The Village of Hope Proselytizing Material

This clip from DailyMotion was brought to my attention. It reports on the closure of The Village of Hope orphanage as reported by the Moroccan state-owned news channel 2M.

In terms of verbal content, it adds nothing new. The reporter essentially reads the government's official statement and then the statements of the official non-Muslim religious leaders in the country. But it adds a lot to what we know about the materials that the government has termed "for proselytism".

Below, I have composed a list of all the material I could see during the newscast, but allow me to highlight specific books and CD's.

If we assume that the children spoke mainly Arabic and French, then there are really only three books that could be considered targeted at the young children. The first is "Mes chants préferés", which appears to be a hymnbook for children. However, it could just as likely have been strictly for the use by the French staff. An Arabic book entitled "Banurama: Hyat assaid almasiH" appears to be a children's book about Jesus' life with illustrations. There could be no other audience for it besides Moroccan children.

The only other book that might be considered illegal is the Bible translated into Arabic and English. However, that needn't be for proselytizing either. In fact, it is entirely plausible that a dual language English-Arabic Bible was used by Christians to better learn the language of their new country. Every time I have moved to a new country, this being the only exception, I have bought a Bible in the new language to help me work towards fluency.

The rest of the dozen or so books, CD's, and tapes are rather laughable as evidence against The Village of Hope families. The vast majority of the books are in English and targeted towards adults. They are typical of what one would find in a Christian bookstore in the United States, material designed to help Christians better live the Christian life. A book that talks of the failures of Christianity "The Schizophrenic Church" can hardly be considered material for proselytism. The fact that they are in English further casts doubt on their use for proselytism; otherwise, they would certainly be in Arabic or French.

There are some other hymnbooks, but since this was explicitly a Christian organization, we can assume they were used for Christian worship for the Christians. There are also non-religious children's stories in English, notably "The Children's Treasury of Virtues" by William J. Bennett. We must remember that some of the families had their own children with them; the family I met at McDonald's did. So material for children does not mean that it was used to proselytize children. Material in English even less so.

Christian CD's in English such as "Classic Gospel Festival: Joyful" and FFH's "Have I Ever Told You" we can safely assume were also for the family's use. A tape set entitled "How to start a Bible Study in Your Neighborhood" by Jan Howard might seem at first that it was useful for proselytism. However, I highly doubt that the families of The Village of Hope were trying to set up a neighborhood Bible study in their Muslim city. It seems much more likely that the ideas contained on the tapes were used with the families themselves.

One also has to wonder why the 2M reporters found the Spanish books "Historias Biblicas" and "Mañana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective" so interesting that they devoted camera time to them. In this part of Morocco no one really speaks Spanish and none of the families was Spanish as far as I know. One wonders how they got to The Village of Hope in the first place.

A particularly ridiculous part of the report was when they ominously opened up a book of Christmas songs to the classic "Jingle Bells". Apparently, riding in a one-horse open sleigh now counts as an assault on the religious values of Morocco.

So, in conclusion, the real evidence against the families amounts to little more than one book of children's stories about Jesus and a dual language Arabic/English Bible. And the only one that was intended without a doubt for the children, the only claimed object of proselytizing, was the Arabic children's book.

That, in short, is the sum total of the evidence against the families that is available: one children's book.

It is, of course, not insignificant, but it was made to seem much, much worse in the Moroccan coverage of the event. Real reporting would not have used guilt by association and appeals to Moroccan ignorance to make the case. Of course, US media is not much better, particularly when it comes to the issue of Islam, but the principle remains the same.

In both cases, it shows just how profoundly ignorant we all are about the other culture, even as we rush to judge and condemn it.


The Complete List From the 2M Broadcast
"Mes chants préferés" - a hymnbook for children it seems
"Banurama - Hyat assaid almasiH" (a children's book in Arabic about Jesus' life)
"The Children's Treasury of Virtues" by William J. Bennett
"The Singing Word" - a hymnbook
"Job's Gift" by Max Lucado
Tape set - "How to start a Bible Study in Your Neighborhood" by Jan Howard
"Classic Gospel Festival: Joyful" music CD
"Have I Ever Told You" - FFH
"Love is Letting Go of Fear"
"Historias Biblicas"
"Challenging Lifestyle"
"Unholy Devotion"
"Meet Your Church"
"The Schizophrenic Church"
"Beholding God"
"The Journey"
"Songs of Fellowship"
"Baptism" - Michael Green
"Joy"
"Power"
"Little Children Sing to God!" children's hymnbook
"God Can" a children's book by Bill and Gloria Gaither
"A Book of Christmas Carols" - opened up to Jingle Bells
"The Holy Bible" in Arabic and English
"Mañana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective"