Behind the Sunni-Shi'ite Divide
Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007 By BOBBY GHOSH / BAGHDAD TIME article

Enlarge Photo
A young man mourns at a funeral for a relative killed in an attack on the Shii'te enclave Sadr City in November 2006. It is believed that Sunni arab militants were responsible for the blasts, which killed over 150 people.
Stephen Hird / Reuters


It has come to this: the hatred between Iraq's warring sects is now so toxic, it contaminates even the memory of a shining moment of goodwill. On Aug. 31, 2005, a stampede among Shi'ite pilgrims on a bridge over the Tigris River in Baghdad led to hundreds jumping into the water in panic. Several young men in Adhamiya, the Sunni neighborhood on the eastern bank, dived in to help. One of them, Othman al-Obeidi, 25, rescued six people before his limbs gave out from exhaustion and he himself drowned. Nearly 1,000 pilgrims died that afternoon, but community leaders in the Shi'ite district of Khadamiya, on the western bank, lauded the "martyrdom" of al-Obeidi and the bravery of his friends. Adhamiya residents, for their part, held up al-Obeidi's sacrifice as proof that Sunnis bore no ill will toward their Shi'ite neighbors across the river.......

I read this article today, and thought I would just share some thoughts on the dynamics of Islam in the Middle East. The two main sects of all Islam are behind the civil war, sort of like the North and the South were in our Civil War. The core of Shi'ite religion is in Iran. The Sunnis tend to control much of the rest of the Arab states. But the Shi'ites also tend to have the regions where most of the oil is.

The two sects are not really very different. We would call them big denominations over here. They have some slight differences in the way they practice their faith: clothes, methods of prayer, tithing practices. But the rift between them goes back 1,300 years to schisms that occurred in Islam right after the death of Mohammed. Sort of like the schism that occurred a few hundred years before that in the divide between the Catholic and the Orthodox Christians. Christians, however, tend not to be violent, and the Islamic schism has claimed countless lives. Like in Northern Ireland, if you start killing one another at some point, the argument tends to go on from one generation to the next.

Was the Iraq War a failure or a success? The dream was to give them a pluralistic democracy in the place of Saddam's totalitarianism. What is likely to happen now is that we will pull out and the warring religious factions will go berserk. That would make the war one big, expensive mistake. Nothing new, of course.

It isn't that the people of the Middle East aren't hungry for democracy and Western culture. Most of them are not fanatical. In many places Sunnis and Shi'ites intermarry and get along. But with recent bloodshed, hatred grows.

I also presume that God loves the children of Ishmael and wants to reveal to them that His Son is much more than just another prophet. But that region of the world is under lock and key to the rigid clamp of theocracy; and the two main factions of that juggernaut are busy hating each other. Islam believes it will one day control the world; but a kingdom divided cannot stand. Good news for the West, in a way.

Ezekiel 38: 21 says: "And I will call for a sword against him (Gog) throughout all my mountains, says the Lord God: every man's sword shall be against his brother."

My point is, the seeds of a self-destruction in the enemies of Israel seems more than possible, since they are already at it. This is a civil war that is all over the place in that area of the world. What is it that breeds this kind of discord?

James 4:1 ~ "Where do wars and conflicts come from among you? Don't they come from the lusts that war in your bodies?"

The truth is, these two big sects of Islam aren't mad about different religious practices. Instead, they are each seeking control of their religion. At present, though, it is more like a free-for-all. The Middle East, under the religion that sees itself as the hope of the world, is a hornet's nest. Can such an old conflict be resolved by democracy?

It seems human nature is controlled by greed which leads to war, even in people who are trying to conform to the laws of God. It is like a train out of control, picking up speed, and careening toward Armageddon, where every man's sword is at his neighbor's neck. Confusion.

With all of this, how can we Christians be peacemakers? How do we invade closed cultures with the truth that sets us free? I'm re-examining the Book of Acts and the epistles for answers. 7K

"A Man In A Purple Dress" by Townshend

How dare you wear a robe to preside
How dare you cover your head to hide
Your face from God
How dare you smile from behind your beard
To hide the fact that you're heart's afeared.
And wave your rod
How dare you be the one to assess
Me, in this God-forsaken mess
You, a man in a purple dress
A man in a purple dress.

You are all the same
Gilded and absurd
Regal, fast to blame
Rulers by lost word
Men above men, or prats
With your high hats
You priest, you mullah so high
You pope, you wise rabbi
You're invisible to me
Like vapor from the sea

How dare you? Do you think I'll quietly go?
You are much braver than you know
For I can't die
Your staff, your stick, your special cap
They'll protect in hell? What crap!
Believe the lie
How dare you be the one to assess
Me, in this God-forsaken mess
You, a man in a purple dress
A man in a purple dress

When you place your frown
Between my God and prayer
However grand your crown
Or dignified your hair
Men above men, or prats
In your high hats
You priest, you mullah so high
You pope, you wise rabbi
You are invisible to me
Like vapor from the sea.

I lovingly mock you noble lords
We all dress up to grant awards
I do that as well
I dare condemn your fashion sense
At least you're not astride a fence
That would not sell
But I will deliver this address
Your soul's condition don't impress
You, a man in a purple dress
A man in a purple dress.

What Unity Do We Seek?

In another paragraph the report goes even further: “We urge Anglicans and Roman Catholics to explore together how the ministry of the Bishop of Rome might be offered and received in order to assist our Communions to grow towards full, ecclesial communion.”
From an article on the current attempt to unify the Anglican and Catholic churches.

Interesting, Pat. I believe the new Pope has also tried to carry on what the last Pope did in making overtures to the Eastern Orthodox church to make peace. As you know, when we started out at the close of the '60's there was a lot of fundamentalist resistance to the World Council of Churches and Ecumenism as a "tool of the devil."

When I first began to sense an urgency, in intercession, by the Spirit about peacemaking, I wondered about ecumenism. When I've watched the Catholic channel, at times, I've heard them, underneath all the rhetoric, allude to the "unity" that can only be realized by returning to the "Mother Church," which is, of course, Catholicism. But the basic dispute between the Roman and Eastern churches had to do with the preeminence of the Pope and also that the Orthodox claim originality, that is, that they are the true church because they are most closely connected to the primitive church. When you read about the 7 churches in Revelation, that were in the area of Turkey, you are talking about the origins of the Orthodox church. I don't see these differences dissolving easily or completely. But I think that cooperation between all these bodies would be great. However, if the Catholics insist on making the Pope the boss, it will fail. That means everyone has to come under the umbrella of Catholicism.

So I see this as symbolic of the desire of the Holy Spirit that we return to the unity of the faith, which is different than ecumenical unity. We are, for instance, the United States; but all the individual states are different. God is not trying to bring us all into one single expression of faith. Look at creation. He loves diversity. What He does want us to do is to recognize that we are not enemies because of our different approaches. There is only ONE FAITH, and it is not Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, or Pentecostal in particular. All of that is passing away. They are foundations of sand, in that sense.

"Catholic" means "universal." So it is at the core of their self-image that they are the real thing. That is the importance of the post-modern shift in thinking in the world. Nobody is the "real thing," not even Coke. It isn't like U2 sang: "I still haven't found what I'm looking for." The Christian community, in all its facets, has what it is looking for. That community alone stands for the essential truth, which is that Jesus Christ is Lord, the Savior and God of the cosmos. That is the message the world needs most. For there is no other name.... No other religion has this feature. Thus, all other religions are trying to get to heaven the long way, as Pat once sang before he saw the Light.

But the devil has us all in opposition over incidentals: how we baptize, how we conduct worship, how we pray, attitudes about sex, politics, charisma, even theology. And we can't see our forest for the trees. We are nit-pickers about our religious biases and camel-swallowers about our superiority. And we do it all in the pursuit of "purity," puritanism.
That may be a laudable goal, but the Devil has turned it into a travesty.

"Little children (church), love one another." That phrase rings in my head like the bells of Notre Dame. I applaud the moves of any clergy to build bridges, especially if it brings repentance for past sins and forgiveness that aids communal prayer. But what the Holy Spirit will do is beyond all that. There is a dismantling of absolutes going on at increasing speed. When all absolutes dissolve, only one truth will remain, and His name is Jesus.

In that sense, the old organized church is probably in trouble. It is not disappearing, but neither is it leading its own revolution. The revolution is moving here, out in cyberspace.
This is no-holds-barred ideaville. The globe is shrinking fast. Rigid systems are coming apart at the seams. Even science doubts itself now. The modernists are resisting with all their might, but it is like a poodle-dog barking at a freight train. The wild frontier of the church is now missional. My pastor just yesterday said: "God is not into maintenance, but mission." But you know me: its always both ~ maintenance and mission. But I understand also that when something becomes obsolete, it's time to get a new rig.

My Time Has Come!

Okay. Here it is, buds. The blog you've all been waiting for (haven't you?) I'm up and running, here. As Woody Allen said, "90% of success is just showing up." So I'm showing up. I did take about 5 minutes to come up with a blogname. I picked BLOODSPAWN, which sounded kind of memorable. But the site wanted me to add 7K, the title that plants me firmly in the alternative zone. Here I am, then. The blood-spawned alien to earth, plunderer of worlds, agent of Jesus.
Hello, world. Can you handle the truth? Or are you just bluffing? Alan Lunn