BAGHDAD PASTORS FEAR FOR FUTURE OF CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN IRAQ DESPITE GROWTH
By Joni B. Hannigan, Managing Editor
Florida Baptist Witness
Oct 26 2011
Young adults ‘choked’ by persecution, lack of jobs & uncertainty
about the future
BAGHDAD, IRAQ (FBW)-Despite a growing wave of persecution, one of
the first independent evangelical, Bible-believing churches in Iraq
has risen from the ruins of an embattled Baghdad-and it is thriving.
In a city still besieged by blackouts and curfews well after the 2003
U.S.-led toppling of Iraq’s longtime dictator, the congregation has
increased 10-fold from 30 to 300.
*Sammy Thompson, a 42-year-old Iraqi Armenian, who started the church
by secretly leading Bible studies in homes-something he was jailed
for during the Saddam Hussein era-is no longer on the wrong side of
the law, but instead faces threats from his own neighbors.
Though worship in an evangelical Christian church was seen as
anti-government and political in 2001, now when the fabric of Iraq’s
culture is stretched thin by those who clamor for a better way of
life-Thompson said some will stop at nothing short of ridding the
country of Christian believers.
“The government is OK and happy that we are there,” Thompson said
Sept. 27 during an interview in Northern Iraq. “But the Islamic groups,
they are unhappy, they are uncomfortable with us.”
Death threats are common. The pastor has received phone calls and
letters with the chilling words: “We are going to come and kill you
today. We are going to slaughter you. It would be better for you to
leave Iraq. We are watching your family.”
So while expansion and growth has positioned the church to reach
into the community, to provide activities for young people, to help
widows and orphans-to encourage education and morality-it has given
detractors an excuse to hurl insults.
“They say you are invented by the Americans because you did not exist
before,” Thompson said, folding his arms over his chest and shaking
his head. “We had ministered before, but had no official church
before that time. We have a building now, it has a cross on it,
it has a name on it.”
SAFETY IS PRIMARY CONCERN Concerned about safety, Thompson does not
broadcast the name of the church, fearing its members-especially
its youth-could become targets for radicals. He has a reason to be
cautious. Opening the door of the church one morning in 2007, he and
youth pastor *Paul David came face-to-face with the horrifying sight
of a mutilated corpse.
“We saw they had slaughtered a girl and dumped her in the church.
Murder is cheap here,” Thompson said. “We couldn’t figure it out. She
was disfigured and abused.” Eyes downcast, he shuddered. “And we even
have a slogan in this country, ‘A penny a bullet.'”
Safety is a daily challenge for all of the residents of Baghdad who
worry about getting caught in the crossfire between Sunni or Shiite
Muslims or waylaid by a car bomb or a suicide bomber. “Danger is all
the time, all the time. Everywhere we go. Intentional and unintentional
danger,” Thompson said.
At a pastors’ conference in Iraqi’s Kurdistan, Thompson sat in the
back, scanning the room. At a restaurant, during the interview, and
chatting with other pastors in the smoke-filled lobby of a hotel,
he faced the outside door, his back to the wall. “Anybody can come
and shoot you,” he said. “There is lawlessness.”
Despite the reported thousands of military troops in Iraq, Thompson
said, “We don’t see their presence,” at least “not in Baghdad.”
Commenting briefly on the war and the subsequent state of affairs in
Iraq, Thompson and David said they were happy the American military
helped rid the country of Saddam Hussein, but in their opinion the war
has not been well managed and security goals have not been met. The
pastors indicated the infrastructure, already weak before 2003, is
weaker, at least in Baghdad-and people are unsettled and confused as
to their next steps.
Surprisingly, however, and perhaps because they don’t believe American
decision makers are sensitive to or willing to be involved in their
issues, Thompson said the planned withdrawal of American troops by
the year’s end won’t affect how the Christian believers are treated
in Iraq.
“There will be no change for us in Baghdad,” Thompson predicted. “The
defect is in the Iraqis, the defect is in our people.”
Violence towards churches has continued to escalate since a 2004
series of bombings in which five churches were targeted. In 2009 seven
Chaldean and Orthodox churches in Baghdad were hit by a series of car
bombs. The Chaldean Church of St. Mary in Sharaa Philistine was hit
by a car bomb that left four dead and dozens seriously injured. After
the 2009 attack, Thompson said the Iraqi government posted guards in
front of the church.
In 2010, another attack on a Baghdad church, Our Lady of
Salvation-where 58 people were massacred-pointed to the unraveling of
any diversity that once existed. Nearly all of Iraq’s Jews have left,
and the Christian population, one time between an estimated 800,000
and 1.4 million is thought to have dwindled to at least half that.
GOD’S WORK Believing his ministry is to lead the church in Baghdad,
Thompson said he’s been given opportunities to leave-but won’t forsake
his church.
“We are weaker than the traditional churches which are more powerful
and capable,” Thompson said of his independent church. “We try
to get help but nobody interferes to help us. These churches need
encouragement because our work is the same as God’s work.”
Thompson currently is in discussions with Dr. Farouk Hammo, pastor of
The National Evangelical Baptist Church of Baghdad, and Nabeeh Abbassi,
of the Jordan Baptist Convention, to align his church with a handful
of other Iraqi Baptist churches. He is prayerful about being part of
a larger family of believers in that region of the world.
Leading services in the church’s 1,800-square-foot leased facility,
the pastors also head to an “embattled area” of Baghdad several times
each week where families who cannot travel for fear of explosions and
gunfire gather in six homes. “We go to them because they cannot come
to us,” David said.
“To believers, the church is everything,” Thompson said. And the
modest pastor wishes the church could do more, especially in the
light of the cultural vacuum created when theaters closed, music
halted, and organized community events came to a standstill. “We
wish the church would be a source of refuge, but we cannot because
the resources are limited.”
Sunday worship, a Tuesday ladies’ Bible study, and Friday youth day
are all the church can afford on a shoestring budget-the bulk of
which goes to pay a $500 fuel bill to run a generator since Baghdad’s
electricity is off more often than it’s on.
When temperatures reach 130 degrees in the summer, Thompson said,
the church is “crippled” from doing much.
At the Baghdad church, youth Fridays are like gold. They are an oasis
in the desert where some of the more traditional customs are set
aside and girls wear conservative, but modern clothes, eschewing any
head coverings, and young men and women mingle for “milk and chips”
despite the inherent danger in an all-day meeting.
After worship and praise, Bible study and sports, young adults meet
at an “Agape” table to drink juice and talk. Despite few romantic
inquiries, however, not much happens because the young men don’t
have jobs.
“They are tied up. They are choked,” David said of the teens and
young adults. “They are postponing everything and only a few get
married because they cannot get married financially.”
FUTURE OF THE CHURCH Faced with a severe economic decline related to
the eradication of a mandatory conscription of males into the Army
for 15 years after high school-few jobs are available for most of
the young men. And fewer still for Christians that face systematic
discrimination because of their views. They are shut out by the
political Islamic parties in control, Thompson said.
“This situation will have a negative impact on the future of the
church,” said Thompson who believes the church outside of Iraq should
consider how they might “support and protect” the church inside Iraq,
“because we are in trouble.”
Both pastors readily encourage the young men to stay in Iraq with
their families instead of emigrating elsewhere. They dream of being
able to provide 15-20 young men with small businesses so couples can
stabilize themselves.
“They say, ‘I’m leaving the country because I don’t know what the
future holds. It’s like I’m dead here, so let me take a shot and go
on out and see what’s going to happen with me,” Thompson said. “When
all the doors are shut and the only door open is to leave, what can
a church do?”
Many of the families receive assistance from relatives outside of
Iraq since they have long gone through any savings and assets they
had prior to the war, David said. “If somebody’s being supported from
the outside, they don’t leave, they stay.”
Still, this doesn’t enable the young people to marry. “This is our
dream, that we can provide a project so they can work and provide
for themselves to stay in this country.”
David, 33 and single, opened his eyes wide at the thought of leaving
Iraq. “I have many opportunities to leave but I want to serve the
Lord,” he said. “This is where the Lord called me to serve, so I need
to serve here and not leave.”
Nudging him, Thompson launched into an explanation of a ministry the
church started in 2005 of reaching out to widows and orphans. Though
preaching the Word meets their spiritual needs, the pastors quickly saw
a need for clothing and other supplies. “Unfortunately the government
has no plans to see how to help these people,” Thompson said, lamenting
at the ability of the church to offer more.
In spite of the difficulties, David again said he is happy to stay
even when he is forced to hide out, as he did for a few months last
year when a family chased him down after one of their members became
a Christian believer.
Though religious freedom is technically granted in the Iraqi
Constitution, the document also contains a contradictory clause
elevating Islam as the majority religion.
“I thank the Lord that through the work I have done, I have baptized
Muslims,” David said, acknowledging his greatest challenge is “danger
of life.”
In the 10 years since Thompson was jailed for preaching the Word,
nine families have converted to Christianity through the ministry of
the church, Thompson said. Five of the families left the country; the
remaining four haven’t openly proclaimed they are believers outside
of the church. “I have been threatened,” David said, “but now they
are Christians.”
*Names changed
Jalil Dawood, of Dallas, translated for this interview.
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