US Christian Chruches Building Bases in Iraq

[Guest BlackJesus]

[color="red"][i][b]In response to the "crazy Muslims" telling their members that the Iraq invasion is really a zionist mission to spread Christianity.... Christian Churches in America are now building Bases in Iraq [/b][/i][/color]


[u]Evangelicals Building a Base in Iraq
Newcomers Raise Worry Among Traditional Church Leaders
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 23, 2005[/u]


BAGHDAD -- With arms outstretched, the congregation at National Evangelical Baptist Church belted out a praise hymn backed up by drums, electric guitar and keyboard. In the corner, slide images of Jesus filled a large screen. A simple white cross of wood adorned the stage, and worshipers sprinkled the pastor's Bible-based sermon with approving shouts of "Ameen!"

National is Iraq's first Baptist congregation and one of at least seven new Christian evangelical churches established in Baghdad in the past two years. Its Sunday afternoon service, in a building behind a house on a quiet street, draws a couple of hundred worshipers who like the lively music and focus on the Bible.

"I'm thirsty for this kind of church," Suhaila Tawfik, a veterinarian who was raised Catholic, said at a recent service. "I want to go deep in understanding the Bible."

Tawfik is not alone. The U.S.-led toppling of Saddam Hussein, who limited the establishment of new denominations, has altered the religious landscape of predominantly Muslim Iraq. A newly energized Christian evangelical activism here, supported by Western and other foreign evangelicals, is now challenging the dominance of Iraq's long-established Christian denominations and drawing complaints from Muslim and Christian religious leaders about a threat to the status quo.

The evangelicals' numbers are not large -- perhaps a few thousand -- in the context of Iraq's estimated 800,000 Christians. But they are emerging at a time when the country's traditional churches have lost their privileged Hussein-era status and have experienced massive depletions of their flocks because of decades-long emigration. Now, traditional church leaders see the new evangelical churches filling up, not so much with Muslim converts but with Christians like Tawfik seeking a new kind of worship experience.

"The way the preachers arrived here . . . with soldiers . . . was not a good thing," said Baghdad's Roman Catholic archbishop, Jean Sleiman. "I think they had the intention that they could convert Muslims, though Christians didn't do it here for 2,000 years."

"In the end," Sleiman said, "they are seducing Christians from other churches."

Iraq's new churches are part of Christian evangelicalism's growing presence in several Middle Eastern countries, experts say. In neighboring Jordan, for example, "the indigenous evangelical presence is growing and thriving," said Todd M. Johnson, a scholar of global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts.

Nabeeh Abbassi, president of the Jordan Baptist Convention, said in an interview in Amman that there are about 10,000 evangelicals worshiping at 50 churches in Jordan. They include 20 Baptist churches with a combined regular Sunday attendance of 5,000, he added. The organization also operates the Baptist School of Amman, where 40 percent of the student body is Muslim.

While most evangelicals in Jordan come from traditional Christian denominations, Abbassi said, "we're seeing more and more Muslim conversions, not less than 500 a year" over the past 10 years.

Iraq's Christian population has been organized for centuries into denominations such as Chaldean Catholicism and Roman Catholicism. While Hussein's secular regime allowed freedom of worship, it limited new denominations, particularly if backed by Western churches.

During the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, American evangelicals made no secret of their desire to follow the troops. Samaritan's Purse, the global relief organization led by the Rev. Franklin Graham -- who has called Islam an "evil and wicked" religion -- and the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the country's largest Protestant denomination, were among those that mobilized missionaries and relief supplies.

Soon after Hussein's fall, they entered the country, saying their prime task was to provide Iraqis with humanitarian aid. But their strong emphasis on sharing their faith raised concerns among Muslims and some Christians that they would openly proselytize.

Then the security environment deteriorated in Iraq -- four Southern Baptist missionaries were killed, Westerners were kidnapped and at least 21 churches were bombed -- forcing most foreign evangelicals to flee. But Iraqi evangelicals remain.

"For Christians, it's now democratic," said Nabil A. Sara, 60, the pastor at National Evangelical Baptist. "It's not like before. There is freedom now. Nobody can say, 'Why do you start a new church?' "

Some church leaders, however, are asking that very question.

"Evangelicals come here and I would like to ask: Why do you come here? For what reason?" said Patriarch Emmanuel Delly, head of the Eastern rite Chaldean Catholic Church, Iraq's largest Christian community.

In interviews, Delly and Sleiman were torn between their belief in religious freedom and the threat they see from the new evangelicalism. They also expressed anger and resentment at what they perceive as the evangelicals' assumption that members of old-line denominations are not true Christians.

"If we are not Christians, you should tell us so we will find the right path," Delly said sarcastically. "I'm not against the evangelicals. If they go to an atheist country to promote Christ, we would help them ourselves."

Sleiman charged that the new churches were sowing "a new division" among Christians because "churches here mean a big community with tradition, language and culture, not simply a building with some people worshiping. If you want to help Christians here, help through the churches [already] here."

Still, the Roman Catholic prelate said he could not oppose the evangelicals because "we ask for freedom of conscience." He also said he respected how they appear "ready to die" for their beliefs. "Sometimes I'm telling myself they are more zealous than me, and we can profit from this positive dimension of their mission."

Some Iraqi Christians expressed fear that the evangelicals would undermine Christian-Muslim harmony here, which rests on a long-standing, tacit agreement not to proselytize each other. "There is an informal agreement that says we have nothing to do with your religion and faith," said Yonadam Kanna, one of six Christians elected to Iraq's parliament. "We are brothers but we don't interfere in your religion."

Delly said that "even if a Muslim comes to me and said, 'I want to be Christian,' I would not accept. I would tell him to go back and try to be a good Muslim and God will accept you." Trying to convert Muslims to Christianity, he added, "is not acceptable."

Sheik Fatih Kashif Ghitaa, a prominent Shiite Muslim leader in Baghdad, was among those who expressed alarm at the postwar influx of foreign missionaries. In a recent interview, he said he feared that Muslims misunderstand why many Christians talk about their faith.

"They have to talk about Jesus and what Jesus has done. This is one of the principles of believing in Christianity," said Ghitaa. "But the problem is that the others don't understand it, they think these people are coming to convert them."

Robert Fetherlin, vice president for international ministries at Colorado-based Christian and Missionary Alliance, which supports one of the new Baghdad evangelical churches, defended his denomination's overseas work.

"We're not trying to coerce people to follow Christ," he said. "But we want to at least communicate to people who He is. We feel very encouraged by the possibility for people in Iraq to have the freedom to make choices about what belief system they want to buy into."

Sara said that if Muslims approach him with "questions about Jesus and about the Bible," he responds. But the white-haired pastor said there was plenty of evangelizing to be done among Christians because, in his view, many do not really know Jesus. "They know [Him] just in name," he said, adding that they need a better understanding of "why He died for them."

His church appeals to dissatisfied Christians, he said, adding, "If you go to a Catholic church, for example, there is no Bible in the church, there is no preaching, and just a little singing."

National congregant Zeena Woodman, 30, who was raised in the Syrian Orthodox Church, agreed. "Praising Jesus Christ in this church is not as traditional as other churches," she said. "It's much more interesting here."

Sara, a former Presbyterian who started an underground evangelical church in his home after having a born-again experience, began working openly during the U.S. occupation. In January 2004, he was ordained pastor of his church in a ceremony attended by more than 20 Baptist pastors and deacons from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and the United States. Baptist communities in these countries financially support National Evangelical, Sara said.

The church's name and a white cross are visible from the street. The pastor said that no one has threatened the church and that it has good relations with its Muslim neighbors.

In fact, said Sara, "Muslims across the street came and asked us to pray for their mother."

__________________________________________________

[u]Patriarch denounces U.S. evangelicals in Iraq
19 May 2005 17:46:49 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Tom Heneghan[/u]

PARIS, May 19 (Reuters) - The head of Iraq's largest Christian community denounced American evangelical missionaries in his country on Thursday for what he said were attempts to convert poor Muslims by flashing money and smart cars.

Patriarch Emmanuel Delly, head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, told journalists that many Protestant activists had come to Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and set up what he called "boutiques" to attract converts.

Many Muslim countries consider Christian missionaries as part of a Western campaign against Islam and punish both the preacher and the apostate Muslim severely. Violent Iraqi groups killed at least five evangelical missionaries last year.

At least 20 Iraqis were killed in bombings of Christian churches last year as unknown attackers stepped up pressure on non-Muslims there. Christian minorities in Muslim countries usually keep a low profile and do not evangelise.

Delly said Iraq did not need missionaries as its Christian churches dated back long before Protestantism. As for trying to convert Muslims, he said: "You can't even talk about that here."

Christians make up 3 percent of Iraq's 26 million mostly Muslim population, the largest group being the 600,000 Chaldeans who are Eastern rite Catholics linked to the Vatican.

Saying the evangelicals were not real missionaries, Delly said they attracted poor youths with displays of money and taking them "out riding in cars to have fun".

"Then they take photos and send them here, to Germany, to the United States and say 'look how many Muslims have become Christian'," he said.

The patriarch declined to say if the missionaries were a challenge for his church or if U.S. authorities supported them.

[u]EVANGELICAL "BOUTIQUES" IN BAGHDAD[/u]

The idea of converting Muslims has gained some support among U.S. evangelicals since the September 11 attacks, but foreigners who evangelise in Islamic countries must keep very low profiles.

Some were active in Iraq in the first year after Saddam Hussein's overthrow, but deteriorating security since then probably means many have left, Baghdad residents say.

"There may be between 100 and 200 there now," said Todd Johnson, an expert on world Christianity at the evangelical Gordon-Conwell Seminary near Boston, Massachusetts.

"They're mostly aid workers, I don't think there is much regular evangelising," he told Reuters.

Four U.S. Baptist missionaries were killed in Iraq in March 2004 and seven South Korean Presbyterians were briefly kidnapped the following month. That June, Islamic militants beheaded a South Korean truck driver who was an evangelical Christian. Delly had no overall figures for these missions but said he knew of 14 evangelical houses, which he called "boutiques", in one central Baghdad neighbourhood alone. "I don't know where their money comes from," he added.

The patriarch, who vigorously opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and met French President Jacques Chirac -- who also opposed it -- on Wednesday, declined to comment on Washington's policy there or whether he had contacts with U.S. authorities.

"Frankly, I try to avoid meeting them as much as possible," he said. "They are the occupiers. The occupied don't want to be occupied. That's human nature."

Delly, 77, ranks as an archbishop in the Catholic Church and is tipped as a possible future cardinal. Eastern rite prelates traditionally do not accept such honours but three -- a Copt, a Assyrian and a Maronite -- are now "princes of the Church."

[jza10304]

[b]keep moving along folks, there's nothing for you to see here.....[/b]
[img]http://photos.yafro.com/pics3/i/20050404/13/e/3/a/e3a05de574eebaed537ace6bf20dff460_full.jpg[/img]

[Guest BlackJesus]

[b][i]"Yep this message that Bush Brings Jesus, will be loud and Clear"[/i][/b]

[img]http://www.indymedia.be/uploads/bush-vs-jesus.png[/img]

[-Dan_Bengals_FL-]

I'm definatley not a fan of this for the mere fact that it is going to help aid terrorists. It just gives them another reason to get more recruits. However, if they aren't forcing anyone to join, their is really nothing you can do.

[Lawman]

[quote]In interviews, Delly and Sleiman were torn between their belief in religious freedom and the threat they see from the new evangelicalism. They also expressed anger and resentment at what they perceive as the evangelicals' assumption that members of old-line denominations are not true Christians.

"If we are not Christians, you should tell us so we will find the right path," Delly said sarcastically. "I'm not against the evangelicals. If they go to an atheist country to promote Christ, we would help them ourselves."

Sleiman charged that the new churches were sowing "a new division" among Christians because "churches here mean a big community with tradition, language and culture, not simply a building with some people worshiping. If you want to help Christians here, help through the churches [already] here."[/quote]

The Ilamic extremist are not the only group the new Evangelist need to be concerned with.

[quote]Christians make up 3 percent of Iraq's 26 million mostly Muslim population, the largest group being the 600,000 Chaldeans who are Eastern rite [u]Catholics linked to the Vatican[/u][/quote]

[quote]Delly said that "even if a Muslim comes to me and said, 'I want to be Christian,' I would not accept. [u]I would tell him to go back and try to be a good Muslim and God will accept you[/u]." Trying to convert Muslims to Christianity, he added, "is not acceptable."[/quote]

BJ, I too detest religions, but not people who believe in God. I am a Christian (probably not as good as I should be to some), but still a believer in Christ and what he taught- love one another. (I know, why are there wars, famine, disease; that's for another topic)
[quote]"Praising Jesus Christ in this church is not as traditional as other churches"[/quote]
The seeds are being planted for the belief in a faith based on love; not hate.

[Guest CTBengalsFan]

This sucks. This is what my dislike of christianity comes from. Let's go throw rocks at a bee's nest in a name of Jesus why don't we? When are they going to get the fucking picture...

[|Bunghole|]

[quote name='CTBengalsFan' date='Jul 17 2005, 11:10 PM']This sucks.  This is what my dislike of christianity comes from.  Let's go throw rocks at a bee's nest in a name of Jesus why don't we?  When are they going to get the fucking picture...
[right][post="115594"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]
Don't get all crazy over information from a BJ post....take it all with several grains of salt along with aspirin and call me tomorrow...
The finality of the destruction of the human race is not yet...