Christians in Iraq

Christians in Iraq [Excerpts]

(By Andrew White)

Many Christians in the Middle East are under attack.

In Iraq we have been under attack since the beginning of the war in 2003, but the past month has seen an escalation in our situation. Over the past year, 93 Christians were killed in my church. This month alone over 100 have been killed in Iraq. Some 59 were killed in a single massacre in the Syrian Catholic Church on the 31st  of October 2010. Since then many more Christians have been targeted, blown up, told they no longer belong in Iraq and were advised to leave now or be executed. Things are so hard that many Christians are fleeing, or at least are trying to. I have personally been under attack many times, but was is not always clear if it is because of who I am and what I am doing, or because of my faith. As far as I am concerned the two cannot be separated: I do what I do because I am sure that my Lord has called me to do it. Some of this work is seen as a direct threat to those who are causing violence, and they attack anyone who is seen as a hindrance to their methodology. Some of the attacks on me have been because I am a Westerner and oppose their ideology.

Whilst I am aware that I am constantly at risk and have to listen to my security, at the same time I am acutely aware that the members of my congregation have no security. They may not have my profile, but they are all at risk because they are all followers of Jesus of Nazareth. They were so at risk that those who had money fled soon after the war. Those who are left behind tend to be the seriously poor who have nothing. Our Church has to provide them with food, health care and rent. We are the only church I know that in our compound have a large clinic with doctors, dentists, a pharmacy and laboratory. It is a service that is provided for everyone in our community - independent of their faith background.

It is difficult to just provide lists of how our people have suffered. They have been killed, kidnapped and tortured. To even write about these cases is so painful. As I stand at the front of church each week I think of those who have been killed or kidnapped. I remember those who are no longer with us when I see their families. I have often tried to think of ways of protecting them, but I cannot. When they are with me I have certain ways of protecting them with my security. Bombs can always hit us from below and rockets from above, so there is no way of providing total protection. Easter Sunday 2010 was not a safe haven for anybody - we were all under attack. I am regularly asked about the suffering church, the persecuted believers and the destroyed Church. I think about these subjects much, as it is at the heart of my very being.

http://blogs.jpost.com/content/christians-iraq

(Andrew White, “Christians in Iraq,” The Jerusalem Post, November 19, 2010)