When therefore a well-meaning Lebanese or foreigner comes along and says to me, ‘Forget about your religion which is the deepest you know, and adopt with me a new deepest based on economics or politics or philosophy,’ I tell him:…
When therefore a well-meaning Lebanese or foreigner comes along and says to me, ‘Forget about your religion which is the deepest you know, and adopt with me a new deepest based on economics or politics or philosophy,’ I tell him: ‘I have the highest respect for these things and we desperately need them in Lebanon and the Near East, but do you realize what you are asking me? Can I be ashamed, need I be ashamed and embarrassed, about the deepest I know when this deepest matured in these lands and when this is its status throughout the world? When people in Pakistan and India and Africa turn to Mecca in their prayers, and when people in Paris and Rome and London and Berlin and New York turn to Bethlehem and Nazareth and Jerusalem in their deepest adoration and love, are you seriously asking me to be different from all these men—me, me, who come myself from Lebanon and the Near East? No, my friend, I have the greatest possible honor of sticking to my deepest, and of adjusting every other deepest to the deepest I know.’
Source: Free Christianity in the Near East and the West 9
Let no Arab nationalism, let no Jewish Zionism, let no Middle Eastern Christian fear or sentimentalism, let no Western materialism, let no Christian secularism anywhere, beguile any man into believing that the Near East will ever cease to be a…
Let no Arab nationalism, let no Jewish Zionism, let no Middle Eastern Christian fear or sentimentalism, let no Western materialism, let no Christian secularism anywhere, beguile any man into believing that the Near East will ever cease to be a cosmic magnet for all those who know and love Jesus Christ. This is its unalterable destiny. We did not create it, we had nothing to do with it; in fact many of us, scared and limited as we are, wish it and have wished it otherwise: it was all determined by Jesus Christ himself.
Source: Free Christianity in the Near East and the West 8
The Christian society in Lebanon occupies a special position owing to the fact that it has been free and has enjoyed a continuous history down the centuries. For this reason, the Lebanon we want to build up is anxious that…
The Christian society in Lebanon occupies a special position owing to the fact that it has been free and has enjoyed a continuous history down the centuries. For this reason, the Lebanon we want to build up is anxious that the Christians in it remain in fact free, secure and masters of themselves and of their own values and destiny…
Source: Free Christianity in the Near East and the West 1
If it is to understand its own historic position in its true light, Communism must thoroughly understand the fact that it is standing face to face with, and rebelling against, the West—the Greek, Roman, Hebrew, Christian, humane traditions of the…
If it is to understand its own historic position in its true light, Communism must thoroughly understand the fact that it is standing face to face with, and rebelling against, the West—the Greek, Roman, Hebrew, Christian, humane traditions of the West—and not only the unhappy West of secularism, liberalism, capitalism, and imperialism.
Source: Human Rights and Religious Freedom 6
The real struggle today is between those who believe in authentic, responsible, existential, and personal freedom and those who enjoy its protection in order to ‘use’ it for other ends.
The real struggle today is between those who believe in authentic, responsible, existential, and personal freedom and those who enjoy its protection in order to ‘use’ it for other ends.
Source: Human Rights and Religious Freedom 5
Under no circumstances should any obstacles be placed in the way of responsible investigative reason seeking to understand anything. The peoples and cultures that hinder reason and prevent it from exploring any subject responsibly will themselves go extinct, or they…
Under no circumstances should any obstacles be placed in the way of responsible investigative reason seeking to understand anything. The peoples and cultures that hinder reason and prevent it from exploring any subject responsibly will themselves go extinct, or they will be enslaved or continue to languish in slavery.
Source: Human Rights and Religious Freedom 4
Because we are with others, we are arguing and reasoning with one another all the time. Indeed, every sentence and every discourse is a product of reason. And so it is neither a shame nor a sin to discipline and…
Because we are with others, we are arguing and reasoning with one another all the time. Indeed, every sentence and every discourse is a product of reason. And so it is neither a shame nor a sin to discipline and cultivate our reason to the utmost; it is a necessity, it is a duty, it is an honor to do so.
Source: Human Rights and Religious Freedom 3
We need engineers, we need doctors, we need economic experts, we need factories…But above everything else, we need men and women who are disciplined in thought and who know that in the end the spirit alone matters.
We need engineers, we need doctors, we need economic experts, we need factories…But above everything else, we need men and women who are disciplined in thought and who know that in the end the spirit alone matters.
Source: Crisis Leadership 1
