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IRAQI KURDISTAN (BP)--Beneath the rubble of news
about bombings, hostage-taking and political
wrangling in Iraq lies a more positive picture of
fledgling evangelical churches, Compass Direct news
service noted in a report during the July 8-10
weekend.
In the northeast, Iraqi Kurdistan offers a haven for
Christian activity as the two rival Kurdish
governments grow in their toleration of Muslims
becoming Christians, Compass stated; in the south,
the evangelical church is growing rapidly.
In Baghdad, a total of 15 evangelical congregations
have started since the removal of Saddam Hussein’s
regime in April 2003, according to Compass.
Officially, only two evangelical churches -- both
Presbyterian and led by Egyptian nationals --
existed in the capital during Hussein’s rule. Now
there are Baptists, Methodists and Christian and
Missionary Alliance congregations, all led by local
Iraqi pastors.
“The people are open like never before,” Ghassan
Thomas, pastor of a Christian and Missionary
Alliance church in Baghdad, told Compass. “It is
because we have no peace. This is how we connect our
message to the nation: I preach on the topic, ‘How
do we get peace?’ and everyone listens, especially
when I talk about the deeper peace that Christ
brings.”
Most of the members of the new churches come from
the Presbyterian church, and some come from historic
Christian denominations such as the Chaldean
Catholic or Syrian Orthodox, which have been in Iraq
for centuries, Compass reported.
“Muslims too want peace,” Thomas said. “Many of them
are frightened. When the hostages are killed, often
a Koranic verse is used to justify it. So many
Muslims are scared of their own God. When we preach
that God is love, it is so liberating to them.”
Compass noted that Southern Iraq is deemed too
dangerous for foreign Christian workers, so most
have pulled back to the more stable Iraqi Kurdistan.
More than 4 million Kurds reside in this northern
mountainous region, which has enjoyed autonomy since
the first Gulf War in 1991. Two Kurdish political
factions control the area. Arbil is the main city of
the domain of Massoud Barzani’s Kurdish Democratic
Party, and Sulemaniya is the power center of newly
elected Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
In both regions, Kurdish refugees are flooding back,
Compass noted; there is little street crime and
authorities have severely curtailed the activities
of Islamic extremists. This has brought much
prosperity to the area, which many believe is one
reason the respective administrations -- in their
courting of Western investment -- have markedly
improved their defense of religious freedom.
PASTORS’ REPORTS
Yousif Matty, a leading pastor of the Kurdish
Evangelical Church, a denomination in the north
comprising Kurdish and Arabic Christians, told
Compass, “The last 10 years have been a golden time
here, and it is set to continue with Talabani
becoming president. He has been very strong on
emphasizing the rule of law. Also, the Kurds have
suffered at the hands of Islamists and have no love
for them.”
Congregations of the Kurdish Evangelical Church have
a few hundred members, from both Muslim and
Christian backgrounds. Matty runs four bookshops,
two schools and other projects, and he received a
$500,000 plot of land from the government to build
his church. The government also has welcomed other
Christian non-governmental organizations.
The other evangelical denomination in the north is
the Kurdish Language Evangelical Church, which is
exclusively Kurdish-speaking and made up primarily
of Kurds.
“There is always persecution from the family when a
Muslim becomes a Christian,” the Kurdish pastor of
one fellowship in Arbil told Compass. “That will not
change anytime soon, but it used to be that the new
convert would face persecution from the state also,
yet this is less true today.”
The influence of the Kurds, who represent 25 percent
of the Iraqi population, is important to the future
of the country. President Talabani has less power
than the Shiite prime minister, but some Christian
leaders believe that the best bulwark against a
strongly Islamic constitution may be the influence
of the Kurds.
Though Sunni Muslims, the Kurdish people are one of
the least observant Islamic groups in the Middle
East, and they regard the Arabs as having humiliated
them for decades. Nestorian Bishop Issac of Dohuk
told Compass he believes the Kurds will keep the
constitution from becoming too Islamic.
“Sharia is really Arabic, and the Kurds will resist
all attempts to Arabize the culture of Iraq,” Bishop
Issac said. “If we go the sharia route, it will be
like in Iran where our [Nestorian] church is less
than 10 percent of the strength it was before
[Ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini took power.”
Another point of light for the Iraqi church,
according to Compass, is that many of the 40,000 or
so Christians who fled after a spate of bombings
last August have returned to the country. Yet the
numbers of those still in refugee camps in Jordan
and Syria remain significant -- perhaps 10,000,
though precise figures are not available.
“It’s not the end of the world that so many
Christians have fled,” Bishop Issac said, “because
it has spread the Iraqi church over the world, and
the new communities established in America and
Australia are providing many resources we would not
have received if we had all remained in the land.”
IRAQ STILL IN CRISIS
The news is not all positive, of course, Compass
noted. Iraq remains a country in crisis. At a recent
conference for 70 Iraqi pastors, all had to travel
early in the morning to avoid trouble on the roads.
And although they emphasized that the streets
gradually have become safer since the beginning of
the year, church meetings throughout the south are
held at 4:30 in the afternoon -- with everyone at
home behind locked doors by 7:30 for fear of
insurgent and looting activity.
Law and order still has not been adequately
restored, nor have basic services, Compass reported.
Patience has run out with U.S. and British forces’
failure to restore stability after two years in the
country. “No population will support an army that
cannot protect it -- the goodwill has completely
gone,” one pastor told Compass. Middle-class
Christians also are continuing to emigrate in
alarming numbers, as those in key professions such
as medicine are targets for kidnapping and
extortion. Some newer evangelical churches have been
decimated by this exodus.
The Iraqi churches also face internal challenges,
with Compass noting that some priests from the
historic churches have bullied the new evangelicals.
In Baghdad, a priest from the Chaldean Catholics
told those who had left his church to attend Baptist
services, “We will not bury your relatives who
attend our churches.” Some leaders of the older
church denominations have slandered evangelical
congregations as part of a “Jewish conspiracy” to
control Iraq, Compass reported.
Also, although the evangelicals are skilled in
evangelism, the church is young and immature. “Our
outreach activity is so much stronger than the
discipling function of the church,” Matty said. “We
have radio outreach, schools, bookshops, but the
church itself is not concentrating in deepening its
life, nor are the leaders getting trained enough.”
Some church leaders see the splitting of the
evangelical churches into so many new (and often
foreign-backed) denominations as an indication of
disunity, Compass reported, noting that not all
missionary aid is well spent; some pastors have used
foreign support to buy expensive cars and upgrade
their lifestyle, leading to envy among other
pastors.
Yet for all these challenges, the mood among 70
evangelical pastors who gathered during the spring
was guardedly optimistic.
A pastor of one of the three Baptist congregations
in Baghdad, who did not wish to be named, forecast
three trends:
“One, the evangelical church will grow stronger, but
many of its numbers will leave. However, that’s not
so bad. They will probably come back with more
teaching and maturity and it will benefit the church
in the long term.
“Two, the historic churches will get even more
negative. I see them as the major persecutor of the
evangelicals in the future. It is as it always was.
I am translating a book called ‘The Trial of Blood’
which calculates that the institutional churches
killed 50 million Christians from 315 to 1570.
“Three, the Islamic extremists will moderate, though
it may take a generation.”
A POIGNANT ENCOUNTER
Yet even when conflicts are at their sharpest, there
are hopeful signs. Pastor Thomas tells of an
incident that occurred when he received death
threats written on cardboard after erecting a sign
outside his church that said, “Jesus is the Light of
the World.” On the cardboard was scrawled, “Jesus is
not the light of the world. Allah is, and you have
been warned.” It was signed, “the Islamic Shiite
Party.”
Thomas loaded up a van full of children’s gifts from
a Christian relief agency, together with some Bibles
and medicines, and drove to the headquarters of the
Islamic Shiite Party. When he came to the compound,
he demanded to “see the big sheikh, I have gifts for
him.”
He was taken to meet the leader and introduced
himself as a pastor.
“We respect you,” the sheikh said.
Thomas said, “Christians have love for you, because
God is love, our God is a God of love.”
Again the sheikh replied, “We respect your God. We
respect Jesus.”
This was the opening Thomas had been praying for. He
told the sheikh, “If you respect Jesus, would you
let me read you His words?” He took out his Bible
and read the words of Jesus from John’s Gospel, “I
am the light of the world.” Then he brought out the
cardboard with the death threat.
The sheikh read it and looked ashamed. He said,
after a moment’s pause, “We are sorry. This will not
happen again. You are my brother. If anyone comes to
kill you, it will be my neck first.” The sheikh even
attended Thomas’ ordination as the pastor.
“No one is expecting the situation to improve for
the better quickly,” Thomas told Compass, “but we
believe that God is moving in these times, and that
the future will be more peaceful, especially if
Christians will befriend good Muslims and work
together.”
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