When militant Islamists stormed a mall in Kenya last month, massacring all the non-Muslim hostages they had taken, the story popped across news outlets for a moment, then disappeared in the wake of our own governmental issues. Not that such things as government shut-downs and healthcare are not important – they obviously are.
Yet, the slaughter and driving out of Christians throughout the Middle East seems to be getting just a passing note in the media, and American congregations are equally standing silent in the face of the near-extinction of Christianity in the Middle East.
According to a 2012 report in the New York Times, over half the Christians that lived in Iraq prior to 2003 have either been killed or fled the country with the rising persecution from militant extremist Islamist groups that have flooded the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Once home to approximately 1.4 million Christians, Iraq’s Christians have dwindled to fewer than 500,000 in just ten years. Those who remain live in squalor, finding little refuge in the garbage dumps and shanty towns they’ve been relegated to.
Egypt, where the Christian population has only made up 10% of the population since the 1950’s is also seeing a mass exodus. According to Christian News Today, an estimated 8-10 million Christians are seeking refuge in other countries due to the most violent and deadly persecution Christians have experienced since the Islamic invasion nearly a thousand years ago.
Christianity Today reports that more than 450,000 Syrian Christians that previously made up approximately 10% of Syria’s population prior to the civil war have fled, fearing being completely wiped out by the militant Islamist rebels fighting against Assad’s corrupt regime.
In Palestine, the numbers are rapidly dwindling as well. Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, has seen a decline of more than 9% of the Christian population since 2000 due to Israeli policies and expansionism that have killed or displaced tens of thousands of Palestinian Christians over the past half a century. In Jerusalem, the Christian presence has dropped to only 2% of the population in a city where Christianity was once the majority. Their lands, businesses, and homes have been seized and bulldozed to make way for Israeli settlements.
So why the silence? Why are American congregations saying little to nothing about the fact that according to many estimates Christianity will cease to exist by 2020 in any formal capacity in the Middle East?
American Christians are undoubtedly silent for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fear of sounding like we’ve joined the anti-Islamic hysteria that has swept through our country since 9/11. However there’s a difference between Islam and militant Islamists – just like there’s a difference between most Christians and the Fred Phelps’ of the world. The only problem is the militant Islamists are gaining in popularity – and power – throughout the Middle East.
Another reason for the silence is due to the fact that a large portion of American Christians are the ones who have pulled the trigger on our brothers and sisters in Christ. Pleas from Christians throughout Palestine, Syria, Egypt, etc. for American Christians to stop the destructive and harmful theology that drives what is known as “Christian Zionism” go unheeded. American Christian Zionists believe they must support Israel’s settlements into Palestinian territories in order to fulfill their understanding of Biblical prophecy – no matter who it oppresses or harms – and works to stop any and all peace talks that don’t result in Israel holding on to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. More than one U.S. President has affirmed this “end times” belief that drives our government’s policies on Israel and Palestine – which only further enrages militant Islamists who are angry about the settlements. Thus Christians living in the region who suffer on account of this belief are viewed by Christian Zionists as merely “necessary sacrifices” that must be made in order to achieve Christian Zionism’s warped vision of “the end times.”
Now being persecuted as Christians is nothing new. However, their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ are not supposed to be the ones holding the shotgun to their heads. I must have missed that part in the New Testament. I don’t have time to go into all the fallacies with the Christian Zionist movement or its twisting of scripture, or all the nuances of how it bolsters hatred against the “Christian West” by militant Islamists; but suffice it to say when Christians are at least a driving force behind why other Christians are becoming extinct in a region – perhaps that should raise a few warning flags that there’s a flaw in the theological understanding.
To be clear – this is not to say that Israel, as a nation-state, doesn’t have a right to exist or that we should not be allies with one of the only stable governments in the region. Supporting Zionism, or Israel’s right to exist, and supporting Christian Zionism, which utilizes Jews in their little script to try and manipulate bringing about Christ’s return (as if that were possible) by insisting that Israel MUST occupy all of the land promised to Abraham in order to fulfill God’s promises in the Old Testament, are not the same thing. Christian Zionist theology neglects several points of Christian understanding regarding who exactly God’s promises are for and how Christianity has historically understood what “Israel” means in light of Christ.
In short, the understanding has been that the promises to Israel are bigger than the Jews… it is about all God’s people. It is about God’s promises to Israel expanding out into the world so that “there is no longer Jew nor Greek.” It is about God’s promises going above and beyond the expectation and being fulfilled in ways that stretch out far beyond the borders of an ancient land. Not to mention the fact that Christian Zionism ignores two thousand years worth of Christian history that has never, ever, seen the re-establishment of the nation of “Israel” as a necessary element for Christ’s return. If anything, it has always viewed the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD as evidence of God moving beyond the Temple system, moving beyond just a handful of people in the world.
Rather, Christian Zionism is a product of American escapist theology – an old form of gnosticsm – at its worst and a violent betrayal of our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the Middle East.
Arguably, we Lutherans, in particular, have an obligation to support a Jewish nation after the horrors of the holocaust of World War II, where Lutheran pastors either remained silent or pushed the national agenda of der Fuhrer from their pulpits. There’s also that little detail of Hitler utilizing some of Martin Luther’s late-in-life anti-Semitic rantings to justify his “Final Solution.” We have to own that.
But saying a nation has a right to exist and purposely stopping peace talks and supporting the displacement of thousands of Palestinians because we’re looking for some blood-thirsty, violent show-down to occur in this region as a part of some whacked-out script that was invented a century and a half ago and propagated by such false prophets as Hal Lindsey (who incorrectly predicted the return of Christ in 1988) is not the same. This ideology is not just an embarrassment to Christianity, but an abhorrent belief system that, in my opinion, has no place among Christ’s followers.
I am not one to usually publicly denounce other Christian beliefs – we all have a right to our interpretations of scripture and goodness knows people screw it up more often than not – but this one has become so dangerous that my conscience on this matter no longer allows me to remain silent. I have spoken out against "rapture theology" and the resulting "Christian Zionism" in the past, but have always watered down my condemnation by saying "of course, I might be wrong." Perhaps I am... but if I am, it violates my entire understanding of what God is doing through Christ in the world. People are dying and being slaughtered – and we say nothing. How can that possibly be part of our Christian witness?
While the problems of the Middle East are many and complicated, and certainly bigger than just Christian Zionism, this is one factor that we, as Christians, can and should speak out against. Otherwise, we become the worst of all hypocrites when we pray for peace in that region, but stay silent on a dangerous theology that contributes to the problems that will ultimately result in the extinction of Christianity in the land where it was birthed.
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