would challenge you to imagine Peter telling this to Jesus after the crowds left him!

There are other reasons why God may choose to not produce baptisms in a church. For example, God sometimes prepares us for the work of making disciples before sending us into the fields to reap a harvest. It took Peter three years before he started baptizing. Even the great evangelist Paul did not start his missionary journeys until 14 years after his baptism. When he did begin his missions work, Paul was rejected, stoned and flogged. He was rejected by whole churches! (See 2 Timothy 1:15) If Paul had based his faith on results, he would have been unable to fulfill God's plan for the churches. God tells us that he will make things happen in His own timing. He also promises He will not give us more than we can bear. I believe this also applies to the salvation of people's souls. If the church is not baptizing disciples, we should focus on God and use the time to learn how we can be responsible shepherds.

Another reason we might not always see baptisms is that increasing numbers are not the only "fruits" of discipleship. In John 15:5, God promises us that we will not fail to produce fruit if we remain in Him. As disciples, we can forget that Godly fruit can be used to mean fruits of the Spirit as well. It is important to produce fruit as a disciple, but in times of slow or stagnant church growth, we should look for things such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If these things are not being "produced" in the church, then there is cause for concern. But a lack of baptisms alone may only be God's way of teaching us to produce other fruits, such as patience. Romans 8:25 says that "if we look forward to something we don't yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently" (NLT).

We need to remember that the body of Christ, the Church, is being carefully built by God. If the earthly church we attend is not growing, it does not necessarily mean that God is punishing us or that He is unhappy with us. And when a church decreases in number, it does not mean that God has abandoned us. Habakkuk 3:17-18 says that even when the tree is fruitless, even if there are no sheep in the pen or cattle in the stalls, "I will rejoice in God!" This is a challenge for us, who often let our hearts fall into depression or frustration in times of low church growth.

These difficult times are excellent opportunities for us to examine our hearts as disciples. We should ask ourselves: 1) What fruits is God producing in us besides baptisms? 2) How can we best use the time God has given us to grow spiritually? 3) Are we relying on God to build His church, or on ourselves? 4) Are we trusting and rejoicing in God's plan and His timing for the church, or have we fallen into depression because of disciples who have left the church? By asking these questions, we can come to better understand God and His will for our lives.

There is a Little Bit of Jonah in All of Us

2006-11-15T23:45:00.000+02:00

"Brittany"

Sometimes God and his mercy are hard to accept when we see injustice in the world. When I see this injustice I often react in the same way that Jonah did with the people of Nineveh. First he did not want to go and preach to them because he knew that God was slow to anger and abounding in love. He did not want to see a city full of violence and wickedness benefit from God's patience and forgiveness. Then when he finally did go to Nineveh after being persuaded to obey God by spending three days and nights in the belly of a large fish he became very angry when God did exactly what he had feared. Jonah really wanted the satisfaction of seeing the city destroyed. He wanted justice to prevail not mercy.

We are often like Jonah. We see injustice in the world on all fronts. Here in Israel the Israeli government is able to get away with crime after crime against the Palestinians and no one is stepping in to stop them. They keep taking more and more land and building a wall that they never had authorization to build while all the powers that are supposed to regulate such acts just sit back and watch. In addition, God also seems to do nothing. We begin to wonder, "Does God not see what is happening? Does he not care about the calamity of an oppressed people? Why isn't he stepping in and striking these people down? Why isn't he putting this oppressive government in its place?" We wonder this about all the injustice in the world. The United States government commits crime after crime against humanity in countries they really should not even be in and God does nothing. We look to churches to be a safe haven from this injustice. We expect them to have a higher standard of morality than the rest of the unfaithful world, but even churches have leaders who rise in power through corruption and exploitation of God's people and it seems to go unnoticed by our God. This is when we begin to understand why Jonah was angry enough to die. He was angry at God's mercy and patience with the city of Nineveh.

So how did God respond to Jonah? He gave him a vine to shade him from the sun and then he took it away which made Jonah even angrier. This is a very interesting act on God's part. He showed Jonah what it was like to feel the effects of mercy and justice. Jonah didn't do anything to deserve the vine, but God gave it to him and Jonah was grateful for the vine. He enjoyed God's mercy and when the vine was gone he became angry again, but Jonah deserved to suffer the effects of the intense heat for his disrespectful attitude towards God and his disobedience from the beginning. Jonah wanted justice for the people of Nineveh but mercy for himself.

We can often be this way. We have been forgiven of so much yet we get frustrated with God when he does the same for others. We think that he should step in and uphold justice with those who hurt us but when we hurt others we want him to be merciful. In the end we are the unjust ones, wanting God to act one way with us and another way with others. In Micah 6:8 it says that what God requires of us is "to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God". We are to extend mercy to one another because we have been given mercy and it is only fair/just to allow the same benefit to fall on someone else that has been given to us. We are to love mercy and to walk in humility with God. This means to trust that he knows what is best for the Ninevehs of this world. Jonah made himself miserable with his anger. It is much better to trust God in humility and just obey him. Rather than cling to our idea of justice and insist that God do things our way it is much more enjoyable to walk humbly with a merciful God.

Churches in Jerusalem and Bethlehem: Clinical Assessment and Needs

2006-11-01T23:39:00.000+02:00

"Brit"

Churches aspire to be God-driven entities that take direction from the Holy Spirit. However, being embedded in the world, churches cannot avoid being influenced by the cultural and social-political contexts in which they exist. So in writing about clinical needs in churches in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, I must first write about the cities and cultures of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Israel is a military state. Every native-born citizen is required to serve at least two years in the army after graduating from high school. This is highly problematic from a social and psychological standpoint. First, this means that the majority of the army is composed of young men and women between the ages of 18 and 21. When they enter the military it is during late adolescence, when the brain is not fully developed. The young men especially are still highly impulsive and are unable to calculate consequences of risky behavior at this stage of development.

Second, these adolescent soldiers are embedded in a violent environment. Israeli soldiers, whether recent draftees or seasoned fighters, have experienced many wars. The most recent was the war in Lebanon. The negative affects of war are well documented in psychological literature and these affects are greater on young soldiers. During these conflicts, soldiers are forced to commit acts of violence and see the effects of violence on their fellow soldiers. This environment alters their perception of what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior both in the army and out. This is further aggravated by the fact that these soldiers are raised in a culture that is racist towards anyone who is not Jewish. These adolescent fighters, who are raised in this toxic environment and who do not yet understand the consequences of their actions, are the people who man checkpoints. This creates a recipe for violence and unnecessary oppression.

The political situation in the country also affects the lives of an already suffering people. The city of Jerusalem is filled with tension. As you walk through the streets of the Old City you can feel the clash of cultures. Every historic site that you visit has a guide who has his or her own subtle way of communicating a political view. You cannot escape politics here; everyone begs you to take his/her side. Also, the Holocaust is ever-present in the consciousness of the Jews. This creates insecurity in them about their status as a nation. In order to defend against this insecurity, they oppress those of Arab descent.

Racism is evident in every interaction between these two groups. When people in Jerusalem walk down the street, get packages at the post office, buy groceries, and do other mundane human tasks, they experience either racism or privilege depending on which race they happen to be. Sometimes it is communicated subtly and sometimes overtly, but it is always present fueling the conflict.

Bethlehem is a very different city. Located in the West Bank, Bethlehem is characterized by oppression and lack of freedom. The Israeli government prevents Bethlehem and other West Bank cities from developing economically, such that most of the population is unemployed (this includes the Christians living in the West Bank). In the past, Bethlehem in particular has relied on tourism to alleviate poverty. However, tourism to Bethlehem dropped off after Israel completed the separation wall between Israel and the West Bank, and the recent Israeli war with Lebanon has further damaged the economies of both Jerusalem and Bethlehem. In and around Bethlehem, there are many checkpoints that generally humiliate the Palestinians and restrict their movement. Sometimes Palestinians even experience violent mistreatment at the checkpoints. These experiences live with them in their memories and are brought up every time they go through a checkpoint.

Bethlehem and other West Bank cities are considered what clinicians call a traumatic context. This means that the environment itself is traumatic due to a constant threat of danger. The unpredictability of this danger creates a hyper-aroused state in all occupants. It would be naïve to think that this kind of environment, as well as the environment in Jerusalem, does not have an affect on the relationships in the church.

Understanding these social and cultural factors, we can come closer to an understanding of the psychological conditions which affect Christians in Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The first condition that I want to describe is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. PTSD is a psychological condition that results from a person experiencing or witnessing severe violence or threat of violence. The common identifiable symptoms of PTSD are divided into three categories. The first, hyper-arousal, is defined as a constant state of alertness for danger. People who suffer from hyper-arousal can never relax, even when they are seemingly in a safe environment. Biologically their sympathetic nervous system (the part of the nervous system that controls the fight or flight response to danger) is altered to be in constant activation.

The second identifiable symptom is intrusive thoughts and memories of the traumatic event in the form of flashbacks (an actual re-experience of the event) and nightmares. Many people who suffer from PTSD cannot sleep at night due to these intrusions. The triggers for flashbacks can often be very subtle stimuli in the environment such as a smell, tone of voice, or sound that reminds the person of the traumatic event and causes the brain to react in the same way that it did at the time of the trauma. The third identifiable symptom is known as constriction. This is characterized by an altered state of consciousness in which the person dissociates and shuts down all bodily sensation. The victim goes numb upon experiencing one of these subtle triggers. He/she often experiences somatic symptoms such as physical illness or ailments that are connected to the traumatic event as well, but the victim is not always aware of this connection.

Traumatic events also have a profound impact on the person's basic trust in humanity and in whatever they take to be God. Victims of PTSD often have great difficulty building trusting relationships, particularly with those in authority. People who have experienced traumatic events in childhood are also more susceptible to developing problematic personality disorders such as Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) in adult life. This personality disorder is characterized by a lack of sense of self (making them often co-dependent), inability to regulate emotion (which often causes alcohol and drug abuse), intense and short lived relationships, constant real or imagined fear of abandonment, self injurious behavior, and short periods of depression in which the victim can become suicidal.

In my experience here, I have found that almost the entire population of the country suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to varying degrees. This includes Christians in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. For example, many Christians in Bethlehem are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and problematic personality disorders due to childhood traumas and the experience of living in the West Bank under occupation. The traumatic context of Bethlehem makes it extremely difficult for Christians to feel safe, even in church. There is great mistrust in their relationships. They see threats where there are no threats. They are hyper-vigilant and irritable. They have great difficulty controlling emotions. These are only a few ways in which PTSD affects Christians in Bethlehem.

For some church members, the constant threat of danger does not only come from the Israeli government. Those who have converted to Christianity from Islam are in danger of being killed by their families for this conversion. Since the culture dictates that an unmarried man or woman must live with his or her parents until marriage, disciples cannot escape these dangers in the home. This results in a great deal of fear and secrecy in churches.

Family pressures also make reaching out difficult. Due to the great emphasis placed on family in the Arab culture, many Christians have family members in the same church. This causes many problems. For instance, if one family member is struggling in his faith or decides to leave the church, he will most likely take his family members with him. Christians who stay with the church when a family member leaves are under tremendous pressure from the family to be loyal to their brother or sister, and will often serve as a messenger between the one that has left and the rest of the church. This makes it very difficult to resolve any conflict that may have resulted in the person leaving.

There is also a very strong emphasis placed on getting married in the Arab culture. Female Christians cannot leave their parents' home unless they are married. The family is very involved in the marriages and more or less arranges them with little or no input from the person to be married. Since many Christians have a conviction to only marry believers, they often suffer from family problems and depression regarding marriage. The emphasis on marriage creates problems in relationships that are built inside the church as well. There is a focus on getting married rather than building a beneficial and God-focused relationship. As a result, many church dating relationships become co-dependent and have resulted in the couple leaving the church in order to pursue the relationship quickly without the nuisance of beneficial advice.

In a culture where many decisions are made by the family, it is challenging for Arab Christians to really own their faith and follow God out of an individual choice. Often, Christians here replace the expectations of their family with leadership hierarchies. The clergy/laity system is present in most if not all churches in Bethlehem, because it is supported by the Arab culture. However, just because the culture supports it does not mean that it is any less harmful. It burns out leaders quickly and causing their work to be a burden rather than a joy, and it also stunts the personal growth of the Christians. When church leaders in Bethlehem try to give the decision-making power back to the Christians so they will begin to take responsibility for their own faith, the freedom is met with resistance from the disciples.

Christian churches in Jerusalem also suffer greatly from their environment. One church I studied is made up of nine members, six of whom are from Jewish descent. The remaining three members are part of the leadership team. I find it ironic that God has arranged this church such that two Arabs and an American are leading a church full of Jewish people. If this fellowship were a unified and loving group, it would be a great testimony of God's love to the city of Jerusalem. Instead, there is great tension between the leaders of the Jerusalem group and those they lead, because the political climate and culture is influencing the church to the point that it cannot move in any direction.

There are a few key social factors which influence the Jerusalem Christians. First, some suffer from PTSD symptoms and have histories of abuse as well. Their abuse histories and the oppressive quality of the political environment breed mistrust in the church. Next, the racism that pervades society in the Holy Land is also present in churches on both the Arab and Israeli sides. Church members often hold radical political views that create division and mistrust.

These environmental contexts influence the relationships in the churches and create challenges to being a God-driven, Spirit-led church. As one might imagine, having a church with many people who suffer from PTSD and/or BPD can make loving relationships and reaching out very difficult. I have been living in Jerusalem and working with churches in Jerusalem and Bethlehem since June 2006. My focus has been two-fold: first, to address the issues mentioned above, and second to help renew hope in the groups by increasing reliance on our sovereign God, who holds all of these challenges in the palm of His hand.

In order to bring this about, I have implemented several projects. About six weeks ago I began an open ended therapy group for women in a church in Jerusalem. Since then, the women have been exploring how problematic emotions such as intense anger, anxiety, and guilt are connected to past traumatic experiences. Currently, they are helping each other to identify emotional triggers and working to separate emotions connected to past trauma from their present situations. The group is just beginning to build cohesion and trust that will facilitate lasting change. I am also planning a women's retreat for Christians from Jerusalem and Bethlehem on the theme of God's grace. Finally, I am helping leaders from the church I am working with in Jerusalem coordinate a workshop for their Jerusalem church on identifying and changing racist ideologies. The workshop will facilitate discussions about Zionism and other beliefs that contribute to the tensions between the Jewish-Israel and Arab disciples.

A month ago, I led a training session in one of the Bethlehem churches for the leadership team on how to support Christians who are suffering from PTSD and/or personality disorders. The training included tips on how to take into account the emotional lives of people when counseling, teaching, and correcting these disciples. This has been the first of many steps in Bethlehem. I also started a coping skills therapy group based on a treatment model that was designed specifically for people suffering from PTSD and BPD. The group is learning and practicing skills to understand and control emotions. They are currently learning the skills of regulating emotions and will soon begin working on skills to help them tolerate and reduce distress.

I am very pleased with the direction of the projects that God has placed on my heart to implement here. Since the therapy groups are still in their beginning stages it is very important that they continue to meet, and I hope to be able to continue this work throughout the year. I believe that God will use these projects to bring about great change by May 2006, when I am scheduled to return to the United States. I am convinced that God has great plans to glorify Himself through the Jerusalem and Bethlehem churches, and I am grateful that through his immense grace I have the opportunity to be part of these plans. Please keep the Jerusalem and Bethlehem churches in your prayers as we seek to implement these exciting changes, and pursue God's will for the churches in the Holy Land.

Love in Christ,

Brittany, MSW, LCSW

The Myth of Ethics/Morality in War

2006-10-01T23:35:00.000+02:00

"Aziz"

Many of us grew up in communities where we were taught how to be moral and ethical. Although every community has its own understanding of what morality means, it is something that people are normally proud to have. To be moral and ethical makes us feel confident. Sometimes, it even makes us feel superior to those who we view as less moral. And when we work for humanity and contribute to the world through science, medicine, literature, charity, or by fighting evil causes, we feel a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Ethics and morals are so important that when a nation goes to war, the cause must be seen by its citizens as moral; otherwise, the public will not support the war. When a nation becomes embroiled in fighting, government leaders insist that the fighting is still moral and ethical. Even when the news reports civilian deaths and atrocities committed by soldiers, the national claim of morality never falls short. Instead, tragedies are "isolated incidents" or "necessary for the greater good." However, many times these claims only show that we are hypocrites to ourselves and our values.

For example, most societies teach that violence is not an appropriate solution for individual conflict in our communities. When two neighbors disagree over property, the law commands them to negotiate rather than resort to violent action. However, governments eagerly justify violence to solve external conflicts with other nations who are seen as "threats." How can we tell two neighbors who disagree over land not to use violence to draw their borders, but justify it as a nation? How can we say, "turn the other cheek" and then be so quick to cry "vengeance!" when someone attacks our country? How can we teach people to think intensely before taking violent action while being hasty as a nation in deciding to destroy villages and bomb cities? How can we teach that all human beings are the same, but value the life of five national soldiers over the lives of four-hundred "enemy" civilians? This is the paradox we create about ethics and morality.

I have often heard people rationalize war by saying that governments have the authority and responsibility to protect their citizens from harm, whereas individual citizens do not have this authority. This argument is partly true: governments are responsible for protecting their citizens. However, this argument stops too soon. Governments are also responsible for making ethical decisions. Governments are responsible for representing the humanity of their people, as well. And governments are responsible for judging what is best for future generations in all parts of the world, not just for deciding what best fits its political interests in the short run.

Atrocities in war are not "isolated incidents." War is the enemy of basic human ethics and morals. It teaches that violence is the solution for problems and compromises our deepest-held values. Even the strongest fighters lose part of themselves through participating in violent conflicts. Knowing this, how can we expect an 18-year-old soldier at a checkpoint to behave ethically when he constantly fears that he will be shot? How can we expect depressed and angry Palestinian teenagers to care about innocent civilians when the only hope they know is to become suicide bombers? The fact that the fighter is Jewish, Muslim or Christian does not make him strong enough to retain personal morality in the face of national "responsibility"!

I realize there are always ways to justify war, or occupation, or revolution. I also know there are many ways to justify unethical and immoral acts in war. Most of these responses only demonstrate a lack of understanding of the sameness of humanity. I am reminded of the famous statement "when we kill infants we apologize." These kinds of apologies fall short of stopping the same thing from happening the next morning, though. Another tactic I often hear is dehumanizing the enemy with statements such as "We aren't as bad as they are," and "Our soldiers are much more moral." This is a false argument that falls as fast as the morning star that fell from the heavens. We should not compare our moral standards with our "enemy," we should compare them with our original ethics! And when we make excuses and empty apologies, we lower our moral standards.

Our morals in Israel-Palestine are quickly becoming a casualty of war. In war, there are many costs: for example, there is the cost of losing your family, your friends, your home, and your peace. But in this article I want to stress one more price of war, the price of losing your values, morals and ethics.

Most nations, including the Palestinians and the Israelis, are very proud of their ethics, history, and religion. It is sad when these nations are willing to throw away their heritage to achieve political gain. In the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, I believe many people have comprised and/or forsaken their morality. They may still speak about it in public addresses, and raise the flag of morality at rallies and speeches. Yet our actions demonstrate our true belief in ethical behavior. We have replaced coexistence, love, humanity, cooperation, dialogue and reconciliation, tolerance and compassion, truth and respect, sameness and forgiveness with justifications for war. In return, war has given us indifference, violence, hatred, revenge, lies and empty rationalizations.

Over time, I have seen the goals in this conflict change for many people. At one time, maybe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was about security, freedom and stability. But now, it is a bitter conflict that dwells in the hearts. Now, it is a consuming hatred that darkens everything and veils all hope of peace. It is a wall of ignorance and pride. It is a dehumanization of the people behind the wall. And it is a desire to kill and hurt without being hindered by guilt.

For those who still believe in ethics and morality in Israel-Palestine, we are at hard crossroads. The restoration of hope and morality to a lost people will take intense work and perseverance of heart and mind. However, the alternative is bleak. We need to stop fighting one another, and fight against the true causes of this war: the reasons why a Palestinian teenager decides to blow himself up, and the reasons why a Jewish 18-year-old mans a checkpoint instead of a desk at school.

Is War a Christian Value? (Sept. 11th Commentary)

2006-09-11T23:29:00.000+03:00

"Marie"

On the anniversary of September 11th, as an American who was in New York during this tragedy, and as a Christian who is living in the Middle East, I though it appropriate to write briefly about terrorism, war, and fighting the good fight.

In 2001, I was attending college north of the Bronx, New York. I was in a Literature class that day, September 11th. The topic of discussion was how popular music acts as social commentary. I don't remember it being a particularly impacting discussion, other than partway through the class we had to shut the door because of all the noise coming from the hallway. When class dismissed, I entered a different world. The hall was crowed with hundreds of students, some hysterical, most confused, but everyone was pushing, trying to get a glimpse of a television set someone had dragged into the hallway. This was the first I knew of the events at the Twin Towers.

I stood on a window ledge to be able to see the television. "A terrible accident," most of the students said. On the set, hundreds of liberal arts students crowded to watch the now-infamous video of smoke billowing from the North Tower. Classes were dismissed. Our university closed the next day, and the campus remained in lock-down for a month and a half.

During those weeks in New York, I experienced first-hand what many Americans only watched from their television sets. The city was covered in a sour-smelling smoke and a dense ash which lasted for weeks. The bridges and tunnels into and out of New York were closed, and people abandoned their cars in the streets, fleeing on foot in a mass exodus out of the city. Stealth bombers hovered silently in the sky day and night. In the second week, I made a few trips to "Ground Zero." A friend and I snuck past some police barriers and wandered in and out of the emergency tents and news vans, trying to make sense of what had happened. My most poignant memory of that time was seeing devastated families scrambling to attach "Missing" posters to bulldozers as they entered the site, and the terrible smell of death.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." (Matthew 5:9)

At many times in my life, this passage has been difficult for me to embrace. But to demonstrate how life is always more complex than it seems, I want to fast-forward four years to my first visit to Israel-Palestine. In 2005, I came to visit Jerusalem on a mission trip. As a Christian visiting the "Holy Land" for the first time, it is always hard to reconcile the Jerusalem of the Bible with the modern and confused city that is now Jerusalem. Consequently, the trip was part pilgrimage and part work. It was also my first encounter with a large Arab-Muslim population and my first journey into the Third-World.

In New York, I had gained a deep respect for the Jewish community. However, Jerusalem was yet another world that needed explanation. I arrived at the same time as Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip, and the entire country was inflamed with political hatred. Protesters crowded the streets, shouting slogans against Arab terrorists and Israel's right to occupation. The leader of the mission trip, a Christian Arab, often had to sneak out of his house to be able to meet the disciples for tour activities.

Here, my most vivid memory came from a trip to the Occupied West Bank. Jerusalem's wealthy and modern houses suddenly came to end where a refugee camp had been hastily erected for Palestinian refugees. Rising above the bombed-out buildings and shanty-houses was what some euphemistically call "The Fence," a twenty-five foot concrete wall that towers over a wasteland of what used to be Arab houses. On the other side of the wall was a dismal world of squalid, cramped housing and impoverished families, surrounded by barbed wire and sniper towers. It was a stark contrast to the wealthy and sprawling Israeli cities.

Despite the poverty, I found the Palestinian community to be gentle and hospitable. Everywhere I went I was treated with respect, invited into homes and fed generous meals of rice and chicken. These people were not the Arab terrorists that I had come to know from the news. Instead, they were humans and families, devout in their faith and willing to listen to a variety of opinions. I was never slighted for being American, but recognized everywhere as an individual with individual thoughts and dreams.

My purpose for writing of my own experiences is to explain why, as a Christian, I have come to firmly believe in scriptures such as Matthew 5:9. Matthew reminds us that as Christians, we are called to make peace, not to wage war. However, many Christians today have been led to believe that war is necessary in order to make peace. This reasoning uses worldly wisdom, and is Biblically flawed. We have a war to fight, but it is not an earthly war.

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Ephesians 6:12)

September 11th revealed to the American nation that we have many enemies in the world. However, our enemy is not our fellow man. Even if the man is a Muslim terrorist or an Iranian nuclear scientist, he is not our enemy, but rather our neighbor. When Paul writes that our struggle is against the "authorities and powers of the world," he is not speaking about earthly authorities, such as the Iranian President Ahmadinejad or the North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-Il. They are not our enemies, either. Our enemy is a spiritual enemy; it is the forces which cause our neighbors to do acts which are inhuman. If Paul had meant "the powers of this world" to mean physical leaders, this would contradict his statement that our struggle is not against "flesh and blood."

It is also implausible that Paul meant us to war against nations or generalized political authorities. In 2 Corinthians, he makes this clear.

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

Thus, as Christians we are not meant to wage war using worldly weapons. Even if we do fight against other nations or against ideas, we are not to use the weapons of the world. In fact, it is dangerous to wage war against ideas using worldly weapons. If we justify war by claiming our war is against ideas, such as the "war on terrorism" or the "war against extremism," we forget that these phrases are merely euphemisms. After all, a war of ideas still kills humans, not ideas.

J. William Fullbright wrote, "Man's capacity for decent behavior seems to vary directly with his perception of others as individual humans with human motives and feelings, whereas his capacity for barbarism seems related to his perception of an adversary in abstract terms." In other words, the more we view conflict in abstract terms, the more susceptible we become to justifying barbaric acts with the pretense of warring against ideas. This is not what God intended for His followers. Our wars against ideas, against spiritual forces, and against Satan must be fought with spiritual weapons, not with the weapons of the world.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a good example of what occurs when a "war of ideas" is fought with worldly weapons. Because ideas do not die, these worldly wars lead to further escalation of complex conflict, national fear and paranoia, increasingly gruesome bloodshed, and political unrest. As Christians, we are called to make peace, and abstain from waging war with weapons unsuitable to a people of God.

Our war is not a war of the world, and our weapons are not weapons of the world. Instead, our fight is a fight of faith. We are commanded to fight for salvation, and our victory is eternal life. The Christian imprisons his/her own thoughts to make them obedient to God. The Christian demolishes wisdom that is contrary to the knowledge of God.

Finally, our peace is not a worldly peace that we establish by waging war. Our security is from God, not from airline checks and intelligence agencies. The light that we give to men is not the light of democracy or any other worldly philosophy. We are instead ambassadors of peace, elected by God to preach the message of peace to all men in all nations.

My experiences have taught me the importance of these convictions. After September 11th, American started on a path toward greater entanglement in a war that cannot be won with earthly weapons. Today in Israel-Palestine, we continue to see the devastating consequences of what happens when godly men engage in ungodly wars. As we remember September 11th, let us remember the message of the gospel. We are children of God, commanded to preach the gospel of love to everyone. Our battle, and our weapons, belong to the Lord!