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Eye on the World: Egyptian elections and “Arab Spring” aftermath
Starting today, the “Eye on the World” feature will have a slightly different look. Rather than offering a twice-weekly series of updates on news stories with single links to articles published in the Journal and Sentinel, each Monday we’ll take a more in-depth look at a current news item or trend. We hope this new format will encourage readers to embrace the world in their prayers.
Islamist candidate Mohammed Mursi, who became Egypt’s first democratically-elected president after last week’s elections, has begun building a government. He’s said his priorities will be shoring up the country’s economy, improving security, and drawing up a new constitution (the country has been operating under a provisional constitution ever since former president Hosni Mubarak stepped down in the wake of the 2011 “Arab Spring” protests). A lot of questions remain, though, about the president’s authority: just before the presidential election Egypt’s ruling military council dissolved the country’s parliament and took over many of the president’s powers.
Prayer can support Egypt’s progress toward a fairer, freer, more stable government and society. “Winds of change that can bless – in the Middle East,” written last April after President Mubarak stepped down, lays the groundwork for our understanding that God’s government is what’s really at work in Egypt. The author writes, “Prayer can refute the roller-coaster ride impression of liberty as a changing status, constantly at the mercy of material circumstances. Instead, the spiritual seeker can stand firm in the reasoning that God alone always governs, maintaining His universal creation in perpetual freedom.” We can hold to this spiritual fact as we seek to see God’s firm, loving guidance at work in Egypt and across the Middle East.
Readers interested in praying for Egypt’s continued advance toward democratic government may also enjoy “Progress in process,” a Sentinel editorial from October 11, 2011. The authors note, “Examples of mortal beliefs that are giving way to immortal Truth include tyranny, cruelty, egotism, greed, and lack. And when these monsters come under attack—as they are in regions such as Egypt and Libya, or in the financial culture worldwide, or in aspects of our own lives … we’re seeing the natural disruptive effects that come when progress is on the move.”
Of course, spiritual thinkers have been praying about the Middle East for years. One article, “Dealing with political upheavals” from the March 19, 1979 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel, is particularly relevant to our prayers for Egypt today. The author notes that God, divine Principle, is unchanging, a rock to stand on when traditional power structures are shifting. And we can expect that same Principle to gently dissolve calcified political opinions, allowing good ideas and good governance to take hold.