About Middle East Harmony
How five key adjectives both gather and divide.
Middle East Harmony is run by Jayson Casper, an American journalist living in Lebanon. Resident in the Arab world since 1998 with experience also in Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, and Mauritania, Jayson reports sympathetically on the region and its people.
The overall goal is to increase religious understanding across lines of division, through sharing the stories and perspectives of regional actors. Read here the introductory post on Middle East Harmony, describing its overall ethos and Christian orientation. This project invites the participation of readers and contributors from all faith backgrounds—and none—who wish to honor the regional mosaic.
Harmony requires a commitment to reconciliation without erasing difference. Difficulties in religion are often complicated by politics and culture. But Jesus required his followers to remove the log from their own eye first, before presuming to help with the speck in another’s. In that spirit, working outward in spiraling circles, areas of focus will include:
Evangelical: Witness and Creed
Ecumenical: Sect and Church
Interfaith: Unity and Complexity
Muslim: Nation and Peoples
Human: Margin and Society
Introductory essays will unpack these pairings, which each focus incorporates.
Evangelicals testify to a faith described in ancient confession. Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox alike follow the ancient apostles. Jesus and Muhammad share an ancient monotheism. Sunnis, Shiites, and secularists find good governance in ancient traditions. Children of an ancient Adam comprise the whole.
Yet each focus frequently splinters.
Should one evangelize within the same faith? Do doctrinal differences yield superficial unity? Is Allah the Arabic equivalent of God? Who inherited the leadership of Islam? Can a community embrace its most different?
Answering “yes,” “no,” or “it depends” to these and other questions often leads the people of each focus to separate. Should they? Again, the response will vary, sometimes in contradictory wisdom. How can harmony prevail?
Not every article, interview, analysis, or reflection will address these complicated relations. Nor is every perspective honorable. Reporting must respect reality, and the challenges harmony must overcome. Middle East Harmony will aim for 1-3 posts per week, perhaps less as it builds out capacity. Patience is requested from all, as various biases emerge.
This project does not have a political agenda, though political opinions may be conveyed by sources or in editorials. But in some ways, everything is political. Even words like harmony and reconciliation can be powder kegs of controversy. Too often these concepts are superficial, avoiding root issues and historic hurt.
The nations of the Middle East and the global community must pursue some end scenario of justice and peace. This project has a more modest goal: Honor and respect between diverse peoples at home and abroad. As perspectives necessarily clash in each of the five areas of focus, listening well is the essential first step.
Jayson Casper writes primarily with Christianity Today. His articles have appeared also in al-Monitor, Arab West Report, Atlantic Council, Christian Century, Lapido Media, Middle East Institute, Patheos, Presbyterians Today, Providence, Religion Unplugged, Schneller Magazine, The Tablet, TIMEP, and World Watch Monitor, among others. See his website for a full list of his published work.
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