Why Have We Published This Magazine? (1970)

  • Author: Henry al-Khuli

Source: Sunday School Magazine vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1–2.

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This is the opening editorial from the first issue of the Sunday School magazine, published in 1947, and setting out the magazine’s mission and vision. No author is named, but the author is usually identified as Dr. Henri Al-Khuli. In addition to the zeal and determination evident in this important piece, one theme rings out louder than all others: God must be a part of everything we do, inside the Church and out of it.

Why Have We Published This Magazine? (1947)

With a mighty hand, the hand of Almighty God Most High, the Sunday School Magazine is published. We have not published it simply to increase the number of published magazines; rather, we have earnestly desired to inspire a renaissance in the Coptic community. Everyone has been seeking reform for more than half a century, but they have not moved one step closer to it. This is because the paths they pursued, despite their sincere desire for reform, were not paths leading to it.

But we are firmly resolved, by the will of the Almighty, to beat upon this sealed door – the door of reform[1]bāb al-iṣlāḥ – in order to usher in a new life.

We are determined that the Sunday School Magazine should echo the fearful cry of God for the reform of the individual, the family and the community; that all of them might find their spiritual, social, literary, scientific and health-related [2]al-ṣiḥḥī.. Like al-Karma before it, the Sunday School Magazine included articles on general health issues. nourishment herein.

A group of university graduates – true children from the heart of the Orthodox Church of God and who have been enlightened by her dazzling light – perceived that this divine light was capable of illuminating the path to reform; and that the secret behind the [present] failure is that God has been kept distant from all that has been done for the sake of reform!

However, if we are to succeed and fare well in all that we do, then God must be made a part of all things – God must even be all things – in knowledge, society, literature, health, school, marriage, children, family, money, business, administration, legislation, the selection of men of religion and men of the world. And no wonder, for God is the source of all things, and all things exist through Him; nothing can succeed if it is separated from God. Is not the Almighty God “the way,

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the truth and the life?” Did God not give Himself up to death in the flesh, because He loved us and desired to give us life and redeem us?

God gave knowledge to man so that man might advance, but man, wanting to separate [knowledge] from God — to Whom be the glory – used it for warfare and the devising of evil!

There is no greater ignorance than this: to separate religion from the world. A religion that stands apart from our public and private lives is useless.

If our affairs are to be put right, we must choose the leaders of the Church in the way the Lord Jesus set down in His Holy Bible, and within His Church, the authority of the Church must be resumed over every work and every individual.

Saintly men must be chosen for every work and every organisation, according to the law of God. And their work must be regarded as part of the work of the Church.

We must have Christian schools to that produce saintly Christians, fit to be warriors for God and servants to human society; not bare-bones schools that are tools for the production of poor, ignorant young men and women, fit neither for this world nor the next!

Indeed, the whole Church must be an indivisible unity, just as the Lord Jesus declared that she is His body and that He is the Head.  All her members, the Christians, are holy.

We must be men of courage, resisting every current that drives us away from God in any of our affairs.

In short, by the will of the Most High, this magazine will tend to all that calls for tending, in a spirit of holy love for all – for God is love – but also in the candour of faith.

We will offer to our dear readers all God enables us to offer of spiritual and intellectual benefits, entreating the Almighty and Most High to restore humanity to the source of its life, that wickedness might be abolished and wars be put to an end; that love and holiness might prevail, that the world and knowledge might come together in holy union.

 

Editorial Team

The Magazine is pleased to listen to the suggestions of the distinguished readers, in all that may lead to the improvement of the magazine, whether it is with regard to the content or to the presentation.  Very soon, God willing, the Magazine also hopes to be able to increase the number of pages, to use better quality paper, to publish colour pictures and to reduce the cost of the magazine when the present circumstances improve.

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Notes:

Notes:
↑1 bāb al-iṣlāḥ
↑2 al-ṣiḥḥī.. Like al-Karma before it, the Sunday School Magazine included articles on general health issues.

How to cite this text (Chicago/Turabian):

al-Khuli, Henry. “Why Have We Published This Magazine?” [Limādhā āṣdarnā hadhā al-majalla?] in Sunday School Magazine 1, no. 1 (April 1947): 1–2. Translated by Mervat Hanna. In Archive of Contemporary Coptic Orthodox Theology. Sydney, NSW: St Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Theological College. https://accot.stcyrils.edu.au/hk-why/.

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