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TechnoratiDaily news about the Middle East is filled with violence and hate. Rarely does anyone hear stories of peace, love and joy coming out of the region. To some nine million people in the Middle East and Northern Africa, however, a Christian ministry using satellite television is delivering the Gospel message.
(Photo: Demossnewspond)Terry Ascott, CEO of SAT-7 International.
Terence Ascott, founder and CEO of SAT-7, and the Rev. Dr. Habib Badr, chairman of SAT-7 international board and senior pastor of the National Evangelical Church of Beirut, sat down after a Middle East consultation in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., on last week to share about the state of the Gospel in the region.
The following are excerpts from the interview:
CP: Terry, where did you get the idea for SAT-7? Do you have any background in broadcast?
Ascott: No. I’ve been involved in Christian publishing since the 1970s and really did not think of television as being a serious medium for communicating the Gospel.
I guess the idea began in the 1980s with the realization that more and more people were becoming dependent on television for all their information needs and illiterate people would never be able to read literatures that I was involved in.
In fact, one study we did in the Middle East showed that the average person spent one second a year reading a book, which is pretty pathetic for a book publisher. I was involved in the production of a magazine but the figures for magazines were going down as more and more people gave up buying magazines and relied more on television for news and information. .
CP: Being English, why are you involved in the Middle East?
Ascott: I didn’t know much about the Middle East when I first went there as a volunteer in 1973 for a six-month assignment with a Christian agency. I was back then a full-time civil engineer. Publishing was just a hobby. I didn’t intend to stay in the Middle East, but once I got there I realized there was a lot of needs and opportunities that were quite unique and challenging. So I decided to stay another year and then another year and it just went on for 35 years.
CP: Dr. Badr, how is life in the Middle East now compared to when you were growing up? Has it become worse, better, the same?
Badr: By one standard it has gotten much worst, but by the same token it has gotten more exciting and interesting and worth-living, so to speak. As I was growing up in Beirut in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the Middle East’s situations – politics, Christian-Muslim tension, Muslim-Muslim tensions, Arab tension – were all still subdued.
It was only until the late ‘60s, early ‘70s that the difficulties of being a Middle Eastern became more apparent for the average Christian.
One is because we were seen as being indirectly related to the supporters of Israel – because we are Christians and the West is Christians. Secondly, because Christians are associated with Western Christians and therefore secular culture and the negative impact that secular culture has. It became a challenge to be a Christian in the Middle East and be part of the consciousness of the Middle East and [at the same time] to be an international Christian that can talk to the world and not be isolated
CP: Where do you think all the problems in the Middle East stem from?
Badr: The difficulties in the Middle East lie in the fact that in its history, the Muslim world, as far as we know, does not separate between affairs secular and religious. For Islam – Sunni Islam in particular - there is no separation between religion and politics and so to be part of the social, political, and economic life in the Middle East means ultimately to be part of the religious life. Continue »
