Isaac and Ishmael in Conflict: The Long View.

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Isaac and Ishmael in Conflict The Long
View. Lancaster Missionary Fellowship World
Mission Resource Center on April 21, 2006. Don
Jacobs When these things begin to take place,
stand up and lift up your heads, because your
redemption is drawing near." Luke 2128 (NIV)
We examine the situation as it is - as we look
up to see what God is doing.
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• Three exercises
• Coming to grips with the reasons for a world in
  conflict.
• Why the persistence of the hostility between the
  descendants of Isaac and the descendants of
  Ishmael?
• What are the implications for the ongoing spread
  of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

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Understanding what is happening. What are the
most helpful templates or grids when trying to
decipher what is happening in our world today and
what are the antecedents? Here are a few which
are in currency.
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THE POWER OF ETHNICITY During the 90s I was
doing a good deal of observing and writing on the
resilience of ethnicity in almost all areas of
the world. An example - ETHNICITY AND THE
STATE IN EAST AFRICA Ethnicity is nothing new
but it was largely out of the news for the past
generation. We heard about the Basque freedom
movement in Spain and that was about it. Now a
dam has broken. Since the collapse of the USSR,
ethnicity has appeared as one of the strongest
forces operating in many parts of the world
today. The unity of many states is threatened by
the persistent, insistent, unrelenting force of
ethnicity. What is driving this phenomenon? It
is a complex issue, to be sure, but any analysis
of the future must take it dead seriously. 1997
Today we have Dafur on one hand where
ethnicity is running amok and Somalia in which
ethnicity is the only thing holding people
together.
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WATCH TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN NATION-STATES
DECLINE. The Coming Anarchy, By Robert
Kaplan, Atlantic Monthly, February, 1996 Nations
are loosing their 19th Century role. Modern
economy, for example, takes little heed of
nations. Many national boundaries are proving to
be fictitious. Who drew these lines? According
to Kaplan, as Nation-States weaken the door is
ajar for anarchy or for the resurgence
ethnicity West Africa is becoming the symbol of
worldwide demographic, environmental, and
societal stress, in which criminal anarchy
emerges as the real strategic danger. Disease,
overpopulation, unprovoked crime, scarcity of
resources, refugee migrations, the increasing
erosion of nation-states and international
borders, and the empowerment of private armies,
security firms, and international drug cartels
are now most tellingly demonstrated through a
West African prism.
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CIVILIZATIONS ARE THE ULTIMATE FAULT LINES THE
CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS Samuel P. Huntington
Foreign Affairs. Summer 1993 It is my
hypothesis that the fundamental source of
conflict in this new world will not be primarily
ideological or primarily economic. The great
divisions among humankind and the dominating
source of conflict will be cultural. Nation
states will remain the most powerful actors in
world affairs, but the principal conflicts of
global politics will occur between nations and
groups of different civilizations. The clash of
civilizations will dominate global politics. The
fault lines between civilizations will be the
battle lines of the future.
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THOSE ON THE SUPERHIGHWAY OF TRADE AND SHARED
INFORMATION VERSUS THOSE WHO ARE NOT The World
is Flat, A Brief History of the Twenty-First
Century, 2005 ...there is something about the
flattening of the world that is going to be
qualitatively different from other such profound
changes the speed and breadth with which it is
taking hold. The introduction of printing
happened over a period of decades and for a long
time affected only a relatively small part of the
planet. Same with the Industrial Revolution. This
flattening process is happening at warp speed and
directly or indirectly touching a lot more people
on the planet at once. The faster and broader
this transition to a new era, the more likely is
the potential for disruption, as opposed to an
orderly transfer of power from the old winners to
the new winners. Friedmans classification -
2000 Globalization(Lexus world)
Anti-globalization (Olive Tree world)
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Think about it! It is more complicated than it
first appears. Many, many factors must be taken
into consideration. No single template is
comprehensive enough. Let me propose a more
dynamic instrument. GRIEVANCES OR DIFFERENCES
WHICH FOSTER CONFLICT
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• GRIEVANCES OR DIFFERENCES WHICH FOSTER CONFLICT
• Land grievances or ambitions
• Especially strong where land is associated with
  identity
• Land and security may be closely associated
• Defense of land or the push to conquer is
  empowering

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• GRIEVANCES OR DIFFERENCES WHICH FOSTER CONFLICT
• Economic grievances or ambitions
• Wealth or status is reduced or is seen as less
  than others
• Especially strong when it is appears possible to
  degrade those who have prospered.

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• GRIEVANCES OR DIFFERENCES WHICH FOSTER CONFLICT
• Racial, cultural or tribal grievances or
  ambitions
• This can be experienced in scores of ways
• It is most keenly felt when it depowers.

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• GRIEVANCES OR DIFFERENCES WHICH FOSTER CONFLICT
• Religious differences or ambitions
• Often reflect differing world-views
• Invariably have to do with loyalty
• Religion can and often does reinforce other
  differences

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• GRIEVANCES OR DIFFERENCES WHICH FOSTER CONFLICT
• All must be taken into consideration in
  understanding any confrontation or hostile
  situation.
• Land issues
• Economic issues
• Racial, cultural or tribal self-understanding
• Religious differences
• Sociological anxiety

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THE ACCUMULATIVE EFFECTS OF GRIEVANCES
Land issues Economic issues Racial, cultural
or tribal identity Religious assumptions Sociologi
cal anxiety
Each has power. When two or more are combined
the energy increases dramatically
When more than two come into play, the scene is
set for major conflict. Where all five combine -
dynamite
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THE ACCUMULATIVE EFFECTS OF GRIEVANCES
Land issues Economic issues Racial, cultural
or tribal identity Religious assumptions Sociologi
cal anxiety
Each has power. When two or more are combined
the energy increases dramatically
CONSIDER PALESTINE TODAY AS AN EXAMPLE
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• APPLYING ALL THIS TO OUR EXPERIENCE OF THE
  RESURGENCE OF ISLAM AS A GROWING POWER IN THE
  WORLD.
• Abraham had Ishmael when he was 86. Both were
  circumcised together when Abraham was 99. The
  next year Isaac was born. Muslims follow
  primogeniture - Ishmael was the son of promise.
  Sacrificed by Abraham. Little ongoing conflict
  until 7th Century of Christian era.
• The first empirical expression of the Arab
  people, squeezed between Egypt and Mesopotamia.
  
• Considered by Jews to be idolaters
• Well aware of the wealth of the nations

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The Arabian Peninsula 625
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Islamic control of the Arabian Peninsula 650
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760
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During the Caliphate of Harun al-Rashid 809
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Islamic Spain, 9th and 10th Century
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1100
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The Crusades did not effect the hegemony of the
Islamic world. Trade routes with all taxation
was uninterrupted. The European powers, as early
as the 12th Century, realized that their
expansion was blocked by Muslim barriers.
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1300
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1500
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Europe outflanked Muslim-controlled lands in the
16th Century, following development of new
navigational techniques (sextant) invented by the
Portuguese and ever better ships by the Spanish
(Caravels). 1487 Dias reaches the Indian Ocean,
thus threatening the Muslim hegemony. 1492, in a
attempt to reach Asia by sailing West, Colombus
reaches the Americas for Spain
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Ottoman Empire existed 1299 to 1922
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Distribution of Islam per country. Green
represents a Sunni majority and blue represents a
Shia majority.
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The Islamic heartland, the Middle East, was of
little importance in Islamic expansion since 1300
when Turkish Islam fashioned the Ottoman Empire.
That totally collapsed in 1922. The
establishment of Israel in 1947 stirred ancient
and modern grievances. The Arab minority in
Islam once again had a voice primarily through
the Sunni branch. The Persian voice expressed
itself in the Shia branch. Non-Middle East
Muslims had different grievances and
ambitions. Huge oil revenues did not result in
the Islamization of the lands which were lost.
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International Jihad Osaman bin Laden saw the
issuance of a Fatwa in 1996 while he was in
Sudan, declaring International Jihad which
focuses on the expulsion of non-Islamic powers
from former Islamic lands. He appealed for all
Muslims everywhere to join in the planetary
struggle. Full text on www.pbs.org/newshour/terr
orism/international/fatwa_1996. The first
success was Somalia (1997), the second
Afghanistan and the third now in Iraq. The
immediate targets are expelling Christian
(American) forces from Saudi Arabia and the
destruction of Israel.
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Believers are truly salt and light in the world
but it is not the kind of salt and light which
will transform society unless people in that
society come to know Jesus as Lord and
Savior. It will not surprise believers to see
ongoing attempts to extend Islam through
political, military, economic and all other
means, with Israel, the descendants of Isaac, as
the aggrieved party.
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THE KINGDOM OF GOD REALIZED A DYNAMIC FAITH IN
JESUS CHRIST WHILE LIVING IN THE SHATTERED
PIECES HELPING, SERVING HANDS EXTENDED FROM ALL
DIRECTIONS TO ALL DIRECTIONS THE KINGDOM THAT
JESUS IS BUILDING IS A NEW PEACE-INDUCING SET OF
RELATIONSHIPS WHICH ARE EMPOWERED BY DIVINE LOVE,
ALWAYS OPEN TO ALL BELIEVERS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.