By Lloyd Mackey

WHY WAS it, I wondered, that His Royal Highness, Prince El-Hassan, was sounding quite a bit like populist -- and popular -- California megachurch pastor Rick Warren?

That thought occurred to your humble scribe as I sat at the opposite end of a board room table from the Jordanian prince, in the company of over a dozen other faith-based journalists. We were in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, deep inside the royal compound.

The prince, uncle to Jordan's King Abdullah and brother to Abdullah's late revered father, King Hussein, was doing that for which he is best known -- encouraging peace, understanding and collaboration among the many religious, political and international interests in and around what we know as the Middle East. His international high-level activities are sometimes affectionately described by friends as "peacemongering".

Prince El-Hassan's briefing was one of the high points of a visit to Jordan by 19 North American journalists, drawn from publications related to the Evangelical Press Association, Associated Church Press and Catholic Press Association. Presbyterian Record staff writer Connie Purvis, my wife, Edna and myself were the three Canadians in the contingent.

Our inclusion in the trip was the fulfilment of a desire, having visited Israel previously, to get a different perspective on the Middle East, on matters of faith, politics and nation-building.

I will write a fair amount, both in OttawaWatch and in other news stories and analysis, over the next few weeks. But I want to exercise care, knowing that the great faith and political struggles that seize this region require such reflection.

And I want to give credit in advance, to the writing and influence provided by one of the other journalists on the trip, Jack Haberer, editor of Presbyterian Outlook and a long time pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA). We discovered similar backgrounds, grounding in the evangelical segment of mainstream Protestantism and opportunity to use that grounding to help Christians of various stripes to understand and collaborate with each other.

Some readers, particularly those interested in biblical conflict studies, may have used one of Haberer's books as a resource in this area. It is entitled GodViews: The Convictions that Drive Us and Divide Us.

The briefing with the Prince took 90 minutes. It was thorough, erudite, comprehensive, and I have very good notes.

After the briefing, Haberer did a short interview, one-on-one, with the prince. It can be found at the Presbyterian Outlook's website.

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Prince El-Hassan's modus operandi, as a highly intelligent encourager of interfaith action, is to emphasize action, rather than a whole lot of talk. He reinforced that several times during his briefing, noting at one point that he does not encourage a lot of dialogue about "metaphysics or personal belief." Not to suggest that he papers over religious differences or disparages depth of conviction. But to resolve conflict and encourage social, political and spiritual development in the Middle East, requires collaborative action.

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When we returned to Canada, I pulled up the Rick Warren piece to ensure that I had remembered correctly that he and the Prince were on the same page, so to speak.

The Warren speech in question was delivered in early July, in Washington, DC, at a conference of the Islamic Society of North America.

As reported in the Washington Times on July 5, 2009, Warren asserted:

Muslims and Christians can work together for the common good without compromising my convictions or your convictions.

I am not interested in interfaith dialogue but interfaith projects.

Talk is cheap . . . but love is something we do together. As the two largest faiths on this planet -- more than one billion Muslims and two billion Christians . . . we must believe in this. As more than half the world, we must do something to model what it is to live in peace, to live in harmony.

Before wrapping today, let's return to the Jordanian palace for a moment.

Prince El-Hassan had a gift for us -- a slim volume he has just written, entitled Christianity in the Arab World. It is a primer, so to speak, to help thinkers and leaders in nations in and around Jordan to focus on the Christian faith -- in its various forms -- and its impact in the Middle East context. Chapter 10 is on Protestants and highpoints, for the most part, the evangelicals.

He pinpoints the development of Arab evangelicalism to the two great American evangelical awakenings in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the mission movements which resulted. He suggests that the movement, in the Arab world, has not been characterized by the development of large numbers of converts but, nevertheless "by outstanding contributions to education and social work."

And he has a footnote to synthesize his understanding of evangelical Christian belief, in the form of a reference to two biblical passages:

For it is by God's grace you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God's gift, so that no one can boast about it. (Ephesians 2. 8-9)

The person who is put right through faith shall live. (Romans 1.17)

He showed evidence, I believe, that he understood that "a faith that lives is one that works."

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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006), More Faithful Than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005) and Like Father, Like Son: Ernest Manning and Preston Manning (ECW Press, 1997). Lloyd can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.

October 8/2009