The Center for Middle Eastern Christianity and the Visit of Ken Bailey to Egypt in 2005
INSTALLMENT 9 OF THE HISTORY OF THE OUTREACH FOUNDATION IN EGYPT
by Jeff Ritchie
A Dream Shared in 2003: During the May 2003 trip to Egypt, Dr. Atef Gendy and mission co-worker Darren Kennedy shared a long-term dream for the Cairo Seminary: a center within the seminary that would be devoted to the study of Christianity in the Middle East. They spoke of the many theological writings in Arabic dating to the Middle Ages which had not been studied in the modern era and made available to the global Church. Also, they pointed out that the Bible was written in a Middle Eastern milieu. Biblical scholars from within the Middle East who were well acquainted with the culture and mores of traditional village life would be able to interpret the Bible with helpful understanding and insights not available to those who live in more developed urban societies. Egypt was an especially good place to do this work because it had the largest number of Christians of any country in the Middle East.
They used the work of a long-time Presbyterian missionary, the Rev. Dr. Kenneth Bailey, as an example of the potential impact of the proposed center. Dr. Bailey was the son of missionaries to Egypt and served as a missionary in the Middle East for over forty years. During that time, Dr. Bailey had spent much time among Middle Eastern Christians in villages where they had preserved the cultural norms that existed from Bible times. As a result, his commentaries and lectures have helped countless people, both in the Middle East and in the West, understand the Bible better.
Dr. Bailey knew Dr. Atef very well and suggested that the Evangelical Theological Seminary carry on his work and deepen it. Further, he offered his collection of rare manuscripts in book and microfiche formats to the seminary if they would establish the kind of center they were dreaming about.
The Eastminster Connection and the Meeting in Pittsburgh, PA: One of the churches that had benefited from the lectures of Dr. Bailey was Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas. They had invited him to speak on several occasions and had recorded many of his talks for Dr. Bailey. Walter Lewis and Tom Edwards, the two Eastminster participants on the 2003 trip, were happy to hear this dream of the seminary. They subsequently were invited to participate in a conversation in the fall of 2003 at Pittsburgh Seminary with Dr. Bailey, Dr. Atef Gendy, and the Rev. Darren Kennedy that would move the dream one step further to reality. I represented The Outreach Foundation at the meeting as well.
Dr. Bailey and the Cairo Seminary agreed that this was the time to establish a Center for the Study of Middle Eastern Christianity (shortened eventually to Center for Middle Eastern Christianity). The seminary was very conscious that it was continuing the legacy of Dr. Bailey and was grateful for the promise of Dr. Bailey’s library. Dr. Bailey affirmed that the center would become a gift to the global church.
Meanwhile, Eastminster’s representatives took the project back to their Session which adopted it as a mission project and made it the focus of their 2003 Christmas offering. The Outreach Foundation also approved the Center for Middle Eastern Christianity one of its projects. We also asked all the participants on our 2004 trip to take some of Dr. Bailey’s books in their luggage as a first offering for the future library of the center.
Dr. Bailey Joins the 2005 Outreach Trip to Egypt: As The Outreach Foundation thought about our annual trip to Egypt for 2005, we planned it to coincide with the inauguration of the Center for Middle Eastern Christianity. Dr. Kenneth Bailey was asked to give the inaugural lecture, and we included Dr. Bailey and his daughter, Sara, as part of our delegation in the May 2005 trip.
For Dr. Bailey, who had spent his early years in Middle Egypt and had served as a missionary there in the 1960s, this trip would be a homecoming. Both the seminary and the Presbyterian Church in Egypt were lavish in their hospitality and appreciation for this distinguished missionary who had grown up among them, served among them, and had learned much from them that was reflected in his teaching and writing.
The Center for Middle Eastern Christianity had barely begun to be constructed when we arrived, but that did not deter the inaugural lecture from taking place amidst the construction. It was well-received, and we looked forward to what it would become under the leadership of the Rev. Dr. Wageeh Mikhail, a young scholar whose focus was on Arabic theology from the Middle Ages.
Dr. Wageeh was to serve the Center for a decade and a half during which time he organized numerous public lectures, published seven books, and brought both Orthodox and Protestant Christians together to study subjects like Coptic Monasticism and the Spirituality of the Eastern Church. Since its inception in 2005, the Center for Middle Eastern Christianity has become a destination for those who are serious about studying Middle Eastern Christianity as it has developed over two millennia and how it has interacted with Islam during much of that time.
We made this trip at the time of the seminary’s graduation, and one of those receiving a master’s degree was the Rev. Ismail from Khartoum, Sudan. Through the presence of this Sudanese Church leader, we were reminded that it was Egyptian Presbyterians who were the primary agents in starting the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church over one hundred years before, and it was the revival of an early missionary vision that The Outreach Foundation was supporting through the seminary’s new Mission Department.
Among the memorable aspects of this trip were visits to churches in Middle Egypt where Dr. Bailey and his family had lived and served. Dr. Bailey was honored in cities and towns by churches and government officials. He especially enjoyed going to some of the rural churches where he and his wife had served as missionaries in the 1960s. We were able to see first-hand how his life among village Christians in Egypt, people who lived much as people in villages in Galilee 2000 years earlier, could add insight and understanding into biblical studies.
The fall after our trip, The Outreach Foundation hosted a global mission conference, “From Everywhere to Everyone: The New Global Mission.” We along with our co-host, Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship, wanted to showcase what God was doing around the world, and we invited three from Egypt to share their stories. Dr. Ken Bailey accepted our invitation to lead the conference Bible Hour. Mr. Ramez Atallah from the Bible Society of Egypt gave the final plenary session. Dr. Sameh Maurice of the Kasr el Doubara Church in Cairo led a major workshop for this conference. Other Egyptians present included the Rev. Wagih Abdelmasih, the missionary to London mentioned in the previous chapter, and Dr. Swailem Hennein of the Cairo Seminary.
As this chapter closes, special mention must be made of the role that Eastminster Presbyterian Church and, in particular, Walter Lewis, the Chair of its Mission Committee, played in the construction of the Center for Middle Eastern Christianity. The Wichita congregation was among the first churches to support the Center financially. It invested more than $300,000 over the course of its construction. And Mission Elder Walter Lewis traveled to Egypt numerous times between 2003 and 2010 to encourage the seminary and report on its progress to the rest of us who were supporting it.
We thank God for the vision of Dr. Atef to establish the Center and build on the legacy of Dr. Kenneth Bailey. We are grateful for how Dr. Wageeh Mikhael developed the program of the Center over the past fifteen years. And we are indebted to Eastminster Church in Wichita and its Mission Elder, Walter Lewis, who believed in the vision and gave it continuous support over the years.