Turkey

Study of the Armenian genocide has attracted many fine scholars, but Ronald Suny's book stands out.

My first trip to Turkey, the place where so many Armenian Christians were killed, found me in a land both strange to me and known in my bones.

The prospects for genuine democracy in Egypt are more remote than ever. But there are other models of Islamic politics in the region.

Turkey may be a model for the rest of the Middle East, but the country faces deep problems. And religion is not at these problems' core.

The parable of the prodigal son came to have new meaning for me after I preached on the passage in a small Christian church in Turkey. My congregants could read meaning, for example, into the famine that the younger son experienced because our city is in the throes of a serious water shortage. We have gone without running water for days at a time. The reaction of the Turkish mayor was to call for public prayers for rain in the traditional Muslim fashion, and Turkish churches followed suit by praying for rain. It was a similar shortage that drove the prodigal son to desperation and created an occasion for repentance.