by Phillip Williams

Phillip Williams posted a series of theological essays to talk.religion.christian.coptic and soc.culture.egyptian in late 2006. Writing from a Canadian-Egyptian vantage point, he diagnosed the religious landscape of Egypt as caught between two dysfunctional modes: the Coptic Church's institutional elitism, with its hierarchy of holiness and membership rules; and Islam's democratic collectivism, with its rhetoric of justice and its violence against opponents.

This essay — the most explicitly political of the series — uses Luke's Magnificat (the song of Mary) to frame the spiritual stakes: God scatters the proud, brings down rulers, lifts up the humble, fills the hungry, sends the rich away empty. Against both the sterile elitism of the church and the fertile collectivism of the Brotherhood, Williams sets the radical call of Genesis: "Leave your country, your people and your father's household." Both forms of group formation are, in his analysis, forms of existential fear dressed in the language of the sacred.

The elites built churches with "holy" priests and financially refined clubs for their socially refined "holy" religions. Though they face the most frightening existential threat — their population is diminishing under the dictatorship of their "holy" rules — one cannot enter their "holy" clubs unless one demonstrates loyalty to those rules. They have spiritually assaulted too many children who eventually rejected their "holy" churches and left with no return.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former."
— Matthew 23:23

In reaction, the poor have gathered under the rules of some other influential elites who are promising them to build democratic collectives with their democratic religions that campaign for justice to the poor. There too, one cannot enter unless one demonstrates loyalty for the "collective" rules. They claim another existential fear as the justification for their collective actions; they are intoxicated by the rhetoric of establishing God's justice on earth and mobilizing people to kill and be killed. Verbal, physical and emotional violence is used against their opponents and spiritual violence on their own.

"And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck."
— Mark 9:42

In the group formations, elitism becomes the religion of the sterile oppressive and collectivism becomes the religion of the fertile poor.

Both provide models of group formations but neither provides a model of faith in God.

"His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty."
— Luke 1:50–53

"The LORD had said to Abram, 'Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.'"
— Genesis 12:1

God Bless You,

Phillip Williams

Colophon

Written by Phillip Williams and posted to the Usenet groups talk.religion.christian.coptic and soc.culture.egyptian, November 2006. Part of a series of essays engaging the theological dimensions of contemporary Coptic and Egyptian religious life. Original Message-ID: <Y9W3h.268031$5R2.264904@pd7urf3no>.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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