Human Trustees

In the first installment, I told the story of how St. Francis of Assisi was able to cross enemy lines in the Fifth Crusade in order to share his faith with Egypt’s ruler, Malik al-Kamil. In fact, the latter graciously received him and his fellow monk, Illuminatio, for three or four days. This sultan was in the habit of meeting…

[The author here is Mohamed ‘Arafa, my first guest author. I am only the editor this time. See his short bio at the end.] In February 2019, Pope Francis made an apostolic trip to the Middle East, including a visit to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. There he met with Ahmad el-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University,…

The painting of St. Francis embracing Egypt’s Sultan Malik al-Kamil is on the first page of my website. It graces my Twitter handle. After nine years, I finally get to explain it, and this with the help of acclaimed 2009 book by journalist and professor of journalism Paul Moses, The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam, and Francis of…

This comes on the heels of a substantive critique of America’s Christian nationalist movement. Now I offer one possible Christian response to it, one that I believe is particularly potent and relevant. One of the most influential Old Testament scholars and theologians of our time, Walter Brueggemann (b. 1933) has written nearly fifty books, hundreds of articles, and participated in…