Thou Shalt Not Kill


It is written in the Holy Scriptures that one should “subject to the governing authorities.” It is also written “to love one’s neighbor as one’s self.” How have these commands had implications in the life of the Church in specific and the lives of people in general?

Two cataclysmic events would mar the age of inventions, discoveries, human progress and intellect with blood. They would mark the beginning of the 20th century.

The very first of these calamities was the systematic annihilation of Armenian people from Western Armenia in the year 1915 and the second was the catastrophe of the 1940s with the reign of Hitler over Germany and the arrest and execution of Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer who defied his own government and dared to participate in the underground resistant movement that would plan to kill Hitler by devising a bomb in the plane that was to carry him.

During the horrendous events of 1915, many European and Turk families refused to obey the orders of the Turkish government of the day to inform authorities of any Armenian living among their neighborhoods and decided instead to hide Armenian families at the cost of losing their own lives. After twenty-four years, the same kind of ethnic cleansing would take place when this time French, Dutch, and Swiss families would fervently protect and aid great number of Jews to escape the terrible fate that befell on the people.

However, it is a known fact that many churches and nations at the time decided to “subject to the governing authorities” and never bothered themselves to interfere or even complain about the horrible atrocities and massacres that were taking place. This very disposition leaves me wondering with the following question:

Why did some Christians at the time decide to love their neighbors as themselves and risked their own lives to help those in great need, while others remained ardent believers in pacifism and obeyed the command in the Bible of subjecting to the governing authorities and hence turned their eyes away from the devastating events?

To this day many do not comprehend or understand how a religious man like Pastor Dietrich Boenhoeffer decided to take part in killing another human that cost him his life and was eventually hanged only few months before Germany’s surrender.

Therefore, how are we to understand these two commands from the Bible and if – God forbid – another human disaster falls among us, what will be our stand?

ManoChil

DVBS 2009 Graduation!

It was a great night! The leaders had prepared a two-hour graduation event for the parents. This event was held for the first time in the life of Emmanuel Church and the DVBS.
Congratulations to the parents, the leaders and the Emmanuel Church for their trust, encouragement and support. It is through them that Emmanuel Church's DVBS continues its mission of being Christ's light in the life of the community.



(L to R): Mrs. Silva Avakian-Maamarbashi, Ms. Nara Kouzikian, Mrs. Vera Svajian and Rev. Hovhanness Svajian



Journeying with our Chanitz Blog

We’re back! We’re back with more maturity, experience, and perseverance. We’re a year older now, which means we’ve written more, we’ve learned more, we’ve read more, we’ve erred more and we’ve achieved more.

This year was filled with joy and sorrow, with achievements and mishaps. Some disregarded us, many cherished us. I remember the lady from abroad, who was so encouraging, so kind, and she was so happy of our endeavors. I remember the emails that we received, emails supporting us to keep the blog alive, lively and young. Many were flabbergasted at the quality of the posts, articles, language used and interviews conducted. Then again, we also faced the storm, and we stood strong and steadfast, passing over obstacles and clearing misunderstandings and issues that needed to be clarified.

We stood and we stay the voice of the young men and women here in Lebanon, in the Middle East. We live our faith, we share our lives, we have our own opinion, and our own dynamic style. We shall debate controversial issues, expressing different point of views, keeping true to our principle of respect.
In our journey, we made friendships from all over the world, from Armenia, Iraq, Syria, Australia, Brazil, Belgium, France, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Portugal, Cyprus, Egypt, Canada and USA.

We thank each and every one of our sponsors and donors from across the oceans and from within our region, from far beyond and from near and close. It is because of our dear sponsors and donors that we were able to conduct our interviews. It is because of them that we were able to buy a very good digital audio recorder, and it served us best.

We are thankful to God for sending us people who knew our need and we are very grateful for them.

Our sponsors for 2009 were: Haigazian University, Armenian Evangelical P. & E. Torosian School, Armenian Evangelical Christian Endeavor Union, Howard Karageuzian Foundation, Bible Bookshop, Soulahian Super Store, Peter's Brass, Kardashian Printing Services, High Bar.

We also received a donation, wrapped with a prayer and a blessing, from Canada.

Please pray for us to be able to keep this service up for our local community and for our international community.

In case you are interested about the past posts and articles:

Editor in Chief,
Raffi Chilingirian