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American Protestant Missionary Beginnings in Beirut and Istanbul: Policy, Politics, Practice and Response

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American Protestant Missionary Beginnings in Beirut and Istanbul: Policy, Politics, Practice and Response AMERICAN PROTESTANT MISSIONARY BEGINNINGS IN BEIRUT AND ISTANBUL: POLICY, POLITICS, PRACTICE AND RESPONSE Habib Badr Introduction There exists today in Lebanon and Syria two small communities of Reformed Protestants that owe their formation to nineteenth cen- tury American missionary activity in the Middle East: one Arabic speaking and another Armenian. The Arabic speakers are of course the original inhabitants of the land who come for the most part from a Greek Orthodox background, while the Armenians migrated to Syria and Lebanon en masse from the Ottoman Empire after the massacres committed against them by the Turks, especially those after 1915. A notable contrast in religious attitude and piety exists between the Armenian and Arab Protestants living in Lebanon and Syria. Armenian Protestants are generally more conservative in matters of faith and social behavior. For example, Armenian Protestants require new church members, young and old, to give a “testimony of Christian experience” during a mid-week service, before receiving confirmation and first communion on Sunday. Committed church members rarely, if ever, smoke or consume alcoholic beverages, and they usually dress conservatively, especially the females among them. Armenian Evan- gelical pastors generally do not wear clerical colors, thus standing out in sharp contrast when in the presence of clergy from the Gregorian ‘mother’ Church. On the other hand, Arabic speaking Protestants tend to be theo- logically and socially less conservative. The piety of the average churchgoer is reserved and confirmation classes lead automatically to church membership. Pastors almost always wear clerical colors and are hence not distinguishable from priests when in public places. This difference is striking. The roots of it, it appears, lay in the manner these two communities responded to American missionary efforts back in the nineteenth century. Most telling in this regard is 212 habib badr the way American missionaries themselves described and dealt with the actions and reactions of these communities before, during and after the organization of the first local Protestant churches—in Istanbul in 1846 for the Armenians, and in Beirut in 1848 for the Syrian/ Lebanese. What follows is an analysis of this history. Beginnings On September 23, 1818, the Prudential Committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (ABCFM) took the fol- lowing decision: Resolved that the Rev. Messrs. Levi Parsons and Pliny Fisk be desig- nated for Jerusalem and such other parts of Western Asia as shall be judged eligible, that they be sent out as soon as shall be found con- venient, and that in the meantime they be engaged for the Board at home.1 In February of 1819, the Board publicly announced its decision to send a mission to western Asia “with a view to its ultimate estab- lishment at Jerusalem.”2 The decision to send missionaries to Palestine, and in particular to Jerusalem, was partly influenced by the “romantic prospect of establishing an American outpost in ancient Israel.”3 Palestine was attractive also because it witnessed the events of the life of Christ that led to the establishment of the Christian Church and the unfold- ing of sacred history. But the decision was also, and perhaps to a larger extent, influenced by the growing enthusiasm for the conver- sion of the Jews with its potential millennial overtones. Along with the Jews, the Board also aimed at reaching and reviv- ing the Christian inhabitants of western Asia and, naturally, con- verting the millions of Muslims who ruled over that region. The Annual Report of the American Board for the year 1819, after acknowl- edging the fact that there are indeed a majority of Muslims in Asia 1 Abdul-Latif Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 1800–1901: A Study of Educational, Literary and Religious Work (Oxford, 1966), 12. 2 Panoplist/Missionary Herald (MH heretofore) 15 (1819), 92. 3 Clifton Jackson Phillips, Protestant America and the Pagan World: The first Half Century of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1810–1860 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), 135..
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