“Fear paints the ‘other’ as a monster, but a conversation over tea can unravel that lie faster than a sermon.”
— Ted Dekker
I’m not sure how I came upon the book Tea with Hezbollah: Sitting at the Enemies’ Table — Our Journey Through the Middle East, but I found it engaging, educational, disturbing, and inspiring. And timely. Written by Ted Dekker, a renowned novelist, and Carl Medearis, a respected Middle East journalist, they set out together to test some of Jesus Christ’s most challenging and controversial teachings. In some of the most dangerous places in the Middle East, with some of the most notorious enemies of America.
I asked Grock AI and ChatGPT to give me some quotes from the book. ChatGPT pretty much failed. (And no, I don’t have a subscription to either. I rarely do X. And I rarely did Twitter.) Here’s what Grock came up with—with some light editing from me:
“That book’s a wild ride—sitting down with folks most folks would cross the street to avoid, all in the name of Jesus’ love your enemies vibe. I dug up a bunch of quotes from it; here’s a solid handful that stuck with me. They’re all about flipping the script on fear and hate. First off: The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. Kinda hits different when you’re chatting with Hamas leaders over tea, right? Then there’s this gem: We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. Reminds you how our biases color everything in the Middle East mess.
One that really hit me: Fear is the opposite of love. When we fear, we hate. When we love, we have no fear. That’s the core of their whole journey—pushing past the headlines to real faces. Here’s another: If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. Boom, practical as heck. And: The only way to change someone’s mind is to get inside their head and understand their heart. They lived that, interviewing Hezbollah bigwigs without a single agenda except listening.
Here’s a handful that hit hard, straight from the chats with folks like Hamas and Hezbollah leaders. First off, from a Hamas bigwig on why the hate: If an American asks, ‘Why do you hate us?’ we would say, ‘Why should we love you with all your policies?’ We love the American people but hate the policies. Then, this one on forgiveness from that same guy: Forgiveness is not for the sake of the enemy, but for our own sake, to free ourselves from hatred. Yasser Arafat’s line on peace? Peace is not just the absence of war; it’s the presence of justice. And from a Hezbollah perspective, on dialogue: You cannot negotiate with someone you demonize, nor demonize someone you negotiate with.
One Hamas leader on resilience: You can bomb our buildings, but you can’t bomb our ideas. From a Lebanese Christian on coexistence: We share bread with people who’d kill us tomorrow. That’s Lebanon-love and hate, side by side.
And these from David Neuhaus, that Jesuit priest in Jerusalem—the wise, guru-like guy they chat with toward the end. On loving enemies in the mess of it all: To love your enemy is not to approve of what they do, but to see the image of God in them, even when it’s buried deep under the rubble. To love your enemy isn’t weakness; it’s the revolution Jesus started—seeing the divine spark in the one firing rockets at your house. And Jerusalem’s walls divide us, but the cross and the crescent? They call us to bridge, not burn.
Those lines came when the authors—two American guys, one Christian, one Muslim—sat with David in his sparse Jerusalem room. Windows faced the Old City, church bells mixing with muezzins. David, this calm Swiss-born Jesuit who’d lived decades there, was unpacking why peace feels impossibly possible.”
Back to me:
The device used by the authors would be to ask some basic questions and then record their answers. Like what’s their favorite hobby and movie? What makes them laugh and cry? Questions about their family. And then what did they think about the parable of the Good Samaritan? Then, simply give the reader the transcript of each conversation, rather than interpret or offer commentary. But they also provide some valuable observations. Here are a few:
Ted Dekker:
• “We sat with men labeled as terrorists, drank their tea, and found they bleed the same red we do.”
• “The Middle East taught me that love isn’t agreement—it’s daring to sit across from someone who might hate you.”
Carl Medearis:
• “Jesus didn’t call us to win debates; He called us to wash feet, even if they’re strapped to a bomb.”
• “In Beirut, I learned peace isn’t a policy—it’s a person willing to listen when bullets are louder.”
• “We didn’t change their minds, but maybe we changed their view of us, just by showing up.”
I highly recommend Tea With Hezbollah. It moved me. It makes me want to talk less about my supposed enemies and find ways to talk more with them. To really listen to them. It makes me want to consider more seriously what the Parable of the Good Samaritan is asking me to do. And then do it. Even if it scares me.
Painting by He, Qi , 2001, Vanderbilt
