Embrace the Middle East is a charity, originally founded in 1854 as a Christian mission to the Ottoman Empire and now active in the successor states with projects in healthcare, education and community development.
The society was set up in 1854 by a group of English evangelical philanthropists including Sir Culling Eardley and Lord Shaftesbury as the Turkish Missions' Aid Society, its purpose being to support Armenian Christians in Turkey. A supporter magazine, The Star in the East, was first published in 1883. [1]
In 1893, as its activities outside Turkey developed, the society changed its name to Bible Lands Missions Aid Society. In 1962 it changed its name again to Bible Lands Society, then in 1996 to BibleLands and finally in 2012 to Embrace the Middle East. [1]
Archives of the society are held at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham. [2]
Embrace is broadly sympathetic to the cause of the Palestinians and has been attacked as such by pro-Israeli NGO Monitor. [3]
A Christian mission is an organized effort to carry on evangelism or other activities, such as educational or hospital work, in the name of the Christian faith. Missions involve sending individuals and groups across boundaries, most commonly geographical boundaries. Sometimes individuals are sent and are called missionaries, and historically may have been based in mission stations. When groups are sent, they are often called mission teams and they undertake mission trips. There are a few different kinds of mission trips: short-term, long-term, relational and those that simply help people in need. Some people choose to dedicate their whole lives to mission.
Christians in Bangladesh account for 0.30% of the nation's population as of 2022 census. Together with Judaism and Buddhism, they account for 1% of the population. Islam accounts for 91.04% of the country's religion, followed by Hinduism at 7.95% as per 2022 census.
The Church Mission Society (CMS), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society, is a British Anglican mission society working with Christians around the world. Founded in 1799, CMS has attracted over nine thousand men and women to serve as mission partners during its 200-year history. The society has also given its name "CMS" to a number of daughter organisations around the world, including Australia and New Zealand, which have now become independent.
The AnglicanDiocese of Jerusalem is the Anglican jurisdiction for Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. It is a part of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, and has diocesan offices at St. George's Cathedral, Jerusalem.
Christians have historically comprised a small community in Afghanistan. The total number of Christians in Afghanistan is currently estimated to be between 15,000 and 20,000 according to International Christian Concern. Almost all Afghan Christians are converts from Islam. The Pew Research Center estimates that 40,000 Afghan Christians were living in Afghanistan in 2010. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan did not recognize any Afghan citizen as being a Christian, with the exception of many expatriates. Christians of Muslim background communities can be found in Afghanistan, estimated between 500-8,000, or between 10,000 to 12,000.
The Assyrian homeland, Assyria, refers to the homeland of the Assyrian people within which Assyrian civilisation developed, located in their indigenous Upper Mesopotamia. The territory that forms the Assyrian homeland is, similarly to the rest of Mesopotamia, currently divided between present-day Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria. In Iran, the Urmia Plain forms a thin margin of the ancestral Assyrian homeland in the north-west, and the only section of the Assyrian homeland beyond the Mesopotamian region. The majority of Assyrians in Iran currently reside in the capital city, Tehran.
Karl Gottlieb Pfander (1803–1865), spelt also as Carl Gottlieb Pfander or C.G. Pfander, was a Lutheran Christian priest, missionary and apologist; he served as a missionary in Central Asia and Trans-Caucasus under the Basel Mission, and as a polemicist to the North-Western Provinces of India under the Church Missionary Society. He was known for converting Muslims to Christianity.
The Haystack Prayer Meeting, held in Williamstown, Massachusetts, in August 1806, is viewed by many scholars as the seminal event for the development of American Protestant missions in the subsequent decades and century. Missions are still supported today by American churches.
The term Eastern Protestant Christianity encompasses a range of heterogeneous Protestant Christian denominations that developed outside of the Western world, from the latter half of the nineteenth century, and retain certain elements of Eastern Christianity. Some of these denominations came into existence when active Protestant churches adopted reformational variants of Eastern and Oriental Orthodox liturgy and worship, while others originated from Orthodox groups who were inspired by the teachings of Western Protestant missionaries and adopted Protestant beliefs and practices.
The Protestant Episcopal Church Mission was a Christian missionary initiative of the Episcopal Church that was involved in sending and providing financial support to lay and ordained mission workers in growing population centers in the west of the United States as well as overseas in China, Liberia and Japan during the second half of the 19th Century.
Malteser International is an international non-governmental aid agency for humanitarian aid of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Developed in 2005 from the foreign aid service of Malteser Germany, and having the status of an independent eingetragener Verein since 2013, the agency has more than 50 years of experience in humanitarian relief. It currently implements around 100 projects in some 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Middle East and the Americas. The organization's General Secretariat is located in Cologne, Germany with regional headquarters for Europe and the Americas located in Cologne and New York City respectively. The membership of Malteser International consists of 27 national associations and priories of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, who are responsible for supporting the organization within their jurisdictions.
Sir Culling Eardley Eardley, 3rd Baronet was a British Christian campaigner for religious freedom and for the Protestant cause, one of the founders of the Evangelical Alliance.
The National Council of Churches in India is an ecumenical forum for Protestant and Orthodox churches in India. It provides a platform for member churches and organizations to act on common issues relating to Christianity in India.
The 15th century marked the transition from the Late Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period in Western Christendom. It was dominated by the spread of the Italian Renaissance and its philosophy of Renaissance Humanism from its heartland in Northern and Central Italy across the whole of Western Europe.
NGO Monitor is a right-wing organization based in Jerusalem that reports on international NGO activity from a pro-Israel perspective.
Gerald M. Steinberg, a professor of politics at Bar Ilan University, is an Israeli academic, political scientist, and political activist. He is founder and president of NGO Monitor, a policy analysis think tank focusing on non-governmental organizations.
Christian humanitarian aid is work performed by Christian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to alleviate the suffering of people around the world. Humanitarian aid occurs in areas where some churches donate financial resources.
Christian political theology in the Middle East is a religious response by Christian leaders and scholars to political problems. Political theologians try to balance the demands of a tumultuous region with the delicate but long history of Christianity in the Middle East. This has yielded a diversity of political theology disproportionate to the small size of Middle Eastern Christian minorities. The region's importance to Christians worldwide – both for history and doctrinal authority for many denominations – also shapes the political theologies of the Middle East.
The Palestinian NGOs Network is an umbrella organization of about 30 Palestinian non-government organisations (NGOs) in the Palestinian territories formed to enhance coordination, consultation and cooperation between member NGOs and to strengthen Palestinian civil society and contribute to the establishment of a Palestinian state. PNGO was formed in September 1993, and as of January 2020, had 135 member NGOs operating in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
Action For Humanity (AFH) is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) dedicated to providing humanitarian aid and disaster relief in areas affected by conflict, natural disasters, and other crises. The organisation focuses on delivering emergency assistance, supporting long-term recovery, and advocating for vulnerable populations.