Email Link
Facebook
Twitter
DiggField Notes: Uruguay
Loading...
It’s always been an article of faith in journalism: Don’t tell a story about an idea. Tell a story about a person whose life and work demonstrate the idea.
From decades of experience, I can tell you that the instruction doesn’t always work. But when it does, it makes our lives as journalists a lot easier. And in the segment to which you can link from this page, that old advice definitely proves true.
Our story is a profile of a priest in the Anglican
church, Father Nadim Nassar.
Father Nadim comes from Syria. And his roots in the Middle East, and current assignment in London, give his movement vitality and relevance.
Father Nadim Nassar founded the Awareness Foundation in 2003. The Awareness Foundation is all about education, and is aimed at Christians, especially Anglicans, living in London.
Now you might wonder why that particular group would need such assistance, living as they do in the motherland of the Church of England.
Demographically, however, London is changing. Fourteen percent of the population now identifies as Muslim.
Islam is not new to Great Britain. Seventy years ago, when the British still administered a far-flung empire upon which the sun never set, Queen Elizabeth’s father, King George VI, had one-hundred sixty million Muslim subjects.
However, back then, and until recently, in London, the overwhelming majority of people labeled themselves, at least nominally, as Christian, most of them Anglican.
Folks who remember those days say you never really had to think about, or talk about, church or religion -- except for baptisms, weddings, funerals, and Christmas caroling.
That overwhelming religious majority is gone. For Christians, London is no longer a comfort zone.
Enter Father Nadim Nassar, a dynamic, charismatic priest.
And a man whose personal story of growing up Christian in a country that is overwhelmingly Muslim is now offering a kind of road map for many in his adopted country as they navigate the future in a multi-cultural world.