I always took church for granted in the United States. No matter where you are or what denomination you prefer, you are guaranteed a church of your variety and flavor within a reasonable traveling distance. Even if you're Presbyterian. At home someone occasionally asks, "Now, what exactly is a Pres-bee-tir-ian?" Membership in the Presbyterian Church has been declining significantly in the past fifty years. My own church had an adult Sunday School series titled, "How do you spell Presbyterian?" to explain the basic tenets of the Presbyterian faith.
We're not one of the most popular branches of Protestantism, because we stubbornly refuse to dish out any simple answers. We hold that Christ is the Lord of the conscience. This means the church can offer you tools—such as the Scriptures, past writings, your pastor's own personal opinions—but at the end of the day it is your job to figure out for yourself, with the help of your Christ-guided conscience, what is right and what is wrong.
I lived in Alexandria for two months this summer before coming to Cairo for the semester. There were no Presbyterian churches on my Alexandria tourist map. There was a giant Coptic Church on my way to school, but my colloquial Arabic was limited to phrases like, "Hello, How are you?" "Fine, thanks be to God." "How much is this?" And most importantly when you're a foreigner taking a taxi in Egypt, "This is my route every day and I'm not paying that much!!" I did not feel confident that I could follow an entirely new litany in Arabic. Moreover, I had a nagging feeling that the Copts used ancient Coptic in their services. This above all else made the Coptic Church exceedingly daunting in my eyes.
I went two and a half months without stepping one foot inside a church. I longed to take communion, to pray with a community, and to say Jesus Christ out loud without preceding it with stubbing my toe. But the closest I had come to a Presbyterian service was the Catholic Mass I attended with my Catholic friend from Georgetown. The church was founded by refugees from Southern Sudan. The homilies were given by the refugees who, I liked to imagine, founded the church. I could not understand a word they said, and they usually spoke for no more than two minutes.
After enduring this for some time, you can imagine my surprise to find out that there was a Presbyterian seminary right here in Cairo, Egypt. My friend, Catherine, told me about it. Her uncle, Dan, is a Presbyterian minister in the United States and has done work with the seminary through the years. They sometimes ran into trouble with the Egyptian government. An outlaw Presbyterian seminary in Cairo?! I had to go.
Brice, the funding and international relations officer at the seminary, gave us a tour of the campus and explained the general curriculum. The current project is to expand their research on Christian minorities in the Middle East after the rise of Islam. He said students are naturally drawn to this as it speaks to their personal histories, but resources are hard to come by. As a Presbyterian seminary in Cairo, Egypt, they have trouble getting sufficient funding for such an ambitious idea.
I left slightly disillusioned. When I first came I thought I would certainly attend this seminary and learn Presbyterian theology in Arabic so I could go home and minister to the Presbyterian Sudanese refugees scattered in shoddy neighborhoods throughout the United States. But the tour taught me two things: one, the classes are taught in English, and two, 98 percent of the students are Middle Eastern men. While I, as a blonde American girl, would certainly be very popular, I might not find the environment very conducive to productivity. Even so, I was thrilled to have visited a small haven of Presbyterianism in a land far from home.
I lived in Alexandria for two months this summer before coming to Cairo for the semester. There were no Presbyterian churches on my Alexandria tourist map. There was a giant Coptic Church on my way to school, but my colloquial Arabic was limited to phrases like, "Hello, How are you?" "Fine, thanks be to God." "How much is this?" And most importantly when you're a foreigner taking a taxi in Egypt, "This is my route every day and I'm not paying that much!!" I did not feel confident that I could follow an entirely new litany in Arabic. Moreover, I had a nagging feeling that the Copts used ancient Coptic in their services. This above all else made the Coptic Church exceedingly daunting in my eyes.
I went two and a half months without stepping one foot inside a church. I longed to take communion, to pray with a community, and to say Jesus Christ out loud without preceding it with stubbing my toe. But the closest I had come to a Presbyterian service was the Catholic Mass I attended with my Catholic friend from Georgetown. The church was founded by refugees from Southern Sudan. The homilies were given by the refugees who, I liked to imagine, founded the church. I could not understand a word they said, and they usually spoke for no more than two minutes.
After enduring this for some time, you can imagine my surprise to find out that there was a Presbyterian seminary right here in Cairo, Egypt. My friend, Catherine, told me about it. Her uncle, Dan, is a Presbyterian minister in the United States and has done work with the seminary through the years. They sometimes ran into trouble with the Egyptian government. An outlaw Presbyterian seminary in Cairo?! I had to go.
Brice, the funding and international relations officer at the seminary, gave us a tour of the campus and explained the general curriculum. The current project is to expand their research on Christian minorities in the Middle East after the rise of Islam. He said students are naturally drawn to this as it speaks to their personal histories, but resources are hard to come by. As a Presbyterian seminary in Cairo, Egypt, they have trouble getting sufficient funding for such an ambitious idea.
I left slightly disillusioned. When I first came I thought I would certainly attend this seminary and learn Presbyterian theology in Arabic so I could go home and minister to the Presbyterian Sudanese refugees scattered in shoddy neighborhoods throughout the United States. But the tour taught me two things: one, the classes are taught in English, and two, 98 percent of the students are Middle Eastern men. While I, as a blonde American girl, would certainly be very popular, I might not find the environment very conducive to productivity. Even so, I was thrilled to have visited a small haven of Presbyterianism in a land far from home.
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